All The Happenings at House Spirou
The Magazine
For starters, we’ve had a couple of interesting anniversary issues of Spirou Journal recently. The first celebrated the 70th anniversary of Marsupilami’s first appearance. Most of the comics in that issue featured Marsupilami or Marsu-themed gags.
Then, just last week, the double-sized issue celebrating the 100th anniversary of published Editions Dupuis landed. In it, different creators came in to work on characters they’re not normally associated with. It’s a crazy mix of creators and characters featuring everyone from The Smurfs to Lucky Luke, Jojo to Cecil. There’s a theme in many of the stories where the characters are invited to the big Dupuis birthday party, and hijinks, cameos, and in-jokes ensue.
I’m not going to say more about that issue right now because I might do a separate article just on it. It’s a lot of fun.
The Death of Spirou?
The recently-announced new creative team for the main Spirou series has their first book coming up this summer. It’s titled “The Death of Spirou.”
I’m assuming this is just one aspect of the story in the album and that he’s not really dead.
This isn’t Marvel/DC, after all.
On the other hand, the only other character mentioned in the story description is a daughter of the founder of the Korallion, an underwater city that she’s turned into a vacation club where Spirou and Fantasio disappears off into.
If Dupuis really wanted to follow the Marvel/DC playbook, they would trap Spirou and Fantasio in that underground city and have that daughter return to land as the new Spirou!
But that’s just silly…
Right?
The Return of La Gaffe, Pending Legal Proceedings
The big recent news is that Dupuis is bringing back Gaston La Gaffe with a new book done by Canadian cartoonist, Delaf (co-creator of “The Bellybuttons/Les Nombrils.”)
My initial Tweet reaction to the news:
Big news of the day: a new Gaston Lagaffe album is coming this October. This will no doubt be a very controversial move. https://t.co/Q2SVdeRiM1
— Pipeline Comics 🇧🇪 🇫🇷 (Augie De Blieck Jr.) (@pipelinecomics) March 18, 2022
“Very controversial” was an understatement. I knew there’d be lots of handwringing on this one. Gaston was Franquin’s baby, and he famously said nobody else should draw the series. It died with him. And, for the last 25 years, that’s exactly what happened.
Not a week later, Andre Franquin’s daughter is lawyering up to stop the book. Isabelle Franquin, who is Andre’s sole heir, is reminding the world of her father’s position on this one. She is citing that “moral rights are inalienable”. I’m not well versed enough in Belgian law to tell you if that’s a valid legal tactic, but that appears to be her main – and only – legal card to play in this case.
ActuaBD.com defines “moral rights” and points out how little standing it has in the realm of law, though it is part of French copyright law.
Her problem is that Franquin wrapped the rights to his characters up in his production company, Marsu Productions, which was later sold to the Franco-Belgian publishing concern, Media-Participations (that also owns Dupuis, Lombard, and Dargaud).
Isabelle might fight this case on moral grounds, but on legal grounds it’s just another IP owned by a company that was sold to another company and now being used by a different company inside that second company’s portfolio. All the contracts are signed with the dotted I’s and the crossed T’s.
She’s seeking an immediate injunction from a French-speaking Belgian court to stop the book before its publication in October, though it’ll be serialized in Spirou Journal before then. The hearing is scheduled for mid-May.
The first page of the new series is in the next issue, which Dupuis says cannot be removed. It’s already been printed. There’s nothing they can do about it. However, they are suspending further pages from being printed in Spirou Journal for the time being:
“For the sake of appeasement, we have taken the initiative to suspend the rest of the pre-publication pending the court decision.”
A lawyer from Dupuis says that they’re covered legally — Franquin’s contract from Marsu’s sale included the clause that the series could continue without him.
Pending this potential litigation and now this delay in pre-publication, the book is still scheduled for an October release with a print run of over a million copies.
But, wait! The internet waits for no judge! Delaf gave an interview in which he talked about how heavily he’s been reseearching Franquin’s work on LaGaffe so he can mimic the style. He talks about cutting up panels from stories into 10,000 difference pieces so he has reference for everything.
This led the internet sleuths to start scanning his first page (it was previewed at Angouleme) for its source material. And they found a few examples already.
