Publications Update: Q4 2016 – Q1 2017

Sooo… It has been almost half a year since the last proper Publications Update, and increasingly dated “news” has been piling up like the urgent mail in Gaston’s office. Anyway, let’s get it over with! If you’re keen to see Zorglub or Gaston in English, the original pages from Tome & Janry’s albums, or the latest one-shots in just about every language the series is published in, there’s good news…

Wrath Deluxe

January saw the release of a deluxe edition of Yoann & Vehlmann’s album La Colère du Marsupilami (Spirou & Fantasio #50, “Wrath of the Marsupilami”). The oversize book from Khani Éditions consists of 136 pages, with the adventure both in pencil and inked form and with 24 bonus pages of sketches and studies. This includes concept art that Yoann created for Houba! On the Trail of the Marsupilami, the 2012 Marsupilami movie by Alain Chabat. The book is a limited edition of only 200 copies, comes with a set of ex libris prints (which vary depending on where and how you order), and sells for 150 EUR exclusively online (through Khani and Bédécouverte).

A Host of Covers

The last report on Schwartz & Yann’s one-shot Le Maître des hosties noires (“Master of the Black Hosts”) showed three variant album covers. In fact, there’s one more, for a limited edition exclusive to the comic stores La Parenthèse in Nancy (France) and Brüsel in Brussels (Belgium). In addition there’s the cover for the Christmas issue of the Journal de Spirou (#4104–4105). And at least some of the editions also have back covers (the one for the Brussels-dialect edition shown). At this point you could almost put out an album of all the covers for the album!

Cinebook takes Cyanide, Zorglub

This item should have been reported a good while ago, but better late than never. In the back of Cinebook’s most recent Spirou album, The Wrong Face, the next two in the pipeline are shown to be Tome & Janry’s Who Will Stop Cyanide? (Spirou & Fantasio #35, Qui arrêtera Cyanure ?) on 15. June, according to Amazon, followed by Franquin’s Z Is for Zorglub (Spirou & Fantasio #15, Z comme Zorglub). The latter was previously published in English by Fantasy Flight Publishing back in 1995, in a translation by Kim Thompson. In a Spirou Reporter Facebook comment, Cinebook recently also expressed openness to the idea of publishing Munuera’s Zorglub spin-off, though if it happens it would not be any time soon.

Go Go Gomer!

Cinebook is nevertheless branching out within the Spirou universe, with plans to publish Franquin’s Gaston Lagaffe in English. They are using the English name Kim Thompson gave him in earlier magazine appearances: Gomer Goof. The first album is called Mind the Goof! and set for July, according to Amazon. The cover is originally from Gaston album #R3, Gare aux gaffes du gars gonflé from 1973, which collects two of the half-height “booklet” albums from 1966–67 (#1, which is really the fifth, and #5, which is really the sixth); the same cover is used for album #6 in the current order, simply called Gare aux gaffes… Yeah, the Gaston publication history is a mess! Whichever version Cinebook’s album is based on, it would primarily contain gags from 1965–66, i.e. the period around Bravo les Brothers. According to the Amazon blurb, the series will still take place in the offices of “Spirou Magazine”. (Thanks to Spirou Reporter reader George for the tip.)

Go Go Gormur!

Before Christmas, Froskur Útgáfa published La Colère du Marsupilami (Spirou & Fantasio #55, “Wrath of the Marsupilami”) in Icelandic, as Svalur og Valur: Hefnd Gormsins. In Icelandic, the Marsupilami is known as Gormur (or “gormdýrið”) a name that also alludes to its spring-like tail, while Zantafio remains Zantafio. (Thanks to Stefán Pálsson for the tip.)

Dual one-shots in Dutch…

As usual, Dupuis has published the latest two Spirou one-shots in Dutch as well as French: La Lumière de Bornéo (“The Light from Borneo”) by Frank Pé & Zidrou as Robbedoes: Het licht van Borneo in November, and Schwartz & Yann’s Le Maître des hosties noires (“Master of the Black Hosts”) as De meester van de zwarte hosties at the beginning of March.

… and Danish

Meanwhile, Cobolt published Feroumont’s one-shot Fantasio se marie (“Fantasio Gets Married”) as Kviks brudefærd in October, and is already ready with the next one, Schwartz & Yann’s Le Maître des hosties noires (“Master of the Black Hosts”), as De sorte hostiers herre, having skipped past La Lumière de Bornéo for now.

