The Extraordinary Adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec | |
---|---|
Publication information | |
Publisher | Casterman |
Schedule | Varied |
Formats | Original material for the series has been published in the newspaper Sud-Ouest in 1976, the comics anthologies BD #28–39 and (À suivre) #29–33, 76–81, 199–201 [1] and the magazine Télérama #2998–3006. [2] |
Original language | French |
Genre | |
Publication date | 1976 – present |
Creative team | |
Writer(s) | Jacques Tardi [3] |
Penciller(s) | Jacques Tardi |
Inker(s) | Anne Delobel (1976–78) Jacques Tardi (1980–98) Jean-Luc Ruault (2007) |
Colorist(s) | Anne Delobel (1976–78) Jacques Tardi (1980–98) [4] Jean-Luc Ruault (2007) |
Reprints | |
The series has been reprinted, at least in part, in English. | |
Collected editions | |
"Pterror Over Paris" and "The Eiffel Tower Demon" | ISBN 978-1-60699-382-8 |
"The Mad Scientist" and "Mummies on Parade" | ISBN 978-1-60699-493-1 |
The Extraordinary Adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec (French: Les Aventures extraordinaires d'Adèle Blanc-Sec) is a gaslamp fantasy comic book series first appearing in 1976 written and illustrated by French comics artist Jacques Tardi and published in album format by Belgian publisher Casterman, sometimes preceded by serialisation in various periodicals, intermittently since then. The comic portrays the titular far-fetched adventures and mystery-solving of its eponymous heroine, herself a writer of popular fiction, in a secret history-infused, gaslamp fantasy version of the early 20th century, set primarily in Paris and prominently incorporating real-life locations and events. Initially a light-hearted parody of such fiction of the period, it takes on a darker tone as it moves into the post–World War I years and the 1920s.
One of Tardi's most popular works [5] and his first to span multiple albums, it has been reprinted in English and other translations and has been adapted as a feature film.
Adèle Blanc-Sec takes place in the same fictional universe as three earlier Tardi comics: Adieu Brindavoine ("Farewell Brindavoine"), serialised in 1972 in the Franco-Belgian comics magazine Pilote #680–700, its direct sequel La Fleur au fusil ("The Flower in the Rifle"), a ten-page one-shot first published in 1974 in Pilote No. 743 and included in albums of the former, and the 1974 original graphic novel The Arctic Marauder (Le Démon des glaces, "The Demon of the Ice"). It is, however, the more technology-focused, what might now be called steampunk, Arctic Marauder that takes place first in the fictional continuity, being set in the 1890s, [3] with Lucien Brindavoine's adventures, considered a less refined, early prototype for Adèle's, [6] occurring during the World War I hiatus in Adèle's story line.
Adèle itself came about as a consequence of a commission from Casterman for a multi-album series, something Tardi had not been particularly interested in pursuing of his own accord at the time but took them up on the offer. A survey of popular series demonstrated an abundance of strong male protagonists but women in the lead role represented only by, on the one hand, the ingenuous Bécassine and, on the other, the primarily sexual Barbarella; thus, he sought to differentiate his series by centring it on a heroine every bit the equal of these other comics' heroes. Contradictorily, however, and in particular contrast to Forest's Barbarella, he was also to set the series in the 1910s of Maurice Leblanc's Arsène Lupin, when her independence would be even more extraordinary. And so he created... Edith Rabatjoie (meaning Killjoy) and, subsequently, Adèle Blanc-Sec (her family name coming from wine terminology, meaning "dry white") as an adversary for her. But upon the originally villainous Blanc-Sec coming into the comic he found he enjoyed drawing her far more than Rabatjoie and so she became the protagonist and title character, while ever since retaining something of a Lupin-esque moral dubiousness and disregard for the law. Her green coat, as well as complementing her red hair, is in ironic reference to the green dress of Bécassine, whom she is partly conceived as an antithesis of. [7] The comic first appeared in the daily newspaper Sud-Ouest in 1976, with the pages in colour on Sundays and black and white on others, prior to album publication in colour throughout by Casterman and later in their (À suivre) . [3]
The adventures, set in Paris in the years before and after World War I, revolve around the protagonist Adèle Blanc-Sec. A cynical heroine, she is initially a novelist of popular fiction, who turns to investigative journalism as her research and subsequent adventures reveal further details of the mystical world of crime. Themes of the occult, corruption, official incompetence, and the dangers of patriotism suffuse the series.
