Daily Scans - Spirou: Z is for Zorglub
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01:03 pm
[houbanaut]
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Spirou: Z is for Zorglub
Since nezchan has been posting great selections from some of the newer Spirou stories in French, I thought people might like to see one of the real classics in English translation.
Z is for Zorglub ("Z comme Zorglub", 1959-60, 61pp) is one of the most popular stories by André Franquin, a man who is to Spirou what Carl Barks is to Donald Duck, or Stan Lee to the Marvel universe.
In this story, Spirou and Fantasio (assisted by their friend, the Count of Champignac, as well as by Spirou's sarcastic squirrel Spip and the amazing Marsupilami, a strange jungle creature with a fantastically long tail) face up against the crazed scientist Zorglub, who can hypnotize people with a mind-control ray. However, technical malfunctions and Zorglub's own temperament keeps thwarting his nefarious plans. We pick up the story just as one of these mishaps has put Fantasio in the hospital...     The heroes face off against Zorglub's machines and his armies of mind-controlled "zorgmen" in multiple confrontations (including one where Fantasio gets kidnapped and, quite literally, brain-washed), until finally tracking him down to his secret base. There they witness his great master plan:   I won't give away the ending, an unexpected and hilarious twist that follows logically from everything up to that point. The story, by Franquin and Greg, is a great little time capsule from the late 50s/early 60s, satirizing the new modern era's fascination with advertising and electrical gizmos, the nascent space race, and providing a very Bond-like supervillain (three years before the first James Bond movie). And you gotta love the sleek 50s functionalism in the design of the chairs, the lamps and the sofas! Z is for Zorglub is the only Spirou story that is relatively easy to get hold of in English. In 1995, Fantasy Flight Publishing put it out in a witty translation by Kim Thompson (the source of these scans), and copies can be found on Amazon and eBay. Unfortunately the company folded before they had a chance to release the sequel, The Shadow of Z, even though Thompson had already completed the translation. Supposedly a bunch of the books are available in English in India, but the publisher doesn't respond to online orders or other inquiries. One of the later books by Tome & Janry is set to be released by a British publisher later this year, so hopefully more of this excellent series will soon become accessible in English. Current Mood: sick
Tags: char: fantasio, char: marsupilami, char: spirou, char: zorglub, creator: franquin, publisher: dupuis, publisher: fantasy flight
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marsupilami? Holy crap, I remember that cartoon as a kid! Didn't know he came from a comic.
The cartoon marsupilami that I've seen is very different from the comic marsupilami, though.
Marsupilami! I had no idea that he existed before the Disney cartoon! Totally rad.
Haha! I didn't even think of that. Yeah, Franquin created Marsupilami for Spirou back in 1952 (in the story "Spirou et les héritiers", or "Spirou and the Heirs"). Marsupilami was a sidekick on the series throughout Franquin's run, but when he retired from Spirou in 1968 he declined to let other writers/artists use the animal in the series. Instead he created/licensed a separate spin-off series about one of Marsupilami's wild cousins in the 1980s. (This marsulipami was first seen in the 1956-57 Spirou story "Le nid des Marsupilamis", "The Nest of the Marsupilamis".) That comic series was the basis for the Disney cartoon. So the marsupilami seen on the show is different from the one in the Spirou comic, just another animal of the same species. What happened to Spirou's marsupilami after its last appearance in 1970 is unknown. While Spirou and Fantasio certainly don't have it any more, references such as this one seem to indicate that it isn't dead... at least as far as they know.
To the best of my knowledge, the French animated series was based on Le Nid, and the Disney animated was about yet another Marsupilami and his battles with a poacher. His kids and wife don't figure into the other two.
One assumes the marsupilami that Spirou & Fantasio had (it was more Fanta's pet than Spirou's really) was sent back to live in the wild, although it's not explicitly mentioned. When Franquin left the series he took the rights to his creation with him (thus the spin-off), and future creative teams weren't allowed to use it. Which is a pity in some ways, although I don't see how it would fit into modern era books in any case.
Erg, typo. His wife and kids don't enter into the Disney one, but they do in the other two. The cubs are awfully cute, though.
![[User Picture]](http://www.insanejournal.com/userpic/7359765/376847) | | From: | ![[info]](http://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) heat16 |
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| Date: | July 9th, 2009 09:07 pm (UTC) |
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Your icon. I know that character from a french comic I read years ago. Do you know what it was called?
Yeah, that's Julien Boisvert from the similarly titled series by Michel Plessix and Dieter. The first two books, Neekibo and Grisnoir, were published in English by Heavy Metal/Kitchen Sink Press, though this picture comes from the third one. I'll probably do some scans from it at some point in the future.
| | From: | heat16 |
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| Date: | July 9th, 2009 09:46 pm (UTC) |
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Thank you. I believe I read Neekibo (where he crash-lands in a country in Africa) and one where he meets his father during the civil rights movement (I think it was called Carl)
Many thanks for the scans. I was thinking of a Zorglub post, and this takes care of that nicely. I will say that of the character designs in the series, Zorglub is one of my favourites, and he's been really interesting every time he pops up (we shall not speak of the babysitting episode).
It's a pity the latest volume requires so much backstory to make any sense, or I'd post about that.
The babysitting episode is the reason I'd rather not have people call them Franquin's "Zorglub trilogy", because then there'll be inevitably people who ask me about the third one...
...I could just pretend the third one refers to Le Réveil du Z, even if it's not Franquin's.
