Valerian and Veronique

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Comic
title Valerian and Veronique
Original title Valérian and Laureline
Valerian et Laureline logo.gif
Original French series logo
country France
author Pierre Christin
Illustrator Jean-Claude Mezieres
publishing company Dargaud
magazine Pilots
First publication November 9, 1967
expenditure 23
The creators of Valérian and Veronique : Évelyne Tranlé (color design), Pierre Christin (author), Jean-Claude Mézières (draftsman)
Draftsman Jean-Claude Mézières in Paris, February 2007

Valerian is a French science fiction - comic series about two agents of the space-time services provided by Galaxity - the capital of the future - from acting.

The drawings are by Jean-Claude Mézières , the texts by Pierre Christin . Colored comics of Mezieres' sister were Évelyne Tranlé . The first story appeared on November 9, 1967 in issue # 420 of the comic book magazine Pilote . The series has been translated into different languages, for example English, Swedish, Portuguese and German. In Brazil, the comics were at times a weekly feature of the influential daily O Globo there .

The episodes initially appeared in Germany as sequels in the ZACK magazine published by Koralle-Verlag . The first published episode was The City of Thundering Waters , here under the title 1984 - Die Erde drowns (Issue 23/1973). The series has been published in album form by Carlsen Verlag (at times in the ComicArt edition ) since 1978 , in which the new editions of the series also appear today.

content

Valerian and Veronique are agents of the space-time service, which is active from Galaxity, the capital of the earthly empire of the 28th century. A spaceship is available that can perform the space-time jump and thus travel to different places or times. Technology for rapid language learning is also available. On his first adventure, Valerian meets Veronique on earth while traveling back in time to the year 1000. Since then, the two have formed a pair of lovers and act as equals side by side.

Their travels lead the couple to different planets with extraterrestrial, strongly exotic or even living conditions similar to those on earth. Some adventures take place on earth around the 20th century.

style

The stories allude to socio-political issues again and again. For example, exploitative systems or companies are presented in several volumes against which the supposedly weaker have to assert themselves. There are also emancipatory swipes on the part of Veronique against Valerian.

Quotations and allusions appear again and again within the series; The flying animal on the island of the children resembles that of the figure Arzach von Moebius , the figure God is reminiscent of Orson Welles and the son of caliph looks like Abdallah from Tintin . In The Spirits of Inverloch , people from the comic hunt are themed and the final image of the Deceptive Worlds alludes to the Renoir painting The Breakfast of the Rowers .

Valerian and Veronique themselves are regarded as role models for successful science fiction films. Some elements of early comic albums seem to be used in the first Star Wars trilogy.

The equipment for the film The Fifth Element was finally realized by Mézières based on the album Die Kreise der Macht .

International titles

In the French-language original, the comic is called Valérian, agent spatio-temporel , but in French-speaking countries it is usually referred to as Valérian et Laureline after the two main characters. In Germany, this was initially adopted for publication in ZACK magazine (from 1973), but in the albums of Carlsen Verlag (from 1978) it became, for unknown reasons, Valerian and Veronique .

However, the original name Laureline sometimes appears, most recently in Volume 19 ( On the Edge of the Big Nothing ), where Valerian and Veronique started a small market trade; on their company logo above the market stall stands V & L (for Valérian & Laureline). In the case of translations, the drawings are usually not adapted, but only the texts are translated into another language. Even more noticeable is the inconsistency in Volume 14 ( Living Weapons ), where on a poster under Veronique's portrait is written ЛОРЕЛИНА ( i.e. Lorelina ) in Cyrillic letters .

In June 2017, Carlsen Verlag changed the title back to Valerian & Laureline for a one-time "film edition" , as this name is also used in the film Valerian - The City of a Thousand Planets .

The English edition is called Valérian: Spatio-Temporal Agent ; Laureline has not been renamed here. In Sweden the comic appears under the title Linda och Valentin , as well as in Denmark ( Linda og Valentin ), and in the Netherlands as Ravian: Tijd / ruimte-agent .

Volumes

Some volumes appeared in Germany in a different order than originally intended. The originally correct number is given in brackets.

