Hey! That’s Me In Spirou Journal!
In the Christmas 2025 issue of Spirou Journal, of all issues, Nob announced he was retiring from comics and ending his “Dad” series.
I love that series. It’s been a mainstay in the magazine for years now, often occupying the back cover.
I’ve even reviewed the first three English language books:
Sadly, the translations ended there, though the series is up to its 12th volume now in France.
However —
I smelled the publicity stunt immediately.
It’s not completely out of the realm of possibility that Nob might want to quit the series. He’s been doing it for years. It’s happened to plenty of people over the years. They need to take a break, or move onto a new project that’s been in the back of their mind for a long time.
The fact that they publicized this retirement as something Nob was doing so he could more seriously tend to his tomato garden made it silly fun.
They even devoted the issue (#4576) to other artists (like Lewis Trondheim) trying to talk sense into him.
And then they launched a letter writing campaign, promising that if they received enough letters, it would convince Nob to return. In return, they’d print the names of every letter writer in the magazine.
I couldn’t help myself. I wrote an impassioned plea for “Dad” to return in a short email.
This was my chance! I’ve had 400 letters printed in North American comics. They don’t do monthly comics in France, so my only real chance to contribute would be with something like this.
Periodic updates in the magazine in the weeks following showed the number growing quickly, likely timed to whatever date they planned to relaunch the series.
I’m cynical, I know.
“Dad” Returns
“Dad” eventually returned with the 18 February 2026 issue, though it’s moved ahead a few years and now stars Dad’s daughters. The apartment the family lived in together is no longer the main “set” of the series.
A few weeks later, Spirou Journal published a poster packed in with subscription copies of the magazine that included the name of every letter writer they had.
I found out about this from their Instagram page:
“Nob thanks you with a giant poster as a Spirou supplement.”
Unfortunately, I’m reading the magazine digitally. I don’t get the poster. This is the closest I’m going to come:
If you zoom in to the right spot — it helps that the names are alphabetized — you can find me in the upper left part of the heart, mere inches from Dad’s fingers! I’ve underlined it for you here:
Voila! C’est moi!
When Spirou Journal killed their letters column/fan art page a couple years back, I thought my only chance of ever making the magazine was dead. Nope, as it turns out, another opportunity arose and my letterhacking way landed my name in a subscriber-only bonus of the regular magazine.
I’ll take what I can get!
Someday, when things can be shipped from France to the U.S. again, I’m going to have to look into tracking down a copy of that issue with the poster on eBay.
