Celebrate Free Comic Book Day 2018 - Saturday 5th of May

I normally use Free Comic Book Day to highlight some of the best titles currently available or focus on a particular imprint. I am well beyond the age when I can tolerate standing in queues for long periods, so I don’t indulge in Record Store Day or Free Comic Book Day Promos any more. I’m really not a fan of single flimsy issues, my preferences is for ’Trade Paperbacks’ with a litle more story arc, and usually includes special issues, cover art variations etc. Both Record Store Day and Free Comic Book Day have become a little bit of scrum of late, and there’s just too many ’Ebayers’ in the midst rather than bonafide fans and collectors - hucksters looking to make a fast buck by reselling immediately online. So I use those days generally to celebrate the medium, and acquire an album or issue or two that I had overlooked or else try out a new series - of course by way of collected Trade Paperbacks.

For this particular day I am shining a light on lesser known imprint Cinebook - a UK publisher which translates Belgian and French material largely from the imprints Dargaud, Dupuis, and Le Lombard. A large number of the children’s titles they offer I read in my youth in Iceland - translated into Icelandic of course - series like : Lucky Luke, Marsupilami, and Spirou & Fantasio. I am currently largely interested in the more mature / adult series on offer.

Pictured above are 6 of my favourite series - either first or latest edition. Namely : Aldebaran, Largo Winch, Orbital, Thorgal, Valerian and Laureline, and XIII. For me Aldebaran is more than one series - it really encompasses - Aldebaran, Betelgeuse, Antares and The Survivors, as well as sister series Kenya and Namibia.

• Alderbaran etc is a Cryptozoological / UFO / Aliens / Space Exploration series.
• Largo Winch is billionaire businessman with industrial espionage mixed with James Bond style action
• Orbital is kind of a different take on the Valerian and Laureline space buddy dynamic - without the dimensional-time-travel
• Thorgal is a sort of high brow Conan which weaves in Sci-fi themes too
• Valerian and Laureline is that very influential Sci-fi series recently made into a major motion picture - more of an influenced by than ’adopting’ any particular storylines
• XIII is a thrilling black ops murder mystery adventure with plenty of secret service agencies and agents involved

Cinebook is most definitely one of my favourite imprints, and to date I have read or am in the process of reading 36 of their series, as follows (alphabetical):

• Aldebaran (6 Volumes)
• Alone (8 Volumes)
• Antares (6 Volumes)
• Barracuda (6 Volumes)
• Bear’s Tooth (3 Volumes eventually)
• Chimpanzee Complex (3 Volumes)
• Crusade (4 Volumes)
• Damocles (4 Volumes)
• Darwin’s Diaries (3 Volumes)
• Green Manor (2 Volumes)
• Insiders (7 Volumes)
• IR$ (6 Volumes)
• Kenya (5 Volumes)
• Lady S (5 Volumes)
• Lament of the Lost Moors (4 Volumes)
• Largo Winch (16 Volumes)
• Long John Silver (4 Volumes)
• The Fascinating Madame Tussaud (1 Volume)
• Namibia (5 Volumes)
• Orbital (7 Volumes)
• Pandora’s Box (5 Volumes)
• Queen Margot (3 Volumes)
• S.A.M. (3 Volumes)
• The Scorpion (8 Volumes)
• Spooks (6 Volumes)
• The Last Templar (6 Volumes)
• The Marquis of Anaon (5 Volumes)
• The Survivors (5 Volumes)
• Thorgal (19 Volumes)
• Trent (2 Volumes)
• Valerian and Laureline (22 + 1 Volumes)
• Wayne Shelton (5 Volumes)
• Western (1 Volume)
• Wisher (4 Volumes)
• XIII (23 Volumes)
• XIII Mystery (1 Volume)

Note that the only Comic Book Store in London that properly / fully stocks Cinebook is Gosh! Comics at the bottom of Berwick Street in Soho. Forbidden Planet on Shaftesbury Avenue has Valerian and Laureline and a few others, as does Orbital Comics on Great Newport Street, Convent Garden. If you’re after Cinebook though you should really head for Gosh!