Spirou caught in the jaws of an alligator. Or is it a crocodile?

Spirou and Toxic Fandom

Yoann painting of Spirou and Fantasio

The Spirou Reporter published a story on Friday about the current creative team of the main Spirou series.  That’s writer Fabien Vehlmann (also of “Alone” fame) and artist Yoann.

They’ve been on it for a little while now, I believe, and something Vehlmann said prompted people to think they were leaving the series. On further clarification, it looks like they may or may not be leaving.  It’s not terribly clear.  Either they’re playing coy, or there’s weirdness in the translation, or nobody actually knows what’s going on.

But two things are for sure:

  1. They’re looking at changing things up in the formatting somehow to bring in new readers.  They’re thinking about doing “Spirou” albums as a series of shorter stories.
  2. The “fans” of Spirou are annoying and bothersome and impossible to please. It’s rather exhausting.

 

The Formatting

Spirou, Fantasio, and Marsupilami at Christmas

I wish them luck on #1. I can understand that need.  If this was the situation in America, the answer would be obvious: Smaller books that fit in one hand that Scholastic would sell.  Those are comics that “give good hand” (as CrossGen once described their smaller trades program) and are a size kids are used to and expect in their graphic novels now. Those books also tend to be thicker, because the artist can only fit so much on a page, so it takes more pages to tell the story.  And that way, the kids (and their purchasing parents) think they’re getting more story for their money.

Neat trick, that.

I don’t know what the European market for younger readers is like. Books like “Alone” have large youthful followings, from what I can tell, but who else is there leading into that?  What format are they using?  Is the standard album format still working for them, or do they want something different?  Do they want their stories to be even shorter than a 50 or 60 page album?  Do they want individual stories that feel serialized, a la “Harry Potter” and all the popular YA novels that keep getting movie deals?

I kind of like the idea of telling shorter stories that might link together later.  You get the best of both worlds that way.  You can hook the reader who doesn’t have time or doesn’t want to spend the time to sit down for longer than 15 or 20 minutes to read a story. And if you tell your shorter stories right, they can add up to something bigger, effectively still giving you a longer album-length story.

If they make a change, though, they have to stick with it. They can’t just do it once and then bail.  That’s not going to be a fair test.  Changes like this need time to catch on.  It would be too easy to do it once, see a softening in sales, declare the experiment over after a month, and go back to repeating the same old mistakes.  (The American comic book market is very good at that, too.)

That’s all I have to say about the first part of the article.  It’s the second part that deals with the “fans” that is just plain annoying. Let’s get to that next.
 

But First, a Little Background

I read my first Spirou story just last year. I didn’t see Spirou at the start and all the permutations that followed.  There’s no “Golden Age of 8” here at Pipeline World Headquarters.

I’m new at this.

That either makes me unqualified to discuss the situation any further, or the perfect third party mediator in this particular fight.

Because, you see, Spirou fandom is broken up into camps, each of which think their Spirou is the one true Spirou and that all other versions are crap.  It’s the internet, so this is not surprising.

I look at Spirou as someone who sees a history dating back 50 or 60 years. I can see the different styles he’s gone through. Heck, Franquin used a couple different styles during his tenure drawing Spirou’s adventures.

I’ve read a tiny insignificant fraction of Spirou adventures.  The most I’ve read are the Tome/Janry ones that Cinebook started with.  Second is Franquin, also from Cinebook.

The evolution of Spirou
This infographic is a little out of date, so just picture a Yoann drawing at the end.

In this chart, you can see the variety of styles Spirou’s been drawn in over the years, and I find them all interesting. They’re not that far apart in the grand scheme of things.

In fact, in all honesty, lately I’ve enjoyed seeing variations of characters as they’ve changed over the years. I like comparing one style versus another on the same character.  They’re all imaginary stories, after all, so each one might as well be an Elseworlds from the previous generation’s. It’s why I don’t even get bothered anymore when the TV or movie version of a character is different.

But, then, I’m an American who grew up on superhero comics, where drastic variations happen multiple times a year sometimes. And I know what it’s like to have a favorite period.  But I also know what it’s like to see the patterns and know when certain eras are ending.

What’s done is gone. There’s no going back.

Until they reboot, I guess.

 

Those Counter-Productive “Fans”

Spirou and Fantasio volume 53 cover by Yoann

 

You can read in the article Vehlmann’s exasperation with that small, but vocal fandom that lines up again him.

I hope he and Yoann aren’t taking the trolls to heart, though I can’t blame them if they do, though.  I get it.  They’re only human.  They work so hard on something and there’s a crowd of people waiting to call them every name in the book as soon as it’s done. That’s not exactly making you thrilled to dream up new adventures in your mind.

