19 March, 2024
Test page for Spirou one-shot (ill. Richard Di Martino; Copyright (c) 2009 by the artist; Spirou (c) Dupuis; image from zeveryrichblog.blogspot.com)

Silent Sunday: Richard Di Martino

While waiting for a time when Spirou Reporter is able to resume scanlations, here’s another untexted Spirou page. This is one from the “Tomb of Rejects“, by French artist Richard Di Martino (Pif, Cléo), who posted it to his blog in 2009. It’s a test page from a few years earlier, when he was applying to succeed Morvan & Munuera on the series. He never heard back from the publisher, and the job of course went to Yoann & Vehlmann.

Spirou test page (ill. Richard Di Martino; Copyright (c) 2009 by the artist; Spirou (c) Dupuis; image from zeveryrichblog.blogspot.com)

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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7 thoughts on “Silent Sunday: Richard Di Martino

  1. Although I don´t think he would have been a great fit it seems pretty rude, even cruel to not even send a reply… I don´t get a lot of the choices the publisher makes. We could have had a Danier-Spirou, for god´s sake!

  2. Yeah, I recall that. But I don’t think it was a proposal for a new album, or even had a complete story or synopsis behind it. It was just a spoof page, mostly for the amusement of himself and his peers.

      1. No, he was definitely in contact with Dupuis and wanted to do an album, he talked about that in an interview.
        …found it in Stripnieuws 62 from last year:
        “(…) Ik had contact met Doug Headline, die een verhaal van Robbedos/Spirou had geschreven. Dat verhaal was nog niet goedgekeurd door Serge Honorez, een van drie topmensen daar, maar wel door een van de andere.(…) We hebben proefpagina´s gemaakt, maar het fiat van Serge Honorez bleef uit. (…) Ooorspronkelijk zou ons album in die vrije reeks van Robbedoes gepland staan voor 2013. (…) ”
        Sounds like there is even more than one proof page out there…

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