  • Volume 0: Bad Dreams , 2000, 56 pages ( Les Mauvais Rêves , 2000), ISBN 3-551-01890-1
    This volume contains two stories about the past and the future of the two space-time agents. In Bad dreams it comes to the first meeting of Valerian in the year 1000. The asteroid Shinballil is a video comic, the early 80s emerged and describes the bizarre properties of these celestial bodies closer. In addition, the volume contains previously unpublished illustrations and a table that puts all the adventures of the two heroes into the complex chronological structure of the series. The album was inserted into the current series as Volume 0 in 2000, as the plot of Bad Dreams takes place before the rest of the stories in the series.
  • Volume 1: The City of Raging Waters , 1978 ( La Cité des eaux mouvantes , 1970), ISBN 3-551-01871-5
    Kombul, Galaxity's most dangerous prisoner, has fled. With a space-time machine he moves to the New York of 1986: a ruined city that was completely destroyed by a hydrogen bomb explosion and in which there are only a few survivors. He would like to usurp the plans of the space-time machine and rule the world as a dictator, but dies trying to set an early machine in motion.
  • Volume 2: In the realm of a thousand planets , 1978 ( L'Empire des mille planètes , 1971), ISBN 3-551-01872-3
    Syrtis Magnificus, the center of the realm of a thousand planets, is home to a civilization that has previously had no contact with earth would have. Valerian and Veronique are to find out who rules this planet and how dangerous its inhabitants are for the earth. You can examine temples and a palace and discover complex machines there. Together with the merchants' guild, they start a campaign against the "knowledgeable" who later commit suicide, feeling rejected.
  • Volume 3: The Land Without Stars , 1979 ( Le Pays sans étoiles , 1972), ISBN 3-551-01873-1
    An unknown planet approaches an inhabited solar system on the edge of the galaxy. Upon investigation, Valerian and Veronique find a hollow planet in which there is a war between the sexes. The space-time agents can kidnap the two rulers and introduce them to the outside world. With a series of explosions, they can stabilize the planet.
  • Volume 4: Welcome to Alflolol , 1979 ( Bienvenue sur Alflolol , 1972), ISBN 3-551-01874-X
    On the industrial planet Technorog, the indigenous people appear after thousands of years of absence. They find it difficult to deal with the reserves allocated to them and have little use for the human world of work. When the natives leave again, Valerian suggests Earth as a travel destination.
  • Volume 5: The birds of the tyrant , 1980 ( Les Oiseaux du Maître , 1973), ISBN 3-551-01875-8
    Stranded on an unknown asteroid, Valerian and Veronique are forced to do hard labor. The society there has to provide food for a huge gray crowd, the tyrants. Together with their friends they can destroy the leads to the tyrant; after that the crowd disappears into space with its “crazy birds”.
  • Volume 6: Ambassadors of Shadows , 1980 ( L'Ambassadeurs des Ombres , 1975), ISBN 3-551-01876-6
    In space, an artificial planet called Central City was formed by thousands of different races in the universe. The ambassador of the earth is kidnapped by the inhabitants of the primordial cell, as the earth wants to aggressively expand its power. The ambassador can be voted and the earthly warships leave Central City again.
  • Volume 7 (9): The Monster in the Metro , 1981 ( Métro Châtelet direction Cassiopée , 1980), ISBN 3-551-01877-4
    What was going on in France in the 1980s? The public was worried about puzzling phenomena: a monster in an old salt mine, a monster in the Paris metro, a sea serpent in the Poitou swamps. On behalf of Galaxity, Valerian and his Parisian contact Albert tried to track down these phenomena. Meanwhile, Veronique is in the constellation Cassiopeia to learn something about the origin of the mystery.
  • Volume 8 (10): Endstation Brooklyn , 1981 ( Brooklyn station terminus cosmos , 1981), ISBN 3-551-01878-2
    Veronique finds out that the four energy beings were stolen by two space gangsters and turned into money on earth should. During a secret demonstration in Brooklyn, Veronique can kill the gangsters and destroy the energy beings.
  • Volume 9 (7): Trügerische Welten , 1982 ( Sur les terres truquées , 1977), ISBN 3-551-01879-0
    A mysterious being creates simulations of different epochs of the earth in space. Galaxity senses danger, and Valerian and Veronique, together with the historian Jadna, have the task of exploring the worlds. For this you need 200 clones of Valerian. When one reaches the originator of the worlds, Jadna is so fascinated that she wants to stay.
  • Volume 10 (8): The island of children , 1982 ( Les Héros de l'équinoxe , 1978), ISBN 3-551-01880-4 .
    The planet Simian urgently needs offspring. As an emissary from Galaxity, Valerian is to take part in the heroes' competition for fatherhood for the future generation. Despite certain doubts, he undergoes the grueling trials on the island of the children until he finally confronts the great mother of Filena. Countless children emerge and now populate the planet.
  • Volume 11: The Spirits of Inverloch , 1984 ( Les Specters d'Inverloch , 1984), ISBN 3-551-01881-2
