by 
‘Journal de Spirou’ #4175, cover by Émile Bravo (2018)
On this day 80 years ago, 21. April 1938 (a Thursday), the first issue of the Journal de Spirou came out, featuring the first appearance of the character Spirou. And five years ago today, as Spirou was celebrating his 75th anniversary, Spirou Reporter had just been launched.
While the 75th Spirou anniversary was celebrated throughout the year in lots of different ways, not as much is being made of the 80th. However, this week’s issue of the Journal (#4175) does feature a pretty major event: the first part of Émile Bravo’s Spirou ou l’espoir malgré tout (“Spirou, or; Hope Despite Everything”), the long-awaited follow-up to Le Journal d’un ingénu from 2008 (another anniversary). This ambitious sequel has grown to over 300 pages, with plans to eventually collect the whole thing in four volumes. The anniversary issue of the Journal includes the first 20 (you can read a sampling of them on Izneo).
Because Spirou Reporter is also celebrating a fairly low-key anniversary/return, there won’t be a translation (of these pages or any other story) right now, but it would be a good time to revisit Bravo’s take on Spirou’s origin story, Woe to the Weak (La Loi du plus fort).
Bravo’s still upplaying Fantasio’s cringy aspects, I see.
Yes, Spirou is 80 and quits.
Sorry for the mistake, Spirou doesn’t quit, it’s merely ‘on hold’ in favour of the Supergroom series.
Not unexpectedly. I think Yoann and Vehlmann mentioned something about how the superhero reboot was better received among the magazine’s main, younger, readership, than the more traditional series, but that they might go back to the traditional style in the future, depending on various factors.
There were rumors about Mark Twain, too…
Hello? Is anyone here? You haven’t posted in months…
Hope Spirou Reporter will return soon… or at some point at least. Great blog, doesn’t deserve to unceremoniously fade away like so many others.
I read this album today (the Dutch translation of ‘Spirou ou l’espoir malgré tout’).
I wonder what happened to the owner of this site. I hope he’s doing okay. The site was my source for Spirou news in english. Very good job btw
You can find some Spirou episodes in English in HD 1080p here:
https://www.youtube.com/@VintageCartooninHD-nn1vk/videos
They are AI upscaled but the quality is amazing!