2023-11-21 21:00:02
Excerpt from the new Gaston Lagaffe, “Le Retour de Lagaffe” (2023), by Delaf (Dupuis). DUPUIS
Rarely has a comic book album attracted so much attention before its publication. The release, Wednesday November 22, of Return of Lagaffe (Dupuis), written and drawn by the Canadian author Delaf, closes a unique legal episode, of a virulence irreconcilable with the humorous universe of André Franquin (1924-1997), the father of Gaston Lagaffe.
By ruling in favor, on May 30, at the Dupuis publishing house (Média-Participations group), Belgian justice ratified the rebirth of this iconic hero of the 9th art that all comic book lovers believed to be eternally condemned to the heritage shelves of libraries . So here is Gaston again in bookstores, more than twenty-five years after the death of his creator.
The stakes are colossal for its buyers, who hope to sell 800,000 copies of this new volume, the twenty-second in the series. Never had Dupuis deployed such an implementation, even in the heyday of Largo Winch. Added to the 2.3 million expected sales of the new Asterix – L’Iris blanc (Editions Albert René), released in October, a “recovery” also, signed Didier Conrad and Fabcaro – the Lagaffe “score” could make 2023 a record year for the comics market. The matter is not yet won.
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Delayed for a year due to the appeal filed by Isabelle Franquin, the daughter and beneficiary of André Franquin, the comeback of the hero in espadrilles continues to be strongly criticized on social networks by opponents of the project, among whom are mainly admirers of the sacred monster of Brussels.
Franquin’s refusal, not so categorical
For them, taking back Gaston is sacrilege. First, because Franquin’s line, of crazy expressiveness, cannot bear any imitation. Then, because Gaston was a fictional double of his creator, an anarchist and eco-friendly at heart. Finally, because Franquin has declared several times that he does not want Gaston to survive him.
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In an argument recently published on his site, Dupuis today affirms that Franquin’s refusal was not so categorical. The publishing house found the recorded tapes of certain interviews, which, according to it, were not transcribed in their entirety.
“In one of them, among the last interviews given in his life, André Franquin even announces that he is looking for a buyer and declares possible an upcoming cover of Gaston by an artist he has just approached. He would like this takeover to be done in the tradition of the transmission from master to apprentice of painters’ workshops, but which the artist approached would have refused for the moment.indicates the Franco-Belgian publisher, without specifying the identity of the “artist” in question, even if everything suggests that it was Christian Debarre, alias Bar2, the father of Joe Bar Teama motorcycle-themed series.
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