Edgar P Jacobs.

He's great. Too wordy by half and spine-chillingly racist, but great.

Search: Yellow M, The Secret of the Swordfish (In three parts! The second is one of my favourite comics ever); and The Mystery of the Great Pyramid.

Destroy: Anything that looks too HG Wells-y and involves time traveling or aliens.

Unlike, say, Franquin, whose Gaston and Marsupilami albums are still shamefully untranslated and unavailable over here.

What's with that? Even Lucky Luke is being translated now. I assume it's a publishing rights issue, considering the amount of crappy Euro comics that have been published in English. The only one I've seen in English is the Franquin Zorglub story.

Even Lucky Luke is being translated now.

Now = the '70s? (OK maybe there's a proper chronological program going on now I don't know about, but I certainly had a bunch in the '80s)

Yeah, Lucky Luke was first translated into English in the 1970s, but Cinebooks in the UK are currently issuing translated albums that have never been available before.

Re Franquin - I too assume it's a rights issue, tho' Fantagraphics did translate (poorly) a few Gaston single pagers in one of their anthology titles, many years ago now. Please tell me more about this ZORGLUB story!

Cinebooks in the UK are currently issuing translated albums that have never been available before.

hmmmmmmm... reasonably priced? chronological? good translations?

http://www.comicbitsonline.com/2007/08/01/cinebooks/ <-- oh please not computer lettering :(

While we are on the subject, sorta.

Does anyone remember an album about a Grand Vizer, his name I'm sure began with an I. It was very Asterix-y, in fact Uderzo might have been involved.

I used to quite like them as a kid, but I haven't seen any since, I remember roughly every second frame was some sort of EXCLAMATION! or a YIKES! tumbling head over heels in fright Peanuts style panel.

You are thinking of IZNOGOUD, written by Goscinny (yes, of Asterix fame) and drawn by Tabary - no Uderzo involvement (tho' some volumes of Oumpah-Pah, a Native American strip drawn by Uderzo and written by Goscinny, were translated in the UK round abt the same time.) "I want to be Caliph instead of the Caliph". That was Iznogoud's catchphrase.

Energy Flash, the Cinebook translations are about six UK pounds, the translations are pretty good, and it doesn't look like computer lettering to me, tho' I'm no expert...

On the computer lettering nerd front -- has anyone seen the re-lettered English Tintin books? They've been computer lettered using the style of the original French/Belgian editions. Very poor show.

If anyone reads French, a visit to r*pidse*rch.yi.org/?s=suivre brings up scans of all the issues of 'A Suivre'. Unfortunately I don't read French. But art pretty!

"Iznougoud" is a great read, that's where Coscinny really let his imagination run free, the stories are often quite surreal and probably better suited for adults than kids. The stories are all about the Grand Vizer Iznougoud trying to rid of the Caliph by some odd and diabolical means to become his successor, but they always end with his schemes backfiring and something awful happening to him instead. So the scheme of the comic is rather limited, but Coscinny and Tabary (the artist) really get the most out of it. Has it been ever translated into English?

It's really a shame if Franquin hasn't been translated into English, he's easily among the top 10 greatest European comic artists of all time. His work is much less stiffer than Jacobs', for example, both art and storywise.

just bought "idées noirs" by franquin after visiting the comic book centre in brussels. all these comic strips - why haven't these fantastic belgian artists not been translated to english?

publishing rights schmublishing rights - do it!

When I was younger, I tried tipp-exing the french out of 'QRN sur Bretzleburg' -- which, incidentally, is AWESOME -- and then doing the English over the top in joined up handwriting.

Didn't really work.

FYI:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/9/97/Spirou18QRN.jpg/426px-Spirou18QRN.jpg

Idées noirs is some dark and funny shit, and Franquin's more family-oriented comics are great too, obviously. It's kinda sad if someone of his stature really hasn't been translated to English.

According to this useful and entertaining thread on the Comics Journal Message Board

http://www.tcj.com/messboard/viewtopic.php?t=5008&start=0

Franquin translations are available from an Indian publisher! Here's the link:

http://www.eurobooksindia.com/shopdisplayproducts.asp?id=140&cat=Spirou+-+Series

This looks good:
http://koti.mbnet.fi/~z14/euro-comics/index.html

I = nerd. I've ordered all the Spirou editions from Eurobooks. Only thirty quid. Apparently the translations are quite poor (surprise!) but hey, it's cheap.

why are there only 5 clifton translations?? i like 7 days to die best, big favourite when i was a kid

If you happen to be in Paris and are interested in foreign language versions of hell, just about any of Herge's or Moebius' contemporaries you could think of, I recommend this fantastic shop in the beautiful Passage Jouffroy, just a little north east of Opera on Blvd Haussmann.

Well worth a browse even if you are an English speaker, although the measure of heartache endured by the lack of English material will possibly be high.

http://i59.tinypic.com/167tbtf.jpg