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Borneo comes to Norway, a new one-shot by David Etien, the Zorglub-universe expands further, Spain gets a whole bunch of Spirou publications, and more!
Daughter of the Z is due
Munuera’s Zorglub #1: La Fille du Z (“Daughter of the Z“) has finished its magazine run, and is coming in album format on 2. June. Along with the regular release, a black and white edition will be published by Bruno Graff Éditions the same month. As seen on Munuera’s Facebook page, the album features a centerfold spread (of a scene where Zorglub reveals some important backstory in flashback):
Little Zorglub
Munuera jumps even further back into Zorglub’s past in a mini-comic offered to subscribers with issue #4129 of the Journal de Spirou, delivered this week. Born to Be Bad! is an 11-page story (with only a few panels per page, though) from Zorglub’s childhood, that sees the arrogant kid genius facing bullies and meeting a girl. In style, it’s a bit similar to some of the longer Petit Spirou stories.
While self-contained, it is open-ended enough to suggest that this “Petit Zorglub” story will probably continue. So, we have a spinoff of a spinoff even before that first spinoff has even come out in album form. Isn’t that something!
Spinoffs and more spinoffs, but no anthology
In a post to the official Spirou Forum the other day, a Dupuis admin indicated that while there might very well one day be one or more anthology albums collecting Spirou stories not by Yoann & Vehlmann, for the time being the publishing schedule is full of full-length album stories, including the original series, one-shots, the Zorglub series, collected editions, and “other projects with other characters from the series.” Naturally that last point caught people’s attention. It’s been several years since we heard anything about a proposed Zantafio spinoff, and at various times people have proposed stories starring Fantasio, Seccotine, Spip, or the Count of Champignac. They could also be talking about the Supergroom “spinoff” by Yoann & Vehlmann…
One of the stories that could potentially be collected in an anthology album is Pascal Jousselin’s L’Affair du pingouin (“The Case of the Missing Penguin”), which recently ran in the Journal and will be discussed in more detail in a separate post.
The Super-Crazy Adventures of Spirou
On that topic, last month, Yoann posted an update to Facebook about the status of the next couple of Spirou albums:
Right now [Vehlmann and I] are working a lot on Spirou: first of all a special album entitled Les Folles aventures de Spirou (“The Crazy Adventures of Spirou”), which will be released soon. It collects ten years of short stories that we created for the Journal de Spirou. Then, as soon as we return [after summer], we will work on volume 56, the continuation of the adventures of Spirou and Fantasio. We are also preparing a new super-series, set in the Spirou universe … so a lot of work for years to come, and also a lot of fun!
Les Folles aventures de Spirou is clearly the album that has previously appeared on Dupuis’ schedule, slightly confusingly, as hors-série #5, Supergroom, set for publication in October, while the super-series is Supergroom. Earlier, Yoann also posted a photo of a water-color Spirou page from the album (perhaps a framing story?):
It’s also worth mentioning that Journal de Spirou #4117 (8. March), a special issue devoted to “villains”, featured a Supergroom one-pager, where the destruction caused by Spirou’s first superhero outing inspires a comic-book collector to don a costume as “Collectorman”.
David Etien working on one-shot
Artist David Etien (Les Quatre de Baker Street, “The Baker Street Four”) posted a few images from an album in progress on Facebook, with one containing a hint about what it is about. People quickly spotted the road sign to Champignac, leading to the conclusion that it’s a one-shot, and another one set during WWII at that, judging from the Nazi motorcade. Etien is keeping the writer a secret for now.
Hanco Kolk sample
A while back (in February, actually), Hanco Kolk also posted a work-in-progress sample from his one-shot, Het IJzeren Gordijn / Le Rideau de fer (“The Iron Curtain”), on Facebook:
Specials in German
Two of the special albums mentioned above are coming in German. Carlsen Comics lists what appears to be an edition of Yoann & Vehlmann’s HS #5: Les Folles aventures de Spirou as Spirou & Fantasio Spezial 24: Short Stories (though it may differ somewhat since many of the Yoann & Vehlmann short stories have already been included in other German albums), for release 3. October, as well as Munuera’s Zorglub #1: La Fille du Z as Spirou präsentiert 1: Zyklotrop: Die Tochter des Z for 19. December.
Borneo looks to Norway, sees new series
As something of a surprise last week, Norwegian comics buyers came across a new Spirou album in stores: Frank Pé & Zidrou’s La Lumière de Bornéo (“The Light from Borneo”). The Norwegian title is Sprint Spesial #1: Borneos Blikk, and the back cover indicates that this is meant as a relaunch of the Spirou one-shots in Norway, confirming an earlier rumor. Two one-shot albums, Yoann & Vehlmann’s Les Géants pétrifiés (“The Petrified Giants”) and Tarrin & Yann’s Le Tombeau des Champignac (“The Tomb of the Champignacs”), were previously published as specials within the main series ten years ago, as Steinkjempene and Katakombene under Champignac, but none of the others have been available in Norwegian before.
