While Cosey doesn’t show Jonathan in his short story ‘Retour’ in the collective album ‘Tintin – Numéro Spécial 77 ans’, others do. Michel Rodrigue, Erroc and Marcy made a short story about Cubitus, the big white dog, originally drawn by Dupa.

The story ends on the roof of the Lombard building in Brussels, with a lot of famous characters of the Journal Tintin. In the lower right corner, we find Jonathan.

After closing the Jonathan series, fans of Cosey were surprised to read that Cosey would make a short Jonathan story for the collective album ‘Tintin – Numéro Spécial 77 Ans’. Cosey doesn’t disappoint with his 3-pages story.

In the story, titled ‘Retour’, we don’t see Jonathan at all. We see and hear people that met Jonathan during his motor ride from Japan back to Switzerland. It is funny and it is extra funny for fans who have read the last Jonathan.

Above, you see the first image of the second page, below you see a copy of the ‘bleu de coloriage’ – without its colours.

Thanks to Cosey

Last week, I got my copy of ‘Tintin – Numéro Spéciale 77 ans’, for which Cosey made the story ‘Retour’ (3 pages).

I will come back to that story later, because I discovered this cover of the ‘Journal Tintin’, for the last issue of 1964 (both Belgian and French edition), which is also shown in the ‘Numéro Special’. It was drawn by Dino Attanasio.

All Cosey-admirers will immediately think of this legendary cover, drawn by Cosey in 1983. I think Cosey would have liked to have his cover as clean as Attanasio’s!

Cosey’s reaction to this discovery: “Super cover by Attanasio! I didn’t know it – or maybe I forgot? It shows that you never invent anything, there is always a precedent!”

I already announced a few months ago that this autumn, a special album will be published by Le Lombard, to remember the first issue of Journal Tintin 77 years ago. In the press dossier, we can read more information.

The book will have 400 pages, with some 80 famous characters making their (re)appearance. A short Jonathan comic will start at page 134, probably a two-page story.

The book will have French and Dutch editions, both in a softcover edition and a hardcover collector’s edition. In your bookshop on September 8, 2023.

Last February, Bananas No. 15 had an 8 page article about the works of Cosey. Bananas is a magazine with reviews and articles about comics and graphic novels.

Olivier Jarrige has read all the albums by Cosey and wrote an interesting analysis of his oeuvre, titled ‘Cosey, une affaire de famille‘. In his study of Cosey’s albums, Jarrige discovered that Cosey’s stories develop around family connections, or family-like connections: the characters in his stories can be classified as children, mothers, fathers, grandmothers and grandfathers. Doing this, Jarrige discovered some recurring patterns in the stories of Cosey.

For an example, I pick one of the family roles – the mother. The different mothers in Cosey’s work are all fairly old (the exemption is Drolma in the final Jonathan): Thelma and Grace Henderson (Jonathan 11: Oncle Howard est de retour), the mother of Tallulah (Joyeux Noël, May!), the mother of Zeke (Zeke raconte des histoires). They all have some kind of secret to hide, which forms to a certain degree the engine of the stories. The fathers, in contrast, are mostly blind to these secrets – to busy with themselves.

Another interesting notion of Jarrige is the role of mountains as ‘judge’ in some of the stories of Cosey. Something that deserves further study – we all know mountains and landscapes are an important aspect of Cosey’s work, but to assign an active role to it, instead of being a passive surrounding, is quite new to me.

An interesting, innovative view on Cosey’s work, that invites re-reading of the albums!

• You can buy Bananas No. 15 in the webshop of Bananas.

Thanks to Bernard Matthey-Doret

We all know the street art of Banksy, but since twelve years, Lausanne and other Swiss streets are embellished by another, less known ‘pirate artist’: Léon Missile (not his real name – the artist is represented by Eric Martinet).

Léon Missile makes use of commercial posters in the city, glues a white sheet over them and makes his paintings. He picks out the uglier posters: he will not paint over a museum poster, he told the newspaper ‘24 heures‘ a few years ago.

At this moment, you can see a 44 meters long homage to the Jonathan series along the Avenue d’Enchallens in Lausanne – one painting for every album. Because of the ‘illegal’ character of the works, it is impossible to know how long they will be visible. I hope they will stay there for a while!

Galerie Barbier in Paris has an exposition with works of Cosey that opens this Thursday, 20 April. The expo is open until 20 May. You may expect original drawings of the ‘Aire Libre’ albums.

At the same time, Galerie Barbier publishes the second volume of ‘Même poursuivi, le papillon jamais ne semble pressé’, a collection of albums from the ‘Aire Libre’ albums (published by Dupuis), in a black & white edition. The first album appeared in 2020.

This volume 2 contains the following albums:

• Zeke raconte des histoires
• Une maison de Frank L. Wright et autres histoires d’amour
• Le Bouddha d’Azur

Cosey himself will be present during the vernissage on Thursday 20 April, starting at 19.00. On Saturday 22 April, Cosey will be at the Galerie to sign copies of the new book, from 15.00 till 17.00.

More information: Galerie Barbier.

Thanks to Olivier Bezy & Thierry de Thibault

The German publisher ‘Edition Alfons’ is a publisher of ‘graphic literature’. Among other, they make the magazine ‘Reddition’. The theme of number 77 is Swiss comics.

84 pages of Swiss artists like Derib, Zep, Töpffer and Cosey, of course. Below, you see two of the pages dedicated to Cosey.

More info on the website of Editions Alfons.

Titeuf, the comics characters and series by the swiss Zep, celebrates his 30th birthday this year.

Last weekend, during the festival Art Carouge (Switzerland), the Galerie Séries Rares opened an exposition about Titeuf. You can not only see and buy originals by Zep, but also some ‘hommages’ by other artists, like Cosey.

Above, you see the drawing Cosey made for the occasion – a variation on a theme, you could say.

The exposition is open until April 1st, 2023. For more info about the expo and opening hours, please visit the website of Galerie Séries Rares.

Thanks to Bernard Matthey-Doret

Last December, Panini Comics published an Italian version of the Minnie Mouse story: ‘Il Segreto di Zia Miranda’. Good news for Italian fans.

A bit strange: the Italian edition of the Mickey (Topolino) story was published by a different publisher, Giunti.

I recently discovered polish editions of the first two Jonathan Intégrales, published by Wydawnictwo Ongrys. The albums were translated by Daniel Pánski.

There is an interesting story behind these polish Jonathans. In 2020, publisher Ongrys asked readers which comics they would like to read in polish. Jonathan ended on de sixth position in the ranking, but was one of the first series to be translated. One of the reasons behind this decision was that the Intégrale albums were available, so the polish publisher could start with a decent body of work.

In June 2021, the first album was published, the second album in December 2022. I hope the sales figures will meet the expectations of the publisher.

During the Comics Festival in Angoulême, Lombard announced a one time comeback of the ‘Journal Tintin’. The unique issue will be in shops in September 2023. The publication marks the 77th birthday of the ‘Éditions du Lombard’ – a figure that refers to the legendary subtitle of the magazine.

In the magazine, we will read 50 short stories, written by new comic artists and some of the classic artists, like Hermann, Turk, Dany and… Cosey.

From what I understand from an article in Le Figaro (by Olivier Delcroix), Cosey will make a short Jonathan story. Interesting!