Donald Duck by Bertolucci
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New BD Releases for January/February 2022

As I started putting together my Top 10 list for 2021, I started to wonder about what would be coming out in 2022.

While there are lots of books I’d love to read already out there, untranslated, I also realize that the fine folks at Europe Comics do a lot of work translating and digitally publishing the most recent books quickly. They want their releases to be as up-to-date as possible.

So it’s worth taking a look at what will be new in 2022 in France to get some ideas for what we might see on this side of the ocean.

We know a couple of old favorites won’t be here this year: 2021 was a new Asterix year, so we’re in an off-year now. (Mark your calendars for the January 2023 tease of volume 40!) The second part of the new Blacksad story is also a 2023 release. We just got an Undertaker book in the fall (late Summer in France), so I doubt we’ll see another this year.

So what remains to be seen in 2022?

An awful lot, I’m sure.

I don’t have a single source for that yet information yet, particularly on a longer time frame. I’m sure it’s on a website that I haven’t found yet. There are three places, though, that I like to check in on for release tips.

Social Media

Social Media is where word slips out about upcoming releases that I didn’t know about.

Here are a couple of recent examples that we can look forward to in 2022:

Federico Bertolucci did that art for the “Love” series of books. Frederic Brremaud wrote the scripts. Those are the fully painted silent comics focused on animals in serious situations. I’ve only reviewed the second volume in the series, “Love, The Fox“, but they’re all worth a look. The fifth book is on Kickstarter until January 7th from Magnetic Press. It’s already blown well past their goal, so the book is definitely happening.

Now, the two are back together with a book that I’m loosely translating as “Donald Duck’s Vacation.” I found out about it from a Twitter link to Bertolucci’s Instagram page. And now this website is posting the link from a link I found. That’s just how social media works some days.

Of course, I also instantly subscribed to Bertolucci’s Instagram account.

The book is already out, so it doesn’t quite qualify for the First Part of 2022 time frame I’m talking about here, but it’s close enough. I’ll hold out hope that Fantagraphics grabs this one for translation. But, then, they haven’t published the Silvio Camboni Mickey Mouse albums yet, so I’m starting to lose hope…

Florence Cestac's Ginette book, coming in January 2022

Next, I saw an announcement on Twitter for a signing on January 11, 2022 from Florence Cestac. She has a new book titled “Ginette” that she’s signing in support of.

I don’t know if we’ll see a translation of it or not, but I’m happy to see that she’s still producing books and there is always the chance of an English language edition.

If Europe Comics doesn’t help, then I’ll rely on DuoLingo to get me there.

The Publishers’ Websites

It looks like the French comics market likes to look no more than two months ahead when it comes to guaranteeing launch dates for new books. That is the way the publishers’ websites go. It reminds me a lot of our Direct Market, though even there the publishers publish longer term plans for the sake of the book market. Other websites have regular posts looking at Amazon’s listings for the next year.

On the publishers’ websites, look for the section named “à paraître”, which translates out to “Forthcoming.” You’ll find upcoming releases for the next two months there.

French cover to Love Love Love book 2

From Dupuis: Book 2 of “Love Love Love” is due out in February. That’s a sequel to the book that made the Honorable Mention list in my Top 10 list for 2021. (Read my review of “Love Love Love” v1.)

There are other interesting books on the Dupuis list that I doubt will ever get an English language edition. For example, there’s this collection of Marsupilami comic strips by Batem. That would likely be in Cinebook’s license, but it doesn’t feel like the kind of book they’d normally do.

There’s a book called “Le Roi Louve” v1 that looks interesting. It’s been serialized in Spirou Journal first, though I can’t recall ever seeing it there. I must have skipped over those pages. It looks like some kind of Young Adult manga-inspired thing in a world where humans are subservient to wolves who can change their sex every full moon and — OK, the more I translate this one, the weirder it gets.

Dargaud’s site lists “Yojimbot” Book 2 for the end of January. (I reviewed “Yojimbo” v1.) I believe the three releases we had in 2021 make up Book 1. That’s something to look forward to!

Fans of “Shi” will be happy to see the fifth volume is coming up in February. The first four books are all available in English, so I’m betting we’ll see the English release of that one in the spring.

Amalia cover by Aude Picault

Aude Picault has a new book coming out in January titled “Amalia.” It’s a 148 page story of a woman who, from what I can tell, has a nervous breakdown when her home and work lives get to be too much. I enjoyed her “Limited Edition” book, though I never reviewed it. She’s also the writer on “Pirate Family,” with great art by Fabrice Parme.

Soleil lists “Sangre” v3 for January. This one is weird because the first book got a super quick English translation (see my review), and then nothing new since. Pity.

Ekho v9 French cover

One slightly off-topic mention: “Ekho” v9 came out in France in November. I hope we’ll see that soon in 2022, too.

Oh, and also in that category: “The Old Geezers” v6! It feels like it’s been an eternity since its release, and still no English language edition.

Cinebook

Of course, Cinebook has their listings of books coming to English this year. Between their quarterly catalogs, their North American market solicitations, newsletters/website, and Amazon listings you can get a pretty decent listing of what to expect from them. We also can look further ahead in the schedule that way.

Cover to the first book in a spin-off series from Largo Winch

For example, we’ll be getting the first volume of “The Fortune of the Winczlavs”, the new prequel book for the Largo Winch universe by original writer Jean Van Hamme. It’s in the latest Previews. Amazon shows it as a June 1st release.

We should see the fourth and fifth editions of “Lucky Luke — The Complete Collection” at the end of January.

The Bluecoats reaches volume 15 with “Bull Run”, a battle which is a sore spot for Northern soldiers. That’s due out in April.

Looking way out, the 19th volume of “Spirou and Fantasio” will be another Franquin tale, “The Visitor from the Mesozoic.” There’s logic somewhere behind the order of the releases in this series, but I’ll be damned if anyone besides Dupuis could explain it.

The Man Who Shot Lucky Luke by Matthieu Bonhomme cover

Matthieu Bonhomme’s “The Man Who Shot Lucky Luke” finally makes it to print, mostly since Cinebook has little else in the Lucky Luke world left to print. It’s coming in July.

The sequel to that book, “Wanted: Lucky Luke” is also coming out in May, two months earlier.

No, that doesn’t make much sense to me, either. I hope that’s an error on Amazon’s end of things.

More on Its Way

Of course, we’ll see lots more through the rest of the year. There’s always a good surprise or three in there.

Unfortunately, we might be losing some of the announcements planned for Angouleme at the end of the month due to its postponement. But the truth and the release list will come out! It always does.

What do you think? Does any particular book above sound exciting to you?


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One Comment

  1. And the last book from the main Lucky Luke series titled: The Hanged Man’s Rope and Other Stories from 1982, which is the 50th book in the original French language Lucky Luke series comes out in July of this year in the UK, where Cinebook is headquartered, and about 3 months later on October 1st of this year across the pond in North America. Thus, by then, after 16 years from 2006-2022, Cinebook would have translated all as of now 81 books in the Lucky Luke books from French to English by July of this year.