The official release date was this Monday, so Norwegian fans should try to snap up this album ASAP: hopefully strong sales will ensure more albums to follow! As pointed out in a comment by Mesterius, it can be ordered through Egmont’s online store.
Iceland and the olden days
The publisher Froskur Útgafa has followed up the recent Icelandic release of the latest Spirou album, La Colère du Marsupilami (Spirou & Fantasio #55, “Wrath of the Marsupilami”) with an album collecting Franquin’s very earliest Spirou comics, Svalur & Valur #1: Skriðdrekinn, Einingahúsið og þrjár aðrar sögur (“The Tank, The Pre-Fab House and Three Other Stories”). The other stories are short, 3-5 pages, and the album also includes some texts taken from the intégrale collected edition. (Thanks to Stefán Pálsson for the information.)
Spanish releases 2017
In Spain, Dibbuks has a long list of Spirou releases this year. They already published the one-shot by Frank Pé & Zidrou, La Lumière de Bornéo (“The Light from Borneo”) as La luz de Borneo in February, and vol. 16 in the Spirou y Fantasio Integral collected edition (Tome & Janry 1992–1999) in April.
Next up is Yoann & Vehlmann’s Dans les griffes de la vipère (Spirou & Fantasio #53, “In the Clutches of the Viper”) in June, as Spirou y Fantasio #53: La trampa viperina. That’s followed in July by a translation of the 50/60-series annotated edition of QRN sur Bretzelburg (Spirou & Fantasio #18, “QRN Over Bretzelburg”) as QNR en Bretselburg, and in September by the one-shot by Makyo, Toldac & Tehem, La Grosse tête (“The Big Head”) as La mascarada. Finally, in November the collected edition “wraps around”, having finished with Tome & Janry (and Nic & Cauvin), as they jump back to vol. 1 (Franquin 1946–1950).
Cinebook keeps branching out
The last update mentioned that Cinebook has a Gaston (“Gomer Goof”) album on its schedule for July, but Euro Comics Roundup spotted that there’s actually another album listed on Amazon for January 2018: Gomer Goof #2: It’s a van Goof. It appears to be an edition of Des gaffes et des dégâts, which is Gaston #6 in the original album order and #7 in the current, chronological order – in any case it follows directly after Cinebook’s first Gaston/Gomer Goof album.
They are also going ahead with the Marsupilami series drawn by Batem (with input from Franquin in the first few albums), publishing the first two, La Queue du marsupilami and Le Bébé du bout du monde (both by Franquin, Batem & Greg), as The Marsupilami’s Tail and Bamboo Baby Blues in December. This series also takes place in the Spirou universe, of course, following the family of in-the-wild marsupilamis introduced in Le Nid des marsupilamis (Spirou & Fantasio #12, “The Nest of the Marsupilamis”, aka “Dickie & Birdbath Watch the Woggle“).
99 hype ballons
Finally, just a notice to inform you that Spirou Reporter has officially sold out, signing up to be a PR “ambassador” for the Dutch-language Spirou/Robbedoes project from Ballon Media (which still hasn’t been officially confirmed to be a story by Legendre & Cambré, though it totally is). What this means in practice is that Ballon Media sends information/teasers about the project, and we “ambassadors” are supposed to post about it on Twitter and Facebook, using the hashtag #Robbedoes. Since reporting on Spirou news is pretty much the raison d’être of this blog, the only noticeable difference should be the hashtag. The first tidbit is supposed to be sent out at the end of the week, so stay tuned for that!
It looks like that motorcade is driven by the high Nazi officials Stein Lorbeer and Oliver Hartig…
Some very odd choices, such as Spirou wearing old man-spectacles, and some weird behaviour, like Noë being a total dick and nobody calling him out on it, the conflict between Spirou and Fantasio being very forced, and the fungus subplot not being integrated well enough, but the end result was still surprisingly good.
Yeah, the fungus subplot in “Borneos blikk” was a bit strange. Symbolically, the way the fungus invasion develops feels connected to the main plot – the relationship between Noé and Fauvette – but how does that work in practical terms? Are we just supposed to go along with that? Somehow, it’s easier to go along with a monkey sending telepathic messages to a human girl. 😛
Also, to me, the comic relief scenes with the Count of Champignac’s wind energy vehicle was just too silly. Made it hard to take him and the other scientists seriously at all in their attempts to fight the fungus mutation.
Any new publications set to come put in Norway?
Anyone who is familiar with these albums in Dutch? I haven´t seen them in other languages. https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1864103080269392&set=gm.10160206864945587&type=3&theater