    An important commission takes Valerian and Veronique into the 20th century. At Inverloch Castle in Scotland, the agents of the space-time service and some extraterrestrial life forms meet to save the threatened earth. All nuclear defense systems of the great powers are badly disrupted and the military commanders suffer from increasing mental confusion. The trail leads to the planet Hypsis.
  • Volume 12: Die Blitz von Hypsis , 1986 ( Les Foudres d'Hypsis , 1985), ISBN 3-551-01882-0
    The group around Valerian and Veronique track down a sailing ship loaded with nuclear warheads in the sea. However, this disappears into space, and with the help of Valerian's spaceship one arrives at the wandering planet Hypsis. Here God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit are in a dilapidated tower. Their plan to destroy the unprofitable earth can be repulsed.
  • Volume 13: The Great Frontier , 1989 ( Sur les frontières , 1988), ISBN 3-551-01883-9
    In the course of the events around the planet Hypsis, Galaxity disappeared in the future of the 28th century. Valerian and Veronique are on earth at the end of the 20th century. There they are supposed to help clear up a series of incidents in various nuclear facilities. They soon discover that these are targeted attacks, the cause of which apparently also comes from the future. Space-time agent Jal believes that a nuclear disaster in the 1980s is a necessary condition for Galaxity's existence. You can stop him and save the 20th century earth, but Galaxity is gone.
  • Volume 14: Living weapons , 1991 ( Les Armes vivantes , 1990), ISBN 3-551-01884-7
    Valerian and Veronique's spaceship is stranded on the still unexplored planet Blopik, where archaic wars are raging. You join a circus troupe. Captured by fighting blopiks, they perform their tricks. The group manages to escape and ends up in 20th century Russia. There you can successfully present a show again.
  • Volume 15: Die Kreis der Macht , 1994 ( Les cercles du pouvoir , 1994), ISBN 3-551-01885-5
    When Valerian and Veronique land on the overpopulated planet Rubanis due to a spaceship breakdown without a Blutok in their pockets, they must or ill use the services of the enterprising Shinguz to get money back. They get the job of the corrupt police chief to find out what is going on in the “circle of power” of Rubanis. Valerian and Veronique can gain access and destroy the "hyper-prince", an energetic being that feeds addictive holographs into the heads.
  • Volume 16: Under the Spell of Ultralum , 1997 ( Otages de l'Ultralum , 1996), ISBN 3-551-01886-3
    Valerian and Veronique spend a dream vacation in a cosmic luxury vacation paradise, where billionaires from all over the universe meet . The well-tended boredom comes to an abrupt end when a gang of criminals not only kidnaps the son of the Caliph of Iksaladam, but also brings Veronique into their power.
  • Volume 17: The Star Orphan , 1998 ( L'Orphelin des astres , 1998), ISBN 3-551-01887-1
    Reunited, the two space-time agents try to protect the son of the Caliph of Iksaladam from bounty hunters who target him the heels are. They meet a long-term student for interplanetary trade, a crazy film producer and a career-addicted university professor. You can put the caliph's son in a private school and escape the bounty hunters.
  • Volume 18: In unsecure times , 2002 ( Par des temps incertains , 2001), ISBN 3-551-01888-X
    God intervenes when the multinational company Vivaxis wants to create immortal people using genetic engineering. Satan also appears personally. Negotiations between the parties can be reached at a shareholders' meeting. Satan is stripped of his diabolical attributes and now becomes president of Vivaxis.
  • Volume 19: On the Edge of the Big Nothing , 2005 ( Au bord du Grand Rien , 2004), ISBN 978-3-551-01889-2
    In Porte-Au-Gouffre, a run-down spaceport on the edge of the Big Nothing, Valerian and Veronique more badly than right as a hawker. When the spaceship commander Singh'a Rough'a equips a ship for an expedition into the great void, the two see their chance to get closer to their real goal: to rediscover the lost earth and Galaxity, the capital of the earthly empire.
  • Volume 20: The Law of Stones , 2007 ( L'Ordre des Pierres , 2007), ISBN 978-3-551-02570-8
    The expedition meets the Wolochs, the masters of the great nothing, who look like gigantic black stone blocks. In the meantime, the seamstress Ky-Gaï learns of the fate of the Limboz, almost completely exterminated by the Wolochs, and the time opener, an artifact that could be used to defeat the Wolochs. But the Rubanis triumvirate is also after the time opener.
  • Volume 21: Der Zeitöffner , 2010 ( L'OuvreTemps , 2010), ISBN 978-3-551-02571-5
    In the final
    volume there is a reunion with almost all of the main characters in the series. With the help of the pure souls of their friends who have traveled, Valerian and Veronique can activate the Limboz's time opener and restore the earth, while the Wolochs crumble to rubble. Valerian and Veronique feel strange in the restored earth. They are completing their final space-time journey and are reborn as children in 21st century Paris.
  • Volume 22: Souvenirs of the Future , 2014 ( Souvenirs de futurs , 2014), ISBN 978-3-551-02572-2
    Nine short stories, each of which is introduced by a painted double page.
  • Volume 23: Souvenirs of the Future 2 , 2019 ( L'avenir est avancé , 2019), ISBN 978-3-551-02574-6

