Milo Manara drawing Name of the Rose detail

Pipeline and Sundry: Angouleme Rescheduled, Blacksad to Print, Milo Manara’s New Project

Angouleme: The Rescheduling

Angouleme FIBD Logo

The Festival International de la Bande Dessinée in Angouleme, France has a new date: March 17 – 20, 2022.

The original January date had to be postponed due to the Omicron wave of COVID infections, but they promised to work with government officials and consult with the artists and publishers to come up with a new date that would work for everyone.

It seems that, today, they are confident that things will be less virulent enough in approximately two months.

I hope they’re not being overly optimistic, but we’ll see.

It’s Official: The New Blacksad is Coming to Print

This isn’t a surprise. It’s almost not really news. We knew this was coming since before the book was released digitialy.

Dark Horse has made it official now with a press release: “Blacksad: They All Fall Down, Part 1” will be published in print through comic shops on July 6th and bookstores on July 19th.

Just to clear up the messy situation: This will include the entire “Part 1” book. That’s both parts that were released as two separate books digitally. Dark Horse isn’t turning this into a four-parter. They’re publishing the book as it’s meant to be read. (I reviewed part one and part two of this Part 1 as they were released digitally and it’s a nightmare I won’t be repeating with the next book.)

Once again, Diana Schutz is on the translation with Brandon Kander, and Tom Orzechowski and Lois Athena Buhalis are handling the letters. The digital edition used the same English translation, but the lettering will be different. The lettering work on the digital edition was done by Cromatik Ltd.

Manara and the Monks

Milo Manara draws the Italian mountainside

When you hear the name Milo Manara, you immediately think of his erotic works. Maybe you think of his X-Women book. Or if you’re a real Asterix geek like me, you remember his Asterix work. Whatever your frame of reference, it leans towards beautiful women.

Now, he’s drawing monks. Ok, fine, so one of them does have a relationship with a peasant girl that I’m sure Manara will include, but – it’s mostly monks in their robes.

Manara is doing an adaptation of Umberto Eco’s novel, “Name of the Rose.” That’s a murder/mystery book from 1980 set in a monastery in the 1300s. They made a movie of it a few years later starring Sean Connery.

It’s being serialized in an Italian magazine with an eye towards an album down the road.

If you’ve ever wanted to see if Minara was capable of drawing clothes with lots of folds in them, here’s your chance!


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2 Comments

  1. Apologies for this very delayed response, Augie, but your article has only just now crossed my radar—so sorry! However, as the new Blacksad: They All Fall Down • Part One finally landed in comics shops last month (after now all-too-common “supply chain issues” held it up for six weeks), I just want to let you and your readers know that Dark Horse’s print edition differs in a few significant ways from the Europe Comics digital version(s). Yes, we’ve released our book as the creators intended: as one single volume containing the first half of this two-part story—which reflects the way it was published in both France (by Dargaud) and Spain (by Norma Editorial). And our translation script has been somewhat revised, largely with an eye towards Dark Horse’s own readership—which, I believe, skews a bit older than the Europe Comics audience. Our print edition also includes a page—though I could have used two—of Notes on the Translation, which more detail-oriented readers like yourself (and/or those who are curious about the translation process) might find to be of interest. Speaking of which, thank you for yours! It’s rare nowadays to read intelligent, constructive reviews, and I’m grateful to have found yours—despite the fact that it took me a while to get here!

    1. Thanks for stopping by, Diana, and for all the kind words. I’m blushing over here. And better later than never! I still have people asking me where I went after CBR, and that’s been SIX years now… It isn’t always easy letting everyone know where you are on the internet, or that you even still exist.

      Now that Dark Horse’s edition of the book is available, I’ll definitely be picking it up. Excited to see the new translation and behind-the-scenes stuff, too. Plus, I want to re-read the book fresh now without the unfortunate way the book was split in half for the digital release. I’m afraid some of my first review of the book was colored by that experience. I owe the book a second look.