Pipeline and Sundry: The Campbells Ends, Belgian Soccer Dream Team, and More!
New and Upcoming Releases
- EuropeComics has an Instagram post showing the latest edition of The Campbells. It debuted in French last week. Europe Comics says in the post that it’ll be available in English this September. I can’t wait I can’t wait I can’t wait… (Update: My review of “The Campbells” v5 is now available.)
- On the other hand, the second half of that post also indicates that it’s the final volume of the series. I’ll be sad to see it go, but I’ll buy anything Munuera wants to make next that Europe Comics might want to translate. In the meantime, we should get a solid ending to the series this week. I’ll definitely be re-reading the first four volumes before September now…
- There’s a new volume of “Blake and Mortimer” coming out before year’s end in French, and not too long afterwards in English from Cinebook. They must be starting on the translation of it now to get through all the words to get it done for 2019…. (I’ll never miss a chance to pick on B&M for being so… verbose.)
- If you really want to get me to read a “Blake and Mortimer” book, get me the Francois Schuiten-drawn one that’s been rumored since 2015.
World Cup 2018: Belgium vs. France
This art featuring the all-star Belgian cartoonists’ soccer team must be made into a poster. I’m just enough of a weirdo to want to put that on my wall…
Gradimir Smudja a représenté l’équipe de foot Belge qu’avec des auteurs de BD.#EPJacobs, le créateur de #BlakeEtMortimer, est le gardien
L’équipe
Frank Pé, Renè Follet, Morris, E.P. Jacobs, Peyo, Andrè Franquin, Hergé,
René Hausman, Hermann, François Schuiten, François Waltéry pic.twitter.com/7ZwpRb1I9j— Blake Et Mortimer (@centaurclub) July 7, 2018
The game starts at 2:00 p.m. Eastern time today, where I am. I just need to find which channel it’s on, and if I have that package with my cable system. (If not, I’ll be ordering it up for a month…)
I’ll be rooting for Belgium. If you aren’t sure who to root for, I can help you choose.
On the Internet
- The next generation of Spirou gets its own Instagram account at Supergroom_Official. They’re posting some nice work-in-progress shots there so far.
- While you’re there, might I recommend Ekho’s Alessandro Barbucci’s Instagram, where he posts so many great sketches. There might be a hint or two towards the next Ekho, if you read carefully enough. (It looks like he’s posted a close-up on the cover, involving both tentacles and a King Kong type of character.)
- Coming up later this week at PipelineComics.com: The Asterix Agenda reaches book 23, “Obelix and Co.” It has a very strong script from Goscinny and art that looks… different. We’ll talk about that in the next day or three. Stay tuned!
This dream team is awesome!
I would watch every game that team played. I have a LOT of catching up to do to read every comic they made, though. 😉
Ooh, Belgium plays in the 3rd place game this afternoon! Party time!
This isn’t related to the article, but I just wanted to thank you for the site. I’m in France for vacation for a couple weeks and I wanted to see what was available in modern BD. As a kid I used to read Lucky Luke, Tintin, etc, but despite being in Quebec and having some access to the French language books (and the ability to read them) I haven’t taken advantage of this huge market. I didn’t realize that it went so much further than the cartoony books of my youth.
There just aren’t a lot of good review sites out there for BD, particularly in English. Yours is fantastic and I’m super glad to have found it. As a result of your reviews I’ve picked up some print books and also signed up for the Izneo subscription service. Nothing available in English, but a great French language selection. I just hope I can keep reading when I get back over to NA. Your review of Blast in particular got me to check that book out – wow, I was not expecting that. Reminds me of the feeling I had reading Kabuki for the first time. Obviously very different in both story and art, but I feel like both are examples of an artist just throwing his heart out onto the page. And what a compelling examination of mental illness and homelessness.
A French only book that is totally different from Blast, but which I think you may want to keep an eye out for if they ever get translated, is Imbattable. It’s a gag strip in the traditional cartoony style that stars a hero who has the power to move between panels. There are some great sequences as a result. It’s been fan translated to some extent and some of the pages are available on instagram I believe, but I’d love to see this find wider availability in the English market.
I’d also love to see what you think of Tyler Cross , which is the book I happened to pick up that opened my eyes to how good BD can be. A fine successor to Cooke’s Parker, and it looks like Europe Comics has translated it to English.
Thanks for the comment, Jordan. Glad the site’s been useful for you. ALWAYS happy to hear from someone who’s using it. =)
And thanks for the Imbattable recommendation. I’ve seen the character here and there — probably a Spirou cover, maybe? — but have never seen a story page. I just took a look at some pages on Izneo and it does look amazing. It looks right up my alley. I hope someone translates it. I’m putting it on my wish list, for sure.
I have not read Tyler Cross yet. Honestly, the art style isn’t my particular favorite. It’s not bad, but it’s not in my wheelhouse. IDW is printing the series now, and I believe EuropeComics has some translated books out there, as well. It’s on my list to try — Fabien Nury’s “Death of Stalin” was terrific, though I was less excited by his “I Am Legion” with John Cassaday on art. I will get to it, though. It seems to be a book that a lot of people have tried in English now, so I should try to keep up. 😉