One interesting feature is the hiatus which separates Adèle's first exploits, taking place in 1910s Paris, from later ones, instead set in the interwar milieu. The separation is explained with her having been cryogenically hibernated following a grave injury. The expedient was deemed necessary by Tardi to avoid her entanglement in World War I. In an interview he declared: "Her feisty nature made it impossible to provide her with a place in the war. She would not have been allowed to fight, and could no more have settled for being a nurse, than she could have remained home rolling bandages."
As of November 2022, all ten of the projected ten albums have been published in French [7] and two different English translations have been published, the first covering only the first five and the latter currently ongoing, with the aim of releasing all ten in omnibus editions of two albums each.
# | French title | Serialised | Album published | Dark Horse/NBM title | Fantagraphics title |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
01 | "Adèle et la bête" | 1976 in Sud-Ouest | 1976 | "Adèle and the Beast" | "Pterror Over Paris" and "The Eiffel Tower Demon" |
02 | "Le Démon de la tour Eiffel" | Not serialised | 1976 | "The Demon of the Eiffel Tower" | |
03 | "Le Savant fou" | Not serialised | April 1977 | "The Mad Scientist" and "Mummies on Parade" | "The Mad Scientist" and "Mummies on Parade" [8] |
04 | "Momies en folie" | April–June 1978 in BD #28–39 | September 1978 | ||
05 | "Le Secret de la salamandre" | June–October 1980 in (À suivre) #29–33 [9] | April 1981 | "The Secret of the Salamander" | "The Secret of the Salamander" and "The Two-headed Dwarf" |
06 | "Le Noyé à deux têtes" | May–October 1984 in (À suivre) #76–81 [10] | September 1985 | ||
07 | "Tous des monstres !" | August–October 1994 in (À suivre) #199–201 [11] | October 1994 | TBA | |
08 | "Le Mystère des profondeurs" | Not serialised | October 1998 | ||
09 | "Le Labyrinthe infernal" | June–August 2007 in Télérama #2998–3006 [12] | October 2007 | TBA | |
10 | "Le Bébé des Buttes-Chaumont" [13] | TBA | October 2022 |
The first five stories were translated by Randy and Jean-Marc Lofficier. They were published, as The Most Extraordinary Adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec, first by Dark Horse Comics in their Cheval Noir title and then released in book form by NBM Publishing (1990–92). [3] [14] [15]
Fantagraphics Books have signed a deal with Tardi to translate and release his work and series editor and translator Kim Thompson stated, before his demise, that the Adèle Blanc-Sec books will be translated but it is not his highest priority:
First, I wanted to start out with something fresh and previously unseen in the US (which is why I put [It Was the] War of the Trenches third instead of first), and the first couple of Adele books have been published here. You can still find them on Amazon. Second, there is what I call the popularity paradox, which is that sometimes the most popular French work is the hardest to sell as compared to the "art" comics because the more mainstream work loses some of its "alternative" audience without replacing it with a "mainstream" audience. So Adele, with its playful Euro adventure tropes, is in some ways less accessible to American readers than, say, Trenches. […] That said, Adele is on my long-term list, but I've got at least three or four more books beyond the first three I'd like to do first. [16]
The Fantagraphics titles are:
A live action feature film adapted and directed by Luc Besson, The Extraordinary Adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec was released in France on 14 April 2010 and latterly in numerous other markets, including the United Kingdom. [18]
Bandes dessinées, abbreviated BDs and also referred to as Franco-Belgian comics, are comics that are usually originally in French and created for readership in France and Belgium. These countries have a long tradition in comics, separate from that of English-language comics. Belgium is a mostly bilingual country, and comics originally in Dutch are culturally a part of the world of bandes dessinées, even if the translation from French to Dutch far outweighs the other direction.
Enki Bilal is a French comic book creator and film director.
Jacques Tardi is a French comic artist. He is often credited solely as Tardi.
