Making of the album
The Valley of the Immortals is the first album designed by Peter Van Dongen and Teun Berserik. The two designers are each distributed 27 of the 54 plates of the album and draw each one on his side, then correct each other. Teun Berserik believes that his strong points are the technical part and the characters, while the city sets are the strong point of Peter Van Dongen.
The cover, which shows Mortimer travelling in the streets of Hong Kong by rickshaw, is a reference to The Blue Lotus, published by Hergé in 1934–1935. That album's minor character "Gibbons" makes a cameo appearance.
The plot, meanwhile, is written by Yves Sente, which is the eighth album he has done for Blake and Mortimer, the first having been The VoronovPlot published in 2000. The album explores a period that Jacobs said nothing in his albums: the one following the end of the Third World War recounted by The Secret of the Swordfish . Sente also tries to explain what happened to Olrik after his defeat alongside the dictator Basam-Damdu at the end of the Secret of the Swordfish. The theme of immortality, placed at the heart of the plot, seeks to pick up keywords typically "Jacobian" to stay close to the atmosphere of albums by EP Jacobs.
The album was printed in 400,000 copies for its launch in bookstores in mid-November 2018.
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.
Jean, knight Van Hamme is a Belgian novelist and comic book writer. He has written scripts for a number of Belgian/French comic series, including Histoire sans héros, Thorgal, XIII and Largo Winch.
Edgard Félix Pierre Jacobs, better known under his pen name Edgar P. Jacobs, was a Belgian comic book creator, born in Brussels, Belgium. He was one of the founding fathers of the Franco-Belgian comics movement, through his collaborations with Hergé and the graphic novel series that made him famous, Blake and Mortimer.
Blake and Mortimer is a Belgian comics series created by the writer and comics artist Edgar P. Jacobs. It was one of the first series to appear in the Franco-Belgian comics magazine Tintin in 1946, and was subsequently published in book form by Le Lombard.
Blake and Mortimer is an animated television series, based on the Blake and Mortimer comics series by Edgar Pierre Jacobs. The series was directed by Stéphane Bernasconi, and produced by French animation studio Ellipse, shown originally in 1997.
Le Rayon U is a comic book written and drawn by the Belgian comics creator Edgar P. Jacobs in 1943.
Atlantis Mystery by the Belgian artist Edgar P. Jacobs was the seventh comic book in the Blake and Mortimer series, first published in Tintin magazine from March 30, 1955, to May 30, 1956. It appeared in book format in 1957.
The Yellow "M" by the Belgian artist Edgar P. Jacobs is the sixth comic book in the Blake and Mortimer series. It was first published in Tintin magazine between 6 August 1953 and 3 November 1954 and later appeared in book form in 1956.
The Mystery of the Great Pyramid, Volume 1: Manetho's Papyrus by the Belgian artist Edgar P. Jacobs was the fourth comic book in the Blake and Mortimer series, first published in Tintin magazine from March 23, 1950 to February 21, 1951. It appeared in book format in 1954, then was reprinted in a single-volume edition with Part 2 in 2011 (ISBN 9782870971697).
S.O.S. Meteors: Mortimer in Paris is the eighth comic book in the Blake and Mortimer series by Edgar P. Jacobs. It was first published in Tintin magazine.
Professor Sató's 3 Formulae, Volume 1: Mortimer in Tokyo is the eleventh book in the Blake and Mortimer series. It was written and drawn by Edgar P. Jacobs and was the last book of the series to be drawn by him.
The Francis Blake Affair was the thirteenth Blake and Mortimer book and the first one not to be written by Edgar P. Jacobs. It was published in 1996.
The Voronov Plot is the fourteenth book in the Blake and Mortimer comic book series. It was released in 2000.
The Strange Encounter is the fifteenth book in the Blake and Mortimer series created by Edgar P. Jacobs. Published in 2001, it was written by Jean Van Hamme and drawn by Ted Benoit who had already contributed to the series with The Francis Blake Affair in 1996. Whereas that book dealt with espionage, this story combines elements of detective and science fiction of the sort present in Jacobs' original stories.
The Curse of the Thirty Denarii is the nineteenth Blake and Mortimer book in the series. The story was written by Jean Van Hamme. Its completion was delayed with the death of the artist, René Sterne, on 15 November 2006. The book was completed by Sterne's girlfriend Chantal de Spiegeleer and was released on 20 November 2009.
The Secret of The Swordfish was the first story in the Blake and Mortimer comic album series by Edgar P. Jacobs. It describes how a far eastern empire takes over the world and the adventures of two Britons as they try to bring about the development of a weapon which will enable them to fight back. Drawing elements from the recent events of World War II as well as the emerging Cold War, the trilogy is set in an alternate reality of the 1950s, in which a Third World War is played out.
Yves Sente is a Belgian comic book editor and author. He is known as a writer for XIII, Blake and Mortimer and Thorgal.
Plutarch's Staff is the 23rd adventure in the Blake and Mortimer series. It was written by Yves Sente and drawn by André Juillard and Étienne Schréder, with color by Madeleine de Mille. The volume was released on December 5, 2014. It was pre-published as a series of daily comic strips beginning in April 2014 in Le Soir, and repeated in the summer in Le Télégramme. The title refers to the scytale, a military coding system and one of the oldest messages in history.
The Septimus Wave is the twenty-second book in the Blake and Mortimer series. It is written by Jean Dufaux, illustrated by Antoine Aubin and Etienne Schréder and released in 2013. The book is a sequel to The Yellow "M" and deals with Colonel Olrik's past with Septimus.
The Testament of William S. is the twenty-fourth album of the comic series Blake and Mortimer, written by Yves Sente and drawn by André Juillard, based on the characters created by Edgar P. Jacobs.