This will be the beginning of an ugly public fight, no doubt, with lots of internet debate fanning the flames.
It’s a verifiable kerfuffle, I tell you.
(Editorial note: The header image at the top of this page is from a Gaston La Gaffe cover by Andre Franquin. It’s the only art I had to fit into that space…)
Book Sales in Quebec
OK, this last one isn’t Dupuis-related, but I wanted to sneak it in somewhere…
The 2021 numbers are in. A survey of more than 250 stores selling books in the French-speaking province in Canada reveals a huge rise in book sales for the year. Given that COVID started in 2020, that might not be too surprising.
But here’s the fun fact: The Best Selling Book in Quebec in 2021 was “Asterix and the Griffin.”
Not comic book. Book.
Keep in mind, that book was released at the end of October. It was only on sale for two months.
The article goes on to point out that the book remains #4 in the charts currently.
The Quebecoises have good taste!
Yes she can definitely block a new Gaston from happening, like Nick Rodwell squashed any chance of seeing fresh Tintin someday. However there is a grey area in Franco-belgian law about parodies so there have been a plethora of those, and of course pirate versions (Tintin has dozens out there you can find on eBay, it practically has its own section there). But strictly on the up-and-up she’d have the last word. Especially if Franquin had an ironclad contract with Dupuis. Remember that they didn’t leave in the best of terms after the Marsu situation.
Another aspect you’d want to consider is how this character from the 70s would fare in 2022. Gaston was pretty much a product of its time. but the movie they did a few years back managed to capture some of the spirit of Gaston Lagaffe, so why not. Though I may be the only one who liked that movie… I remember when Dargaud revived Achille Talon, since Greg sold them the rights shortly before his passing. It was pretty weird to see this eminently Pompidolian character with a mobile phone, disserting about the woes of the internet. There have been attempts at continuation for certain BD or YA series in a ‘vintage’ manner, like Bob Morane or Buck Danny having ‘retro’ adventures set in the 1950s, that kinda works I suppose. If you want to hit the generation who experienced it in the first place, not Gen Z.
We will see.
I think the best way to continue the Gaston series — if it had to be done — would be to go the same way that Don Rosa went with his Donald Duck and Scrooge McDuck comics. They were all set in the 1950s, during the original series’ prime years. He locked it in there and everything made sense. When I see a “modern” Duck story with cell phones and whatnot, it feels ridiculous. Gaston needs an office, a car, a strange musical instrument, etc. I can see how you’d modernize him into the stereotype of a millennial (or GenZ now, I guess), but that might make him less likable.
As for the law side of things — like I said, I’m not a French or Belgian legal scholar. I know Franquin would have no case here in the States, but we have a different system for things like this than the Franco-Belgian set of laws. It’ll be interesting to see how this one turns out.
I agree with you, the Don Rosa example is spot on.
Legally speaking, I read some articles this week alleging that Dupuis is doing it because Franquin signed a contract allowing it. Hence the action of his daughter who objects.
The Marsupilami’s 60th Birthday was 10 years ago in 2012, this year in 2022 is The Marsupilami’s 70th Birthday, and you mistakenly put 60th instead of 70th.
Thanks — I fixed it!
You are welcome.
Had no idea Dupuis, Dargaud and Lombard were owned by the same company. That’s pretty much like DC Marvel and Image having the same owners. Except the French don’t do crossovers.
If Dupuis wants to make more Gaston homage strips and books that’s fine. Going against Franquin’s wishes is just gross.
I might be open to see it if Delaf, a great artist in his own right, was doing it in his own style, but this bad clipart aping bs of Franquin is just… unsettling and disrespectful at best. I understand not wanting to offend the purists, but just no. I have similar feelings about mimicking Uderzo and Morris too, but at least they gave their blessing to it . They never tried this with Spirou, each new artist has always kept the series’ feel with their own artistic style.
The lawsuit is definitely gonna be an interesting story to follow.
Speaking of Spirou, Schwartz’s books were my favorite of the Spirou De that I’ve read, so I’ll give this new one a shot. As much as I love Yoann’s art I just haven’t really got into the stories he’s worked on.
Have you ever heard of children’s book author Tomie DePaola before at all?
Nope.