Special books

  • Bad dreams and four other adventure of space and time , in 1984, 72 pages ( Mézières et avec ... Christin , 1983), ISBN 3-551-02708-0
    collection of four short stories, which in the 60s and 70s in the magazine Pilote published are: (1) bad dreams , (2) space veterans , (3) back to nature , (4) as long as there are still people… . Only story 1 is about Valerian and Veronique and describes their first meeting in the year 1000. It also includes (5) The Asteroids of Shinballil , a video comic that was created in the early 80s and describes the bizarre properties of these celestial bodies in more detail. The volume was onlyreissuedwith stories 1 and 5 as volume 0: Bad Dreams as part of the regular album series.
  • The inhabitants of heaven , 1992 ( Les Habitants du ciel , 1991), ISBN 3-551-71155-0
    Hardcover association with extensive background information on the universe of Valerian and Veronique. A second part of this special volume, which has already appeared in the original, is only a new edition of the first, which, compared to the first edition, also includes a 12-page booklet. This is not yet available in German.
  • Beyond Space and Time , 1998 ( Par les chemins de l'espace , 1997), ISBN 3-551-73388-0
    This special volume brings together - for the first time in full - all seven Valerian and Veronique short stories written by Pierre Christin and Jean- Claude Mézières for the paperback Super Pocket Pilote in the 1970s.
  • Valerian & Veronique Special 1: The Armor of Jakolass , 2016 ( Valérian, vu par Manu Larcenet - L'armure du Jakolass , 2016), ISBN 978-3-551-02631-6
    A Valerian album approved by Mézières and Christin. Valerian is only a shadow of himself, unkempt and bald, there must have been a serious accident in the space-time continuum. Veronique is not thrilled.
  • Valerian & Veronique Special 2: Shinguzlooz Inc. , 2017 ( Valérian, vu par Wilfrid Lupano et Mathieu Lauffray - Shingouzlooz Inc. , 2017), ISBN 978-3-551-02632-3
    The earth belongs to the Shinguz! At least until they lose them playing poker to Sha-OO, the world sucker ... Will our space-time agents be able to help them clear this mess?

Complete edition

2007–2012, Valérian et Laureline l'Intégrale was published by Dargaud in France . Carlsen Verlag published a complete edition identical to this edition in 2010–2014. The volumes each contain three or four albums, supplemented by a foreword by Stan Barets (German adaptation and additions by Volker Hamann).

