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If you follow the Spirou Oficial Facebook community, you’ll have seen a bunch of updates about various Spirou-related expos and exhibitions held in Spain over the next few weeks, all of them sponsored or (co-)organized by Dibbuks, the Spanish Spirou publisher. Here’s a summary, whether or note you’re able to take a trip to Iberia…
Cádiz
The first one is the expo “… y se escribe Spirou” (unsure of translation; perhaps something like “… and to write Spirou”?), which opened in Cádiz last Friday, 18. September, and will run until 22. November. (Apparently, there are plans to have it tour other cities later on.) This is an art show featuring Spirou pieces by 29 different artists, including Munuera: the expo’s Facebook page has featured profiles of many of these artists over the last few weeks. The exhibition is held in gallery in the Castle of Santa Catalina.
Photos of all the pieces can be viewed here.
Mallorca
There is also another “… y se escribe Spirou” exhibition, held in parallel in Palma, on Mallorca. This one opens on Thursday, 24. September, and will run through October. It features 27 artists, most of them from the Balearic Islands (Mallorca, Minorca, Ibiza, etc.), but also including Munera and Pau. The exhibition will take place in MOS de CÓC, which is apparently a bakery/café/gallery.
Madrid and Pontevedra (Vehlmann)
Finally, there is an exhibition devoted to Spirou-writer Fabien Vehlmann, “Fabien Vehlmann y la narración gráfica” (“Fabien Vehlmann and graphic storytelling”), held in Madrid throughout the month of October. It’s said to “reveal the complexities of writing comics”, and will feature texts (presumably scripts) as well as art, with examples from his comics Seuls (Alone; ill. by Gazzotti), Green Manor (ill. by Denis Bodart), Spirou & Fantasio (ill. by Yoann), and upcoming work with Ralph Meyer. The various creators also provide accompanying comments. Vehlmann himself will visit and officially open the exhibition on 8. October. It is held in the Conde Duque public library.
Afterwards, the exhibition will move to Pontevedra, where it will be held from 9. November to 6. December. It will be supplemented by an additional exhibition, “Spirou, de Champignac a Pontevedra” (“Spirou, from Champignac to Pontevedra”), which will feature another set of artists (among whom Miguelanxo Prado is probably the most famous), and will also be open to children and students to display their work.
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The name of the expo “…y se escribe Spirou”
could be more properly translated as:
“…and it is spelled Spirou”.
Regards!!
Thanks! I’m still rather mystified by the title…
I guessed so, but my Spanish is so rusty I got unsure…
I think the Spanish spelling would be something like “Spirú”, although there are no native Spanish words beginning with sp- … (Espirú ? )
Although it’d still be confusing to emphasize the “exotic” spelling…
Exactly. Unlike recent editions, Spirou was spelled “Espirú” in the oldest Spanish ones (40 years ago or so).
The title suggests a conversation between Spanish speaking people, in which a knowledgeable person tells others how to spell correctly the name “Spirou”.
BTW, interestingly enough, “Fantasio” sounds perfectly Spanish… 🙂
Actually, French native words aren’t likely to be spelled with initial sp, as well, but the name is borrowed from the local linguistic variety Walloon, which lacked the prothetic e found in many Romance languages, “spirou” is the Walloon word for squirrel, and is cognate to French écureuil and Spanish esquilo.
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