An apology and clarification

Last night this site saw a big spike in its usually modest number of visitors, for no immediately obvious reason. That reason became clear today, when I discovered that the artist Simon Léturgie had posted about Spirou Reporter on Facebook.

Unfortunately, his was not a happy post. Seeing one of his comics at the top of the page, and under the impression that this was an official site set up by Éditions Dupuis (or its owners, Média Participations), Léturgie complained in the strongest terms about the company’s unauthorized and unpaid reuse of his work.

Let me at once offer my sincerest apologies to Léturgie and clarify that Spirou Reporter is a fan site that is in no way affiliated with Dupuis, or with any other company.

(Résumé en français: Je dois préciser que Spirou Reporter est un site de fan non officiel, sans aucun affiliation des Éditions Dupuis. Je vous prie de m’excuser pour tout l’indignation, malentendu ou violation du droit d’auteur. Mes excuses surtout à Simon Léturgie. Désolé!)

Yes, the comic was posted without authorization or payment (as are practically all comics on this site). I hope that is more forgivable when there is no commercial intention or profit motive involved: my motivation, as a fan, is only to share these comics with other Spirou fans worldwide who could not otherwise read them, because the comics haven’t been translated and they don’t understand French. I do apologize to any artist who objects to this infringement of their copyright, and will of course remove any unauthorized works upon the request of the creator or rights holder.

I also see that there was some debate in the comments on Léturgie’s post about whether this is a fan site or an official site, noting various details in the site credits, image quality, and the wording of the post with Léturgie’s comic. Again, I apologize for any confusion; it had not seriously occurred to me that anyone might take this for an official, professional site. I have always striven to be as above-board as possible with copyright attributions and links to sources and official web sites, and the “Spirou © 1938–2013 Dupuis“* notice at the bottom of the page was simply meant to indicate that I’m not pretending the rights are mine, not in any way that this site is theirs. I shall see about ways to make this distinction unambiguously clear – I have already added a short disclaimer to the “About” page. Similarly, I understand that the wording of the post could be misleading (it originally said the comic was “courtesy of” Léturgie), and I have corrected this. As for the image quality of the comics, I suppose I should take that as a compliment: in almost every case they are simply magazine or album scans that I have cleaned up and retouched/relettered in Photoshop.

Again, I apologize to Simon Léturgie, an artist I greatly admire, for the upset I caused him. I apologize to Éditions Dupuis and Média Participations for making them the target of unwarranted criticism, and I apologize to anyone who has been misled in any way about the nature of this web site. Sorry!

* About that “2013”: There’s a technical problem that has kept me from updating the year. So much for professionalism!

Related posts:

Fanart Friday: Sasa Site Art Scanlation Soccerday: World Cup 2014 Fantasio has vanished! Scanlation Sunday: Exquisite Corpse 27-28 Scanlation Sunday: If you live, you’ll see