Ligne claire is a style of drawing created and pioneered by Hergé, the Belgian cartoonist and creator of The Adventures of Tintin. It uses clear strong lines sometimes of varied width and no hatching, while contrast is downplayed as well. Cast shadows are often illuminated, and the style often features strong colours and a combination of cartoonish characters against a realistic background. The name was coined by Joost Swarte in 1977.
The Prize for Best Album, also known as the Fauve d'Or, is awarded to comics authors at the Angoulême International Comics Festival. As is the customary practice in Wikipedia for listing awards such as Oscar results, the winner of the award for that year is listed first, the others listed below are the nominees.
This Prize Awarded by the Audience - Cultura is awarded to comics authors at the Angoulême International Comics Festival since 1989.
À Suivre or A SUIVRE was a Belgian comics magazine published from February 1978 to December 1997 by the Casterman publishing house. Along with the comic book magazines Spirou, Tintin, Pilote, and Métal hurlant, it is considered to have been one of the major vehicles for the development of Franco-Belgian comics during the 20th century.
Benoît Sokal was a Belgian comic artist and video game developer, best known for his comics series Inspector Canardo, and the Syberia adventure game franchise.
Casterman is a publisher of Franco-Belgian comics, specializing in comic books and children's literature. The company is based in Tournai, 90 kilometres southwest of the centre of Brussels, Belgium.
Numa Sadoul (born 7 May 1947, Brazzaville, French Equatorial Africa is a French writer, actor, and director, who has been a resident of France since 1966.
Richard Peyzaret, better known by his pen name F'Murrr or F'Murr, was a French cartoonist and comic book writer. He was most famous for the long-running series Le Génie des alpages.
Kim Thompson was an American comic book editor, translator, and publisher, best known as vice president and co-publisher of Seattle-based Fantagraphics Books. Along with co-publisher Gary Groth, Thompson used his position to further the cause of alternative comics in the American market. In addition, Thompson made it his business to bring the work of European cartoonists to American readers.
The Extraordinary Adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec, released as Adèle: Rise of the Mummy in Malaysia and Singapore, is a 2010 French fantasy adventure feature film written and directed by Luc Besson. It is loosely based on the comic book series The Extraordinary Adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec by Jacques Tardi and, as in the comic, follows the eponymous writer and a number of recurring side characters in a succession of far-fetched incidents in 1910s Paris and beyond, in this episode revolving around parapsychology and ultra-advanced Ancient Egyptian technology, which both pastiche and subvert adventure and speculative fiction of the period. The primarily live-action film, shot in Super 35, incorporates much use of computer animation to portray its fanciful elements and contemporary action film special and visual effects within the form of the older-style adventure films they have largely superseded.
The Montparnasse derailment occurred at 16:00 on 22 October 1895 when the Granville–Paris Express overran the buffer stop at its Gare Montparnasse terminus. With the train several minutes late and the driver trying to make up for lost time, it approached the station too fast and the driver's application of the train air brake was ineffective. After running through the buffer stop, the train crossed the station concourse and crashed through the station wall. The locomotive fell onto the Place de Rennes below, where it stood on its nose. Although the passengers survived, a woman in the street below was killed by falling masonry.
Francis Masse, known as Masse, is a French artist. In the early 1970s, he first became acquainted with his sculptures, then turned to animation and cartoons.
Chantal Montellier, born on August 1, 1947, in Bouthéon near Saint-Étienne in the Loire Department, is a French comics creator and artist, editorial cartoonist, novelist, and painter. As the first female editorial cartoonist in France, she is noted for pioneering women's involvement in comic books.
Cheval Noir was a black-and-white anthology comic book published between 1989 and 1994 by Dark Horse Comics. First edited by Dark Horse founder Mike Richardson, Cheval Noir aimed to showcase the best work by international creators to the English-speaking audience.
Youssef Hajdi, born June 8, 1979, in Tarascon, is a French actor.
Chninkel or The Great Power of Chninkel is a Franco-Belgian comic with the story written by the Belgian writer Jean Van Hamme and the art drawn by the Polish artist Grzegorz Rosiński. First published from 1986 to 1987 in black and white, and later republished in color and translated to several languages, it mixes the genres of fantasy, science fiction and Biblical parables. It follows the adventures of a diminutive humanoid J'on, who suddenly finds himself tasked with saving the world. It has been called one of the first graphic novels in the history of Franco-Belgian comics.