There’s usually, though, a lot more people who appreciate the work. Those are the people work working for.

With any luck, the pattern of comments the author of the linked article saw was just a coincidence and not an on-going concern.

I think Yoann draws a great Spirou.  I love his style and I hope some of it gets translated soon, because I’d love to read it.  The pages I’ve seen are exciting.

 

The Lesson Learned?

If nothing else, I learned that French comic fans and American comic fans are alike in perhaps more ways than we realize.

In this case, unfortunately, it’s to neither country’s credit.

 


What do YOU think? (First time commenters' posts may be held for moderation.)

5 Comments

  1. I went to locate the original interview and I can see that they are trying to gamble. The publisher doesn’t know what to do with the character at this point, they want to shake things up but they are not sure in which direction. Bringing Morvan & Munuera was an attempt at more adult stuff; didn’t take. Then Vehlmann came to do a 180 and aim at young kids, the original Spirou audience way back when. That confused a lot of people. Spirou has been around since the 1930’s and a lot of people here seem to draw comparisons with Batman in terms of persistence, switching from one creative team to another, fairly seemlessly, but in our collective minds, Spirou is associated with Franquin. He didn’t create it but made the most long-lasting impression. As you pointed out, the art hasn’t changed much over the decades, but the tone has shifted recently. Spirou has 5 generations of readers to take into account and that’s just an impossible task. So now, Vehlmann, pushed by the publisher, is attempting a ‘Me or the Chaos’ gambit to see if that stirs things up a bit. At 52, I’m right in the middle of those generations of readers, I started reading it just after Franquin died, but I’m not fixated on the Silver Age of it. Spirou being a fairly bland canvas, any author can imprint on it as long as they’re capable of telling good stories.
    Now for the younger audience, that’s a different situation. Today they’re reading mostly Manga and european stuff that looks like Manga. Can you twist Spirou to fit into that mold? Maybe. Would it work? I’m not sure. Too many brands compete for kids’ money today, and there are really good ones out there, so… Tough crowd.
    Of course the ‘fans’ protesting the loudest are cranky old guys who grew up on Rob-Vel and Franquin and are nostalgic for their youth. Dupuis should ignore them, probably, but they are loud.
    This predicament is fairly similar to what you were describing recently about the US direct market. Should the regular series be discontinued in favour of one-shots by different creative teams? Worth a shot from a marketing point of view, turning a boring predictable series into ‘events’ every time a new volume comes out. At this point they were doing both in parallel, but it’s hard to grab the longtime collector if you do this; also hard to turn the innocent passer-by into a repeat customer. Spirou is at a crossroads. Is it still a relevant brand? Time will tell.
    Recently the Dupuis publishing house as been bought off by giant Media-Participations and they want a serious return on their investment (hence the recent movie, to try and regenerate the characters). From the original article I see that the motto at Dupuis right now is throw everything but the kitchen sink at the wall and see what sticks. 80% of forgettable and 20% of gems may be an acceptable outcome for them. Tough time for creators. Reboot? Relaunch? Why does that sound familiar…

    1. The one potential positive thing I can say to Dupuis at times like this is that Marvel’s bankruptcy lead them to try new things. Marvel Knights was one of them, and it saved the publishing company. Then the movies came along and Disney bought them. But that likely never would have happened if they didn’t have their backs against the wall and had to try radically new things to survive.

      Nobody wants to change unless and until they absolutely have to.

      Spirou is such a blank canvas. They should try new things with it. That’s what Archie is doing with its characters these days, and it’s breathed new life into them. They even have a tv hit now with a show that feels so far off-brand.

      Maybe they need Brice Cossu to draw Spirou next, after “Frnk” is finished. He can bring in that manga look without going too far with it.

      1. I’m afraid Franco-belgian BD publishers are not known for their risk-taking attitude. They cajole their existing fan base making as few waves as possible. The latest best sellers around here (Lanfeust, Titeuf, Largo Winch) came totally out of left field. Happy accidents. The #1 hit in France is One Piece (something like 60 volumes by now I think). Every other big sale is a 50+ year old character (Asterix, Blake & Mortimer, Lucky Luke,… ) Nothing new under the sun. I’m sure very soon we’ll get a new printing of Tintin, that will be the day 🙂

        1. Surely, Tintin is due for a new coloring treatment! Or maybe a pure black and white reprint! Maybe an annotated edition! I’m sure someone will think of something soon.

          So, yes, I’ll chalk this up as one more way the French and American markets are similar. The major publishers just want to keep pushing out more stuff with the same proven 50+ year old characters.