Publications Update: March 2016

A short Spirou story already available online, an upcoming artist’s edition of Fournier’s albums, Zoom continues to offer very different books for Danes and Norwegians, new details on upcoming one-shots, and more!

New Spirou short now

This week’s issue of the Journal de Spirou (#4068) includes, in addition to the second part of Fantasio se marie, a short Spirou story by Yoann & Vehlmann. In keeping with the theme of the issue, which is inspired by the Batman V Superman movie, the story has Spirou teaming up with “Batguy” (a.k.a. “Bruce Waynn”), last seen being held in captivity on the Marmalade Islands in Dans les griffes de la vipère (Spirou & Fantasio #53, “In the Clutches of the Viper”), but now back to dealing out justice on the streets of Potam. As recently reported, the story will be included in the upcoming album collecting Yoann & Vehlmann’s short Spirou stories. It can also be read in its entirety in Izneo’s preview of the issue.

It’s also worth mentioning that according to reports carried on a number of sites and forums, Yoann & Vehlmann’s contract has been extended yet again, this time to 2021. This could have something to do with the fact that La Colère du Marsupilami (Spirou & Fantasio #55, “Wrath of the Marsupilami”) has been topping the bestseller charts since its release.

Fournier artist’s editions

Editions Black & White, which publishes deluxe comics releases and limited editions, is trying to put together “artist’s editions” (version originale, V.O.) of Fournier’s albums, starting with Le Faiseur d’or (Spirou & Fantasio #20, “The Gold Maker”). This, of course, is the album that Franquin helped with, drawing the Marsupilami and providing Fournier with advice and sketches. The publishers intend the books to be similar to the Franquin V.O. releases (from Marsu Productions), and are currently asking collectors to help them locate the original art pages to scan.

Zoom continues collected edition

In a Facebook update, the publisher Zoom has indicated the release dates for the next Danish volumes of the intégrale collected edition: vol. 14 (Tome & Janry 1984–1987) will come out 12. May, vol. 15 (Tome & Janry 1988–1991) in November, and in 2017 they will jump back to fill in the missing vol. 12 (Nic & Cauvin 1980–1983) before continuing with vol. 16 (Tome & Janry 1992–1996). It is likely that the books will also come out in Swedish through the Mooz imprint at around the same time.

Norwegian collected ed. still with gaps

Zoom has also announced that the first volume in its decidedly inferior Norwegian collected edition (published in association with Outland) has been selling well, and that the second volume will soon go to press and the third is in preparation. The next book will, surprisingly, jump back to Fournier, collecting his first three albums: Le Faiseur d’or (Spirou & Fantasio #20, “The Gold Maker”; in Norwegian “Gullmakeren”), Du Glucose pour Noémie (#21, “Glucose for Noémie”; in Norwegian “Trianglen slår til”), and L’Abbaye truquée (#22, “The Rigged Abbey”; in Norwegian “Det mystiske klosteret”). The French collected edition (and the translations available e.g. in Danish) also include a number of shorter stories, including one – Le Champignon nippon (“The Japanese Mushroom”) – that is crucial to connect everything. Whether these will be included in this book is not clear (although most of them were in the original album editions, which gives some hope).

Then the third book will go back to Tome & Janry, and feature the albums L’Horloger de la comète (Spirou & Fantasio #36, “The Comet’s Watchmaker”; in Norwegian “Tidsmaskinen”), Le Réveil du Z (#37, “Awakening of the Z”; in Norwegian “Z vender tilbake”) and Spirou à New York (#39, “Spirou in New York”; in Norwegian “Sprint i New York”). Notably, this skips album #38, La Jeunesse de Spirou (“Spirou’s Youth”; in Norwegian “Den unge Sprint”), which collects short stories originally published in between the full-length adventures both in this volume and the first. While it initially looked like Zoom and Outland were just omitting the short stories not collected in album form, now they are leaving out a whole album. I would highly recommend Norwegian customers to seek out the Danish or Swedish editions instead.

The Marsu is angry at Robbedoes too

Dutch and Flemish readers can look forward to La Colère du Marsupilami (Spirou & Fantasio #55, “Wrath of the Marsupilami”) in their language on 6. April, as Robbedoes en Kwabbernoot 55: De Marsupilami is woest.

Stripspeciaalzaak also reports that there is a 120-page special issue of the magazine Knack devoted to Franquin now available: Franquin: Meester van de lach (“Franquin: Master of Laughter”). This is a translation of the French Le géant du rire published with slight variations in various formats (as special issues of Le Vif/L’Express and of Lire, and then as a hardcover book). This Dutch-language edition has some new material, and will also be reissued as a hardcover book.

Upcoming one-shot update

The rush of one-shots has a number of sites taking stock of upcoming projects, and some new details have come to light, along with a lot of repetition that I won’t include.

First, Fabrice Parme, who did the one-shot Panique en Atlantique (“Panic in the Atlantic”) with Lewis Trondheim, is reportedly doing another one, working solo this time. (The image to the left isn’t directly related to the album, but a New Year’s card for Klare Lijn International.) Clearly, offering another album to those who’ve already done a “one-shot” is now standard practice; among the artists of the first six albums, the only one who hasn’t or isn’t yet doing another is Frank Le Gall.

The last we heard of Mystère de Venise (“Mystery in Venice”), the project by Arleston and Conrad, it had been canceled because Conrad was too busy with Asterix and Arleston couldn’t find a replacement artist he was happy with. Well, now he apparently has, although no name has yet been revealed. But this project may be back on, in a different form.

For a while, people have noticed that the homepage of the artist Tebo includes among upcoming projects a Spirou silhouette, with the legend Ouverture Septembre 2016 (“Open September 2016”, as on an advent calendar). Now InediSpirou states definitively that this does concern another one-shot.

InediSpirou also indicates that the mysterious rediscovered Spirou adventure found by Christelle and Bertrand Pissavy-Yvernault in their research is a script from before the Franquin period, which narrows it down somewhat, and that it will indeed be illustrated by a modern artist.

And lastly for the one-shot updates, a BD Gest forum poster reports that in a conversation with Christian Durieux, Durieux said he was writing a Spirou one-shot and hoping to have it ready for the 80th anniversary (in 2018). There’s no official confirmation of that, though.

Reminder

Finally, a reminder that the English edition of Virus (Spirou & Fantasio #33) from Cinebook is due to be published in April (on 7. April according to Amazon, but 28. April on Cinebook’s own site.).

Related posts:

Publications Update: Q4 2016 – Q1 2017 Publications Update: Fall 2015 Publications Update: September 2016 Publications Update: June 2016 Publications Update: January–February 2016