19 March, 2024
'Sprycjan i Fantazjusz: Australijska przygoda' PL cover ('Aventure en Australie', "Spirou & Fantasio #32: Adventure Down Under"; ill. Tome & Janry; Copyright (c) Dupuis, Taurus Media and the artists; image from alejakomiksu.com)

Publications Update: June 2016

Finally an update! A new one-shot by Hanco Kolk, an anthology album and more on the Yoann & Vehlmann short-story album, drawbacks to a Swedish collected edition volume, the next Spirou album in English, and more… (UPDATE: And the Marsupilami rages in Norway, too!)

Dupuis has a hankering for Hanco

Hanco Kolk (photo from boekreviews.nl)In early May, the comics magazine Stripschrift revealed that Dupuis has offered Dutch artist Hanco Kolk a chance to make a Spirou one-shot – the first non-Franco-Belgian to do so. Kolk, a veteran comics artist of some fame, was a friend of and greatly influenced by Yves Chaland, and is a particular fan of Franquin’s Bravo les Brothers. He is working on the script and hoping to start drawing by fall. According to a forum post, the adventure will take place in Rotterdam. The Comics Journal has a feature on him and his career where he mentions the project: “I was really proud they asked me.”

In the 1980s, Kolk worked on the series Ernst Vrolijk & Dick Hout, which was published in Robbedoes, the Dutch/Flemish version of the Journal de Spirou. That comic, and the later Gilles de Geus, adopted a relatively traditional Marcinelle-school look. However, in more recent years Kolk’s art has often moved away from mainstream styles (either realistic or comedic) towards much greater stylization and abstract minimalism. (“I made a vow concerning style – never repeat yourself.”) This could be a very different Spirou look; will be interesting to see! (via Stripspeciaalzaak)

A Frank update

'La Lumière de Bornéo' FR provisional cover ("The Light from Borneo"; ill. Frank Pé & Zidrou; Copyright (c) 2016 Dupuis and the artists; image from fnac.com)Before that, the next one-shot in line is La Lumière de Bornéo (“The Light from Borneo”) by Frank Pé & Zidrou. For a little while there was a rumor that the title, originally announced as L’Okapi Blanc (“The White Okapi”), would end up being Le Cercle de lumière (“The Circle of Light”), but that didn’t stick. The serialization of the adventure will begin in the summer issue of the Journal de Spirou (#4082–4083), due out 6. July, while the album has been pushed back slightly, to November. A few more samples from the album, as well as both the magazine and (provisional) album covers, have also been leaked:

Spirou anthology

"Where Is Spip?" thumbnail ('Où est Spip ?' from JdS #4010; ill. Pau & Sti; (c) Dupuis and the artists; SR scanlation)According to Dupuis’ spokesperson, the short Spirou stories by various authors that have been published in the Journal over the years are going to be collected in an anthology album. The list of stories to choose from is long, so the album will most probably contain only a selection, unless it greatly exceeds normal album length. No timeframe for the publication has been indicated.

Spirou speaks Polish

'Sprycjan i Fantazjusz: Australijska przygoda' cover ('Aventure en Australie', "Spirou & Fantasio #32: Adventure Down Under"; ill. Tome & Janry; Copyright (c) Dupuis, Taurus Media and the artists; image from alejakomiksu.com)Last month, a Spirou album was published in Polish for the first time. Taurus Media are starting off with Sprycjan i Fantazjusz: Australijska przygoda (Spirou & Fantasio #34, Adventure Down Under) by Tome & Janry, with Sprycjan i Fantazjusz: W Moskwie (Spirou & Fantasio #42, Spirou in Moscow) coming next, later this year.

Wrong Head on the horizon

"The Wrong Head" cover (Spirou & Fantasio #8, 'La Mauvaise tête'; ill. Franquin; Copyright (c) Dupuis and the artist; image from amazon.co.uk)The next English album from Cinebook, following Tome &  Janry’s Virus (Spirou & Fantasio #33), will be The Wrong Head, or La Mauvaise tête (Spirou & Fantasio #8) by Franquin. Amazon has it listed for publication 6. October. This of course is a classic and often-referenced album, most recently in the one-shot La Grosse tête (“The Big Head”) by Makyo, Toldac & Téhem.

