Houba! Houba!

I haven't read a lot of Spirou in recent years... After the daring but unsuccessful attempt to reboot the series as a more serious one ("Machine qui rêve") and the effective reboot that came after that (bringing teen Spirou to the present... gah!) I sort of lost interest. Most reboots don't agree with me.

I did love the "what if..?" type stand-alone stories like the one in which Spirou is a groom in a hotel commandeered by the nazis during WWII; it had all the freshness of the early years combined with a modern sensibility. Good stuff.

Has the Spirou series as a whole been good during the past decade, Dizzy D?

Mmm... mhmmm...


So, I finished "The Wrath of the Marsupilami" (La colère du Marsupilami for us purists). It's... not bad. I'm still digesting it.

So, it's the actual Marsupilami, not some trick, so Vehlmann may live... for now. A lot of callbacks to some old Franquin issues and it's actually quite continuity heavy for an European comic as it explains where the Marsupilami went after Franquin's last issue and why he was not mentioned a lot since then. We get Zantafio as the villain, who at some points seems to redeem himself and then turns villain again (which worked really well for me as I like more complex villains, but the drug use felt a bit like a big red arrow pointing at him with "Look, drugs! Villain! Villain!!".)

I like the small Naruto reference. Also I really like the return of all the Gaston support characters (Fantasio is back working at the redaction of Spirou Magazine). Don't like that they felt the need to go continuity heavy on this (even if I know all the backstory).

For those interested, spiroureporter has an english translation of the first few pages (just discovered it when searching for images).
spiroureporter.net/2015/11/26/christmas-comes-early/
The interview spoils a lot of plotpoints though (oh and upcoming in Une Aventure Par... the one-shot series: "Fantasio gets Married" by Yann and Dany).

Gaston can show up again now Dupuis owns Marsu Productions (in fact, I think he might have already? Will recheck the last few issues, because I remember a sneak cameo, but can confirm it yet).

*adds to his to-read list*

That top one looks amazing.

I was just watching live (pirate stream) this evening's edition of "On ne peux pas plaire à out le monde" (the most popular french talk show on national TV, "one cannot please everyone"...). The show is 3 hours long and usualy feature a cast of guest ranging from politicians to Tv stars, investigation journalists, musicians, philosophers, etc.. Tonight, Johan Sfar was one of the guest. Johan Sfar is one of the top french Cartoonist, one that have successfully made the transition from comics to movies while still being very productive in the comic department. He was indeed invited because of his latest graphic novel, and for no other reason since that one didn't have any polemical topic or anything. So we got Sfar discussing and exchanging for 20 minutes on national TV, with a host and two journalists in front of him who had read hs latest work and asked questions, exchanged points of view, other guest inserting themselves in the conversation. Sfar was also welcomed to step in when it was the other guests' turn.
The fact that htis all seemed so normal and casual reminded me what is easily taken for granted : how comics are a vital part of culture and not underground culture, and that I'm blessed to be able to witness and experience it.
To put it in perspective, Sfar is kind of a mix of Miller and Eisner but still qiute young, and he isn't a star, he's just accepted, nothing more, but that's just fine. He won or was nominated for every possible prestigious awards in comics, and he wasn't even questioned on those, he wasjust there to talk about his latest book and his views on creativity and such. That was really nice.

If you don't know about him, I urge you to check him out (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joann_Sfar) as I haven't read a single disapointing comic from him (and I sure own at least 50 albums of his!)

Remakes, retakes, mature takes. These seem quite popular in Europe lately. Marc Legendre's Amoras,a mature take on Vandersteen's Suske&Wiske was quite a success (but I never read it cause I generally don't like this kind of thing) and Romano Molenaar's J. Rom was a superhero take on Suske&Wiske's supporting character Jerom. (And technically Machine Qui Reve tried this as well with Spirou, but I liked that take and it's been ages since then, so it doesn't fit completely). So now we get a mature/serious version of Lucky Luke:



L'Homme Qui Tua Lucky Luke "The Man Who Killed Lucky Luke" by Matthieu Bonhomme

Apparantly more of this type of things are coming and with these type of things I mean different takes on Lucky Luke rather than a mature reboot. It's the characters 70th birthday this year and several artists will participate from what I've heard. So more An Adventure of Spirou by... idea than Amoras. Luke is one of the few characters a I have no problems with a mature take, partly because the western genre easily fits serious and comedic takes IMHO and because Luke already had some more serious takes in the beginning of his career.

Having read the issue, I'm a bit ambivalent. Any new take on a classic character is always having to meet high expectations. There is a recurring joke where Luke tries to smoke, but circumstances always prevent him to (near the end of his career Morris decided that a hero like Luke smoking was a bit example for kids, so he switched to a piece of straw with repeating jokes thrown in whenever things weren't going Luke's way that he was distracted by wanting a smoke). The rest is Luke entering a small town, getting into a conflict with the local law enforcement ("You always serve the Law, don't you, Luke?" "I always serve Justice.") who are either incompetent, corrupt or both. The villagers ask well-known hero Luke to investigate the hijacking of the stage coach that was the town's only link to the outside world regarding supplies and money. Luke gets assistance from washed-up, almost-legendary-hero-but-not-quite Doc Wednesday (pretty clear who he is based on). No Daltons this time, no Rataplan, his horse Jolly Jumper is not talking/thinking (but does show intelligence far beyond a horse), Luke's skills are still superhuman. The plot does take some interesting twists, even if the first couple of twists you can see coming a mile away. The interaction between Luke and the people around him is the best part of this version; for all his skills as a gunfighter, Luke is an outsider in the town, a respected hero, but not one of them and that limits the things he can do and can get them to do. Also the interaction between Wednesday and Luke are great; Wednesday is what Luke would be if he was a bit older, if he didn't get a kill on famous bandits like Phil Denver or the original Daltons (remember how I said that Luke had some more serious stories early on?) and most importantly, a gunslinger who messed up once. A man who could have been a legend, but wasn't. What sets Luke apart from Wednesday? Is he more skilled, smarter or in the end is he just a Lucky Luke?

Overall it's a more standard western story, problem is that we already have a lot of those done extremely well in European comics (hello, Blueberry) and even a western done extremely well (by Bonhomme himself (the amazing Texas Cowboys), though he had help from Trondheim there). It's not a bad comic and it's an interesting take on a classic character, but if you're unfamiliar with Lucky Luke, I'd recommend the Morris/Goscinny issues (yes, that's setting the bar really high. Goscinny and Morris are both legends in the European comic book scene) and if you want a good western story, I'd recommend Blueberry or Texas Cowboys. If you have an itch for more western comics or want to take a new take, then give this a try. I was not amazed, but I also didn't regret buying this and looking forward to other comics that celebrate's Luke's 70th birthday.

Depends, what did you like about the Scorpion?

If the artwork, the same artist has done Gypsy, Raptors and Eagles of Rome.

Desberg has written a lot of very varying quality. My favourite is Gaspard de la Nuit, but that one was never translated AFAIK.

If you liked a historical/adventure comics, there are a ton of those. So I'd need to think about that for a while.