Zoom collects Nic & Cauvin, screws up Tome & Janry

Meanwhile, Forlaget Zoom is jumping back in its translation of the intégrale collected edition, following vol. 15 (Tome & Janry 1988–1991) with vol. 12 (Nic & Cauvin 1980–1983). According to a Facebook comment, the book is coming out in Norwegian (probably through their collaboration with Outland) as well as in Danish, and both editions will contain the two short stories by Nic Broca and Alain De Kuyssche that have never been published in Scandinavia, in addition to the main albums. This would be a first for the Norwegian books, as Outland’s past Spirou volumes (the fourth, Fournier 1972–1975, came out in January) merely collect the albums without offering the unpublished short stories or other extra material. The book will presumably also be published in Swedish by their Mooz branch, just like the previous volumes in the series. The Danish release date is announced as 10. May.

Unfortunately, another warning is in order regarding the Swedish edition of vol. 15 in the series. In the album Spirou i Moskva (Spirou & Fantasio #42, Spirou in Moscow), “subtitle” captions translating Russian dialogue, supposed to be printed as white text on a black background are missing (or are perhaps printed as black text on a black background). This is only the latest, but probably the most serious, in a series of mistakes in the Swedish edition. (No word on whether the error also appears in the Danish edition.)

Finnish master

Meanwhile, Egmont published Le Maître des hosties noires (“Master of the Black Hosts”) in Finland last week, 15. March, under the title Pikon ja Fantasion uudet seikkailut: Mustien uhrien herra.

Full Brazilian

In Brazil, SESI-SP Editoria is continuing to put out Spirou albums in Portuguese. Following the original album series in order, they’ve added another three by Franquin, Spirou et les héritiers (Spirou & Fantasio #4, “Spirou and the Heirs) as Spirou e os herdeiros, Les Voleurs du Marsupilami (Spirou & Fantasio #5, The Marsupilami Thieves) as O roubo de Marsupilami, and La Corne de rhinocéros (Spirou & Fantasio #6, The Rhinoceros’ Horn) as O chifre do rinoceronte.

In addition they have started on the one-shot series, picking at first three albums set around WWII: Bravo’s Le Journal d’un ingénu (“Diary of a Naive Young Man”) as O diário de um ingênuo, and Schwartz & Yann’s Le Groom vert-de-gris (“The Field-Gray Bellhop”) as O mensageiro verde-cinza and La Femme-léopard (“The Leopard Woman”) as A mulher Leopardo.

Congratulations, Carlsen!

So what has Carlsen Comics been up to lately? Well, vol. 6 of the Gesamtausgabe collected edition, Gefährliche Erfindungen (Franquin 1958–1959), came out in December, and vol. 7, Mythos Zyklotrope (Franquin 1959–1960), is scheduled for 1. August.

They are also publishing Frank & Zidrou’s La Lumière de Bornéo (“The Light from Borneo”) on 4. July, under the German title Das Licht von Borneo; it has apparently been pushed back to allow Schwartz & Yann’s Le Maître des hosties noires (“Master of the Black Hosts”) to sneak in ahead, coming out next week (28. March) under the title Der Meister der schwarzen Hostien.

More curiously, the same day sees the release of a two-in-one double album, Die Rückkehr des Z / Die dunkle Seite des Z, which collects Tome & Janry’s Le Réveil du Z (Spirou & Fantasio #37, “The Awakening of the Z”) and Yoann & Vehlmann’s La Face cachée du Z (Spirou & Fantasio #52, “The Dark Side of the Z”) under one cover. (At least that’s what the cover says; the website claims that the second part is Angriff der Zyklozonks, i.e. Alerte aux zorkons, Spirou & Fantasio #51, “Zorkons Alert”.) Published in honor of Carlsen’s 50-year anniversary, the idea seems to be that they are both Zorglub-focused albums, which is true enough.

Tome & Janry: the artists’ edition

Having last year published an “artist’s edition” (V.O., version originale) of Fournier’s first Spirou album, Le Faiseur d’or (Spirou & Fantasio #20, “The Gold Maker”), Éditions Black & White is following up this year with the next Fournier books, Du Glucose pour Noémi (Spirou & Fantasio #21, “Glucose for Noémi”), and perhaps another later in the year. Unfortunately, it turns out that their version of “The Gold Maker” does not in fact reprint the original artist pages in facsimile, apart from six of them in a section at the end, but merely the print sheets for the line art (essentially just a black-and-white version of the comic), presumably because they were not able to get hold of enough of the originals.

However, they have also announced that they will be publishing a similar edition of Tome & Janry’s albums, and for these they do have access to the originals. The first book will probably be La Frousse aux trousses (Spirou & Fantasio #40, Running Scared) in September. (News via Le Petit Écho de Champignac)

Groom #3

The third issue of the Journal de Spirou‘s sister magazine on current affairs came out at new year, summing up the troubled year 2016. Contributors include Vehlmann and Tehem (La grosse tête, “The Big Head”), but there doesn’t seem to be anything directly Spirou-related in it.

The Blue Gorgon

Finally, this nugget of information somehow slipped through the cracks before: the one-shot by Dany and Yann has the working title La Gorgone bleue (“The Blue Gorgon”).