Le Dernier Chapitre was a series of four volumes in which Didier Convard and André Juillard imagined the heroes of comic series in their old age. The four volumes, published between 1998 and 1999, were dedicated to Blake & Mortimer, Barbe-Rouge, Les Pieds Nickelés and Johan & Pirlouit. The loving, often humorous texts by Convard, coupled with the beautiful drawings of Juillard, made these four volumes precious little jewels of good taste and finesse. The series has now been reprinted as one volume (Dargaud 2009, €29). This is an excellent example of how a brilliant idea can be marred by bad choices and carelessness. A bad choice is the fact of adopting a standard book type for the various letters exchanged by Blake and Mortimer, whereas in the original volume they were either handwritten or typed on a machine. This was probably done in order to reduce the number of pages, but it takes away much of the fascination of the original ‘letters’. Carelessness is exemplified by the various typos introduced in this process (Ramal instead of Kamal on p. 25 and 33, Ramdall instead of Kendall on p. 10). Nonetheless, the volume remains a welcome initiative, particularly for those who did not buy all four volumes when they originally came out. The new volume has the added bonus of a new cover drawing by Juillard made especially for this edition. [Article by Guido Vogliotti]
Le Dernier Chapitre was a series of four volumes in which Didier Convard and André Juillard imagined the heroes of comic series in their old age. The four volumes, published between 1998 and 1999, were dedicated to Blake & Mortimer, Barbe-Rouge, Les Pieds Nickelés and Johan & Pirlouit. The loving, often humorous texts by Convard, coupled with the beautiful drawings of Juillard, made these four volumes precious little jewels of good taste and finesse. The series has now been reprinted as one volume (Dargaud 2009, €29). This is an excellent example of how a brilliant idea can be marred by bad choices and carelessness. A bad choice is the fact of adopting a standard book type for the various letters exchanged by Blake and Mortimer, whereas in the original volume they were either handwritten or typed on a machine. This was probably done in order to reduce the number of pages, but it takes away much of the fascination of the original ‘letters’. Carelessness is exemplified by the various typos introduced in this process (Ramal instead of Kamal on p. 25 and 33, Ramdall instead of Kendall on p. 10). Nonetheless, the volume remains a welcome initiative, particularly for those who did not buy all four volumes when they originally came out. The new volume has the added bonus of a new cover drawing by Juillard made especially for this edition. [Article by Guido Vogliotti]
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