Spirou and Fantasio v15: “Shadow of the Z”

A Brief Timeline of Zorglub

Cinebook is going Zorglub crazy, but that might be a good thing. This book is the natural sequel to the 13th volume, “Z is for Zorglub“.

The 16th volume will be another Zorglub-centered title, “The Z Rises Again,” from Tome and Janry’s run on the series.

Going in chronological order, the next “Z” book after that came during Moran and Munuera’s run. It was their last book together. For obvious reasons — “The Campbells” is one of my favorite all-time comics — I’d love to see that book. But Moran and Munuera only did four books together. It feels weird to start with the last one, and I’m a completist who wants to see all of Munuera’s work translated together.

After that, Yoann and Vehlmann did a “Z” book, “The Dark Side of the Z” in 2011.

What I’m hoping this means in the long run is that we’ll eventually see Jose-Luis Munuera’s “Zorglub’s Daughter” two-parter get a translation. It looks like maybe we’re still three other books away before we get there.

I’ll cross my fingers.

And, then, I’ll get back to the review I’m supposed to be writing.

Roll the credits!

Nemlgroz Stiderc

(Wikipedia says this story was originally published in 1960. Cinebook says 1962. I’m siding with them.)

The Story So Far….

Here’s the thing about this book: It exists to fill a plot hole. Or, more charitably, it exists to close a loop:

In the previous Zorglub adventure, one frozen Zorglman was left behind with a weapon that could still freeze people. When Spirou, Fantasio, Spip, Marsupilami, and the Count of Champignac return to town, they’re shocked to find everyone frozen and immediately recognize the cause.

Thankfully, the good doctor/mad scientist can work around this and save the town, but he’ll have to take the fight more directly to Zorglub to fix this problem once and for all. That will send the cast to the friendly jungles of Palombia, where a couple surprises await them.

But Is It Any Good?

Yes, it is. It’s very good. It’s a clear and easy to follow story that walks you through every step of the way. It lives up to the story from “Z is for Zorglub.” I’d even argue that the art is better and more animated, while the style feels even more crisp and confident. Aside from a few contraptions between Champignac and Zorglub, this book stays away from the futuristic head shaves and people movers that the previous book had. It’s more grounded, even with the hypnotic sound waves that gives Zorglub new powers over random people.

It is, however, a bit of a long read. This story has 61 pages to it. On top of that, Franquin’s story is unrelenting. This is four tiers of art on every page with characters working out their situations via dialogue. It’s not slow. And it’s not that the story stops dead in its tracks for exposition constantly or anything like that. It’s just that you won’t breeze through this entire book over a single lunch hour.

Also, Franquin doesn’t mind stopping for a good gag, or taking an extra couple panels in the storytelling for the sake of a gag. It doesn’t slow the story down; It breaks it up and makes it more interesting to read.

It’s even more value for your money than the typical classic Franco-Belgian book already is.

This feeling of freedom to push the story out in any direction he likes means that Franquin could give Spip some moments, too. Spip gets a strong role in this book, as a matter of fact. He’s feeling a bit left out, just from being the smallest and quietest and not having a terribly active role in the story. This is the first time that Spip felt like a character all his own for me, and not just the occasional visual gag in the background.

He reminds me a lot of Dogmatix. He’s a cute animal that happens to be in every panel with the character he plays sidekick, too, but he often doesn’t have much to do. He can’t talk to the humans, but he can give funny reactions. Except Goscinny gave Dogmatix more moments than Franquin gave Spip.

This is also Franquin at his Spirou prime, from everything I’ve seen so far. Even with the dated clothes and cars and whatnot, this doesn’t feel like a dated book. It doesn’t look like something that’s nearly 60 years old. The art is just as vibrant, energetic, and detailed as anything you might see today. Franquin just packed in more panels per page than any sane artist would do today. And he didn’t sacrifice the backgrounds, though I guess it helped that Jidehem was helping with those.

The story has some nice movements and twists in it, including a big one near the end that’s well constructed and explained to the reader. Not a direct spoiler, but a warning: You’ll understand the ending of this book better if you’ve read all the previous Spirou books first. As it turns out, I haven’t. Ah, well…

The Two Acts of “Shadow of the Z”

The book is broken up into two nearly equal halves. In the first, our colorful cast of characters run around town trying to save all the frozen people while the Count works on a counter measure. Zorglub makes an appearance, which sets us up for another great tête-à-tête between him and the Count. Whenever those two are in a room together, sparks fly in a most intellectual way.

It’s fun to see Spirou and Fantasio split up and canvas the town to save the locals and defeat the remaining Zorglman. There’s a bit of false jeopardy and obvious clues that are missed, but the whole thing is done with such a light touch that I have a hard time getting mad at the story.

Now, when the story moves to Palombia for its second half, they miss the obvious clues with the letters from “Zorglub” rearranged everywhere in town as brand labels for soap and toothpaste. It gets a little too moronic for me. Characters are acting stupid to keep the plot moving, not because it makes any sense.

However, I let it go as a plot convenience, keeping in mind that these stories were written for kids, who probably thought they were super smart for figuring that out ahead of their heroic characters.

The strongest point of this book is that the characters are never passive. They’re always working towards something, even if they miss an obvious clue here or there. They continue to push towards Zorglub to defeat him once and for all (again). They drive into the deepest jungles no matter the threat they may be under. The Count gets a little cocky that his technology will save them, but that’s in character, too.

The ending is satisfying, with both a moment of great peril and one of great escape. Marsupilami gets his action moment for the sake of drama and not just comedy. It’s a well-rounded adventure, in which everyone has a part. With this large a cast of characters, that’s impressive.

Recommended?

Did you not read the last 1100 words?!? Of course! I only hope it means we’ll be seeing more of Zorglub at an accelerated schedule, because he’s a great villain in comics with a wonderful relationship with Champignac

And, yeah, I want to see Munuera’s books.

— 2019.005 —

Buy It Now

• Izneo
• comiXology
• Amazon