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A few pieces of news have come out recently. First, the Jijé volume of the collected edition coming in October has a (provisional) cover, seen above. Extracted from Jijé’s illustration for the first cover of the Journal de Spirou after liberation in 1944, it’s a great example of his style.
The other news comes from this week’s issue of the Journal (#4026). This is mainly updates on one-shots we’ve heard about before…
First there’s a short interview with Schwartz and Yann about Le maître des hosties noires (“Master of the Black Hosts”), the sequel to La femme léopard. Yann says the album draws on conventional, old-fashioned depictions of Africa from Tintin or (the American children’s show) Daktari, but plays against expectations and complicates the simple stereotypes. He also says Schwartz is already halfway through drawing the story. Olivier Schwartz, for his part, says he was happy for the chance to draw an African setting, and admits that (contrary to what Spirou Reporter‘s last headline on the subject suggested) he hasn’t gone to Africa to do any research – but points out that he didn’t go to Brussels for the first album, either. If African readers get a laugh from any glaring mistakes, so much the better!
Meanwhile, Fabrice Tarrin is – as previously reported – in the process of drawing another one-shot, from a script by Fred Neidhardt. Even just the title is said to be “very promising”, even though it’s still too early to reveal it. They also say that Tarrin has started over on the first few pages three times in order to get the drawings just right, and that they look great. This album is not expected to be ready before the the end of 2016.
Finally, the Schwartz & Yann interview also divulges that La femme léopard is the subject of a new comics mural in Brussels. A wall at Rue de la Croix 9, in the Ixelles neighborhood (where there’s a considerable population of Congolese immigrants), will be decorated with a painting based on panel 4 of page 5 of the album (page 3 of the actual comic). In order to fit the dimensions of the wall, Schwartz had to extend it vertically, both upwards and downwards, as seen in the pictures above. (Though I wonder whether the horizontal flipping of the image is deliberate; if so, I imagine he will want to redraw the Moustic Hotel sign.)
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Is “Le Maître des hosties noires” (“Master of the Black Hosts”) expected to be the next release among the one-shots, or are some other story expected to be first? How long time will there be among the different stories?
Please note that “Hosts” in this sense doesn’t seem to refer to landlords, but consecrated bread…