Mynd you, Mooz books kan be pretti nasti

integrale-Spirou-09-SEMooz, the Swedish branch of the publisher Zoom, put out a Swedish edition of vol. 14 of the Spirou collected edition (Tome & Janry 1984–1987) three weeks ago. It corresponds to the Danish and ultimately the French versions of the same book. At the same time they also put out a book collecting Fournier’s first three albums, under the title Spirou 1969–1972. However, while the title and cover matches the French intégrale (vol. 9), the contents do not. Articles and extras have been omitted, reducing it to just the albums themselves and a short introductory article. In fact, it appears to just be the Norwegian edition that Spirou Reporter has criticized before under a different cover. It is also worth noting that on the Swedish Serieforum, the quality of the translation has been much debated, pointing to numerous mistakes and untranslated Danish text.

Chaland en Castellano

Spirou par Chaland ESA little while back, Dibbuks added – somewhat unexpectedly – a Spanish edition of Spirou par Y. Chaland (“Spirou by Y. Chaland”) to its publishing schedule. As previously discussed, this book collects the Spirou strips by Yves Chaland that ran in the Journal (as well as some of his other contributions), but is primarily a biography of the artist, with focus on how his career intersected with Spirou. In Spanish the title is Spirou por Y. Chaland, and it is set to come out in July.

Dutch and German on schedule

'Fantasio heirated' DE cover ('Fantasio se marie', "Fantasio Gets Married"; ill. Benoît Feroumont; Copyright (c) 2016 Dupuis, Carlsen and the artist; image from carlsen.de)This week saw the release of Feroumont’s Fantasio se marie (“Fantasio Gets Married”) in Dutch, as Kwabbernoot gaat trouwen. German-speaker have to wait until 29. November for the album, published as Fantasio heiratet by Carlsen. Carlsen did recently publish La Colère du Marsupilami (Spirou & Fantasio #55, “Wrath of the Marsupilami”), under the title Der Zorn des Marsupilamis. At the same time they’re plugging along with the collected edition (Gesamtausgabe), with vol. 5 coming out 28. June followed by vol. 6 on 20. December.

Yoann & Vehlmann’s next two

jds 4080We’ve talked previously about the next two Spirou albums from Yoann & Vehlmann: first a collection of their shorter stories, supposed to be out by this Christmas, followed by a full-length adventure that follows on from the ending of La Colère du Marsupilami (Spirou & Fantasio #55, “Wrath of the Marsupilami”).

This week’s issue of the Journal (#4080) features another story for the collection: “Supergroom” (8 pages). Inspired by his meeting with Batguy, Spirou decides to don a mask and a souped-up Fantacopter and become a costumed hero. Full of gags, it’s been getting praise even from many of the people who don’t usually like Yoann & Vehlmann’s stories.

There was some uncertainty about whether the short-story collection would be published in the main series, as album #56 (the way Tome & Janry’s La Jeunesse de Spirou was), or as an out-of-numeration special album (an hors-série album in French), of which there are four to date. Now according to a BD Gest Forum poster, it’s leaning towards the hors-série option, although nothing has been finally decided.

Meanwhile, InediSpirou provides a couple of details about the next full-length adventure (SPOILERS): It will be set in Hollywood during the filming of a WWII movie (hence the reference to Nazis in the ending of “Wrath of the Marsupilami”), and will feature the return of the movie star Blythe Prejlowieky from La Face Cachée du Z (Spirou & Fantasio #52, “The Dark Side of the Z”).

Covers delayed

'Toutes les couvertures des recueils du Journal du Spirou par Franquin' provisional cover ("All the Franquin Covers for the Journal de Spirou Digests"; ill. Franquin; Copyright (c) 2016 by Dupuis and the artist)Finally, the book Toutes les couvertures des recueils du Journal du Spirou par Franquin, collecting Franquin’s covers for the Journal digests, has been postponed. It was set to be published on 22. March, but now has no specific publication date. However, Dupuis still insist that it will come out some time in 2016.

