Publications Update: August 2016

Munuera, Bravo, Yoann and Kolk (Update: and Severin!)… That should be enough of a teaser for this update!

Munuera to bring Zorglub a daughter

First a piece of news that’s been sitting around for too long: Early this month it was leaked that José-Luis Munuera is preparing a one-shot called La Fille de Zorglub (“Zorglub’s Daughter”). Munuera is both writing and drawing the story, and it’s planned for publication next year. This according to a member of the BG Gest’ Forum, whom Munuera apparently told at the comics convention in Eauze.

As everyone immediately pointed out, Zorglub did have a daughter in the 2006 Spirou & Fantasio cartoon Two of a Kind (Les Nouvelles aventures de Spirou et Fantasio). Zaoki, apparently Zorglub’s natural child (her mother is shown only in a photo), was introduced in the very first episode, “L’Île de Zorglub” (“Zorglub’s Island”), and appeared regularly throughout the series. She appears in the show as a teenage girl, both a loyal daughter to her father and friends with Spirou and Fantasio. She has never appeared in the comic, however, and it’s not clear whether Munuera’s one-shot has anything to do with this character. The Tome & Janry album Le Réveil du Z (Spirou & Fantasio #37, “The Awakening of the Z”) implies that Zorglub does not at that time have children, but will at some point in the future.

Yoann also alluded to the project in a sketch he did for Munuera and posted on Facebook (also suggesting in a comment that he doesn’t think much of the cartoon):

Although there has been some talk about an album by Fournier, this is the first one-shot announced by a former Spirou creator. Some are already saying that it moves further away from the original concept of the “one-shot” series, namely to allow other comics creators the chance to make a Spirou album, but after Morvan & Munuera’s troubled run, the chance to see Munuera’s vision realized in a less compromised fashion strikes Spirou Reporter as quite fascinating.

(Thanks to Spirou, ami, partout, toujours for pointing out the connection to Yoann’s drawing.)

Yoann’s shorties gotta wait

Yoann also posted several other drawings, including this one which is probably from an upcoming short story. In a comment on another drawing, he indicated that the album collecting these short stories has been pushed back to the start of 2017.

A brick by Bravo

In accordance with a sometimes-observed tradition, the “back from vacation” issue of the Journal this week (#4090) features previews, news and sneak peeks of upcoming comics. Of most interest to Spirou Reporter is an update on Émile Bravo’s sequel to Le Journal d’un ingénu (“The Diary of a Naive Young Man”), which now finally has a title: Spirou, ou L’Espoir malgré tout (“Spirou; or, Hope Despite Everything”).

The album will be even longer than previously projected: 300 pages! (To put that in perspective, it is significantly more than Morvan & Munuera’s entire run on the series.) At the time of the interview, Bravo still had the epilogue of 20 pages left to write and sketch before beginning to actually draw the story in the final pencil and ink. Despite the massive amount of work remaining, the serialization of the adventure is announced to begin in April 2017, to continue for a full year.

Bravo describes the album in familiar terms:

It takes place in Brussels during the [German] Occupation, right after the story told in Le Journal d’un ingénu. So I am exploring the same period as Yann & Schwartz, but with a different eye, because I’m focusing on the daily difficulties people faced, such as how to get food. As subtext to everything Spirou and Fantasio go through, I would like the readers to ask themselves a question: “What would I do in this situation?” I hope to show that the most important thing under the Occupation was to retain your humanity. Which does not at all mean to behave like a superhero.

The text also specifies that this is not “Spirou vs. the Nazis”, but that on the contrary there will just be a single uniform in the story (Spirou’s?).

The wall of Kolk

Apparently, the town of Middelkerke in Flanders, Belgium is going to decorate several municipal walls as comics murals (it’s unclear to me whether this is intended as a permanent improvement or just a temporary decoration). The featured comics include Lucky Luke and Spirou & Fantasio. To paint the Spirou wall (which will actually grace the Calidris building in Westende, rather than in Middelkerke proper), the town council has recruited Hanco Kolk, who is also making an upcoming one-shot.

Stripspeciaalzaak have got hold of a sketch of the mural, which is also the first look at Kolk’s take on the characters. As they point out, the overall design is based on Franquin’s cover for the first Modeste et Pompon album. Perhaps more importantly, they reveal the Dutch name of Kolk’s one-shot: Het IJzeren Gordijn (“The Iron Curtain”).

Groom 2: Return of Groom

The second issue of the Journal de Spirou’s “current issues” magazine, Groom, comes out tomorrow. It features a cover by Munuera, and has “social networks” as its feature subject. More information is available on the official website. There is no indication that it has anything directly Spirou-related this time around.

Comixology coming

According to a Cinebook press release from last month, the publisher’s catalogue, including The Adventures of Spirou & Fantasio, is coming to Comixology, the popular platform for digital comics. The Spirou albums are already available digitally both in English and French through Izneo, but this could conceivably help to raise the profile of the series.

Update: Severin’s several stints scheduled

As pointed out by Roger in the comments, the upcoming book by Al Severin now has a cover, as well as a release date (4. November) and a new title: À Tous les coups, c’est Spirou! (loosely, “Whatever You Do, It’s Spirou!”). The book is 48 pages long, in a wide format with two strips per page; previously going by Les 1000 et 1 métiers de Spirou, Fantasio & Spip (“The 1001 Jobs of Spirou, Fantasio & Spip”), it will consist of four episodes, with Spirou and Fantasio taking on a new job in each one: as gas station attendants, firemen, ambassadors and artists. The first two parts have already been published in little strip booklets offered as bonus gifts to subscribers of the Journal; the other two may or may not appear in the same format between now and November.

Related posts:

Publications Update: September 2016 Publications Update: July 2016 Publications Update: Q4 2016 – Q1 2017 Publications Update: June 2016 Publications Update (August 2014)