  • Volume 1 ( Bad Dreams , The City of Thundering Waters and In the Realm of a Thousand Planets ), 2010, ISBN 978-3-551-02550-0
  • Volume 2 ( The Land Without Stars , Welcome to Alflolol and The Birds of the Tyrant ), 2011, ISBN 978-3-551-02553-1
  • Volume 3 ( Ambassadors of Shadows , Deceptive Worlds and The Isle of Children ), 2011, ISBN 978-3-551-02554-8
  • Volume 4 ( The Monster in the Metro , Brooklyn terminus , The Ghosts of Inverloch and The Lightning bolts of Hypsis ), 2012, ISBN 978-3-551-02555-5
  • Volume 5 ( The Great Frontier , Living Arms and The Circles of Power ), 2012, ISBN 978-3-551-02556-2
  • Volume 6 ( In the Bann von Ultralum , The Star Orphan and In Insecure Times ), 2013, ISBN 978-3-551-02557-9
  • Volume 7 ( On the Edge of the Big Nothing , The Law of Stones and The Time Opener ), 2014, ISBN 978-3-551-02558-6
  • Beyond Space and Time - The Short Stories (New edition of the special volume Beyond Space and Time from 1998), 2017, ISBN 978-3-551-02573-9
  • Behind the Time ( Souvenirs of the Future 1 + 2 ), 2020, ISBN 978-3-551-02590-6

Film adaptations

Television series

In the early 1980s, attempts were made to convert the comic into an animated film for the first time . Mézières produced the concept for an episode entitled Les Astéroïdes de Shimballil ("The Asteroids of Shimballil"). The resulting drawings were published in 1984 as a comic in the appendix to the special volume Bad Dreams .

In 1991 the company funded Dargaud Films production of a three-minute pilot film under the direction of Bernard Deyriès . The film was animated by Studio 32 in Paris and Luxembourg , but it did not turn out to be more than three minutes. Some stills from this film were published in the Mézières Extras volume .

Another attempt to create a pilot film was made in 2001, directed by Florient Ferrier . But nothing concrete came of this either.

From 2006 to 2007 a 40-part animated series was produced in a French - Japanese co-production: Valérian et Laureline (ヴ ァ レ リ ア ン & ロ ー ル リ ン ヌ, Varerian ando Rōrurinnu ). The studios Satelight , Dargaud and Luc Bessons EuropaCorp were involved in this. Directed by Eiichi Satō . The series has been translated into English ( Time Jam: Valerian & Laureline ), Greek and Polish.

motion pictures

The French director Luc Besson filmed the comics with Dane DeHaan and Cara Delevingne in the leading roles. The two adventures on which the film is based are Volume 2: In the Realm of a Thousand Planets and Volume 6: Ambassadors of the Shadows . The film was released in Germany on July 20, 2017.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Valerian & Veronique Complete Edition Volume 5, p. 11, ISBN 978-3-551-02556-2
  2. Overview of the contents of the ZACK booklets .
  3. Valerian et Laureline at wired.com
  4. Valerian and Veronique Complete Edition Volume 5, Pages 14/15, Carlsen Verlag 2012
  5. Carlsen Comics: Valerian & Veronique Film Edition .
  6. Interview ( memento from June 29, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) with Mézières on Stripspeciaalzaak.be (ndl.), Sample image from Volume 22 at the end
  7. Meeting ( Memento of the original from May 18, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. from L'armure du Jakolass on sambabd.be (French) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.sambabd.be
  8. Carlsen Comics: Valerian & Veronique Special 1: The Armor of Jakolass .
  9. Carlsen Comics: Valerian & Veronique Special 2 .
  10. ^ Cover magazine: Mézières / Christin: Valerian and Veronique complete edition . Archived from the original on September 9, 2016. Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved May 20, 2019. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / titelmagazin.com
  11. Comic forum: Valerian & Veronique; Post by Sabine Witkowski from January 4, 2011 .
  12. Luc Besson's Next Sci-Fi Project Sounds a Little Familiar . In: Movies.com .
  13. Luc Besson's Facebook post from May 12, 2015 . In: Facebook
  14. Carlsen Comics: Valerian & Veronique Film Edition .
  15. Valerian's Facebook post from November 29, 2016 . In: Facebook