And I love Zorglub, my favourite being either this or the second story (Return of Zorglub, or whatever it's called in English), which illustrates nicely how he's not really evil but just doesn't think things through sometimes and has a competent Zantafio to boot (there was that fairly recent volume by Morvin and Munuera where Zantafio was just a fumbling fool, and I still haven't quite forgiven that and hope they won't get hold of Zorglub).
![[User Picture]](http://www.insanejournal.com/userpic/8857027/432926) | | From: | nezchan |
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| Date: | July 10th, 2009 02:53 am (UTC) |
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Morvan and Munuera did get hold of Zorglub in the latest volume, Aux Sources du Z and he comes off pretty well, actually showing passion for something besides his own glory. We also get a little backstory between him, Champignac and Miss Flanner, who I believe was introduced in Morvan & Munuera's first volume. The time travel implications break my brain tremendously, but it's actually a really good volume and Zorglub is treated with respect.
As to the Zantafio story (translates as "The Man Who Wouldn't Die", more or less), it's a great story. Heavy on the action, but that's Munuera's forte. Dunno about Zanta being a fumbling fool really, he's on top throughout pretty much the whole story, until he gets his comeuppance at the end. It's his rather mercenary sidekick/minions that are a bit more on the goofy side. If you want Zanta as a fumbling fool, then go back to the original appearances of him, and even in the second Zorglub story. He doesn't present terribly well in either, although he comes off much better in Tome & Janry's Moscow volume.
Ah, haven't read or even heard of the latest volume yet; I usually wait until they translate them to Finnish, because while I can and do read some of them in French, I enjoy them much more in Finnish. It's apparently just come out and in libraries, so I'll check it out.
(Incidentally, they translated the name of "The Man Wouldn't Die" very differently here, so that it was a pun of the translation of Zantafio's first appearance, "Spirou et les heritiers". I really thought the original name was a pun, too, until now.) My gripe with The Man Who Wouldn't Die is mostly that his own minions that were terrified of him the last I saw them (the Moscow story) didn't respect him at all. Zantafio messed up in the end of the Zorglub story but at least he'd gotten that far, whereas in the Munueara story he spent the volume haggling with his minions for their salary. But my favourite Zantafio story is the Moscow volume.
His minions were dead the last time we saw them. At least Nikita was. Maybe he's the man who wouldn't die!
I had to reread the story now, and I have no idea how I missed Nikita under the ice before. Maybe M&M missed it, too. But that's pretty badass of Zantafio. I thought he was being too lenient with Nikita...
I actually find the "babysitting episode ('Panade à Champignac') hilarious--or at least I did when I read it as a kid. Sure, it's completely inconsistent with everything that has been established about the zorgmen and zorg-tech, but that doesn't make it any less funny.
When putting together a Zorglub cycle, I think 'Tora Torapa' should be included. It's one of the few Fournier stories that really stands up, even though--or maybe because--it's pretty much just a remake of 'L'ombre du Z'.
I wasn't terribly impressed by any of the Morvan & Munuera stories, and didn't feel they got either Zorglub or Zantafio right. Besides, revisiting and retconning old stories seems a bit pointless to me, especially when it's just drawing attention to how screwed up the continuity is. My biggest complaint, however, is Miss Flanner. She is a terrible character, her backstory and the way people interact with her make no sense, and she essentially ruins both the albums she appears in.
Since Spirou started up again after the last hiatus, the one-shots have been more interesting to me than the main series. They've seemed to be more focused on just telling a good story. I hope Yoann & Vehlmann can put some of that energy into the title.
It was funny, I'll give you that. I'm just desperately trying to pretend that my favourite childhood villains (for a certain value of villain with Zorglub) weren't as goofy as they really are. Because that would mean that I either have a faulty memory or that the younger me was a very bad judge of badassitude. (Yet I reread the stories every few years, so obviously I have to very good at pretending...)
Tora Torapa? Goddamnit Finnish translators, why must you skip stories and completely mess up the numbering, forcing me to do detective work to find out the volumes I've missed? (They have translated over 90% of everything, so it doesn't happen often, but it's still infuriating. And then they can suddenly decide to translate something over 30 years old, just after I've given in and ordered it from the French Amazon. No sense of chronology at all.)
M&M's revisiting and retconning annoyed me, too. It was like what Don Rosa did with Barks, but not done nearly as well. I'll have to hold off my opinion for their Zorglub until I get the album.
Ah yes, the trouble you can have if your henchmen speak a different language.
Oh wow, that's some nostalgia trip you've sent me on.
I grew up with Spirou & Fantasio (Or Robbedoes & Kwabbernoot, being Dutch), and I still have every single issue of the main series that has been translated. I think I'll go andre- read all the Franquin stuff later. He really was one of the greatest comic book creators ever.
I went wandering about to all the comic stores in the city for English translations of Spirou et Fantasio before finally looking it up on the internet and finding out that looking for it in English is mostly a futile gesture.
I really appreciate your more accurate explanation on the situation. I would love to be able to get ahold of English copies (as I am terrible with languages and have a bad relationship with French in particular).
Thank you for these scans!
Amazon has it. Sort of. Others are ridiculously hard (read: impossible) to find in English, possibly excluding fan scanlators, although I couldn't find any. If you knew Finnish, you'd be in luck, though.
Curses.
The only word I still remember of Finnish is "Kiitos".
Evidently the universe is making fun of me (though the universe makes fun of us all).
I just want to mention here that Spip never fails to crack me up. "Hey buddy! Ready to ditch this joint?" He's adorable! |
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