Wrath of the Marsupilami hits Norway

Spirou & Fantasio #55 "Sprint: Den rasende Spiralis" cover NO ('La Colère du Marsupilami'; ill. Yoann & Vehlmann; Copyright (c) 2016 Egmont, Dupuis and the artists; image from minetegneserier.no)The Norwegian album version of La Colère du Marsupilami (Spirou & Fantasio #55, “Wrath of the Marsupilami”), in Norwegian as Den rasende Spiralis, is listed for sale on Tronsmo’s online store and has been entered in the MineTegneserier database, but is yet to be spotted “in the wild”. Fans puzzled by Egmont’s release strategy of not announcing the album, not making it available in most stores and not selling it through their own online store might want to check out this podcast.

Spirou Reporter

I grew up reading Spirou in Scandinavian translations. Now I'm learning French and trying to decode the originals.

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32 thoughts on “Publications Update: June 2016

  1. I’m excited to read Hanco Kolk’s Spirou album! I’m curious why the story is going to take place in Rotterdam. I hope Spirou and Fantasio are there for work-related reasons or so, the story shouldn’t pretend they live there. Rotterdam is a nice city for comic books to take place in: a couple of Frank albums (Henk Kuijpers) also took place in that city.

    (Also, thanks for mentioning the Dutch translation of ‘Fantasio se marie’, this site is the first I read about Spirou publications in my language.)

    1. I guess it’s his current hometown or something… A Dutch artist chosen for a Dutch-themed story…

      1. The artist chosen for the story, isn’t Kolk writing the story himself? Also honestly I hope the story isn’t /too/ Dutch-themed, that wouldn’t fit Spirou at Fantasio…

    1. Ah, looking up on the group Spiroureporter linked to, I see that Yoann and Vehlmann also make references to “Le groupe Dupuis/ Dargaud/ Lombard”… These three publishing powerhouses are actually all owned by the same holding company, Média-Participations, which is the third largest publisher in France overall, and the biggest on the comics segment.

  2. Gilles de Geus, that strip looks interesting. One of the characters reminded me about Obelix when they walked towards at the sea side. And there was a guy who was as short of Asterix.

    1. Maybe even more to Goscinny’s and Uderzo’s earlier attempt Jehan Pistolet about a wannabe pirate (or Eddy Ryssack’s Brammetje Bram / Colin Colas).

        1. The first album was at least translated to Danish as “Kaptajn Kaj”… Alas, the series seems to have been rather sloppily drawn in the beginning…

        2. I’m surprised Jehan Pistolet didn’t make it to Norway, since pretty much everything else by Goscinny & Uderzo seems to have been quite popular.

          Colin Colas came out in Norway under the titles “Nicky Lettmatros” and “Mastetoppens Skrekk”. All 6 albums were published as part of “Tegneserie-bokklubben” double albums from Hjemmet.

  3. One of Egmont’s editors has now posted an explanation regarding why the Norwegian Sprint 62 is currently only available atTronsmo, and not in other stores/food shops: https://www.facebook.com/groups/377924145586/permalink/10157018976915587/?comment_id=10157020105800587&comment_tracking=%7B%22tn%22%3A%22R1%22%7D Basically, the album will not be officially released until September, and has apparently been sent out early to Tronsmo by mistake (!).

    By the way, Odd Eivind and Spirou Reporter: One album of Goscinny and Uderzo’s Jehan Pistolett WAS actually released in Norway. It came out in 1991 as part of the short-lived album series “En Uderzo Klassiker”. Here is Mine Tegneserier’s listing for John Pistolett: http://www.minetegneserier.no/pls/htmldb/f?p=100:6:12701349289311:VIEW::6:P6_UTGIVELSER_ID,P6_CS:11974,3251FBBB84972E83

  4. There were many different writers for “Brammetje Bram” , both on the longer albums and the shorter stories produced for the German publisher Koralle’s magazine Zack…

    Delporte was probably the best of them.

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