The Extraordinary Adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec Vol 1 Spotlight

 

 

Sci-Fi fans know Luc Besson as the director of movies like The Fifth Element, Lucy, Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, and last year's Dracula. While making The Fifth Element, Luc enlisted Valerian artist Jean-Claude Mézièrs to help with production design. When Luc kept enthusing about Valerian comics on The Fifth Element set, Jean-Claude said, "Why don't you film it?"

In Valerian: The Complete Collection Vol 1 from Cinebook, Luc Besson talks about his childhood love of Valerian comics in an introductory interview. Luc also discusses the difficulties of converting a comic series into a film. "You can read a graphic novel in half an hour, whereas a film is usually between one-and-a-half and two hours long. So there comes a point where I have to 'blow up' the story in order to develop the book's themes another way."

Many Americans may not be aware of it, but Luc Besson also adopted another comic series from his childhood to the big screen. While he filmed The Extraordinary Adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec in French, the DVD and Blu-ray releases allow you to hear the dialogue in English. Luc Besson crafted an all-together delightful adaptation of Adèle's adventures, filled with quirky characters, humor, and sci-fi fun. But how did Luc Besson explode Tardi's story to entertain French cinemagoers? And as with the Valerian comic series, how much of Tardi's story never found its way to the silver screen?

Here's all the info from Fantagraphics:

 

The Extraordinary Adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec Vol 1

Writer & Artist: Tardi

Publisher: Fantagraphics

Hardcover Price: $29.99

Book Length: 196 Pages (Full Color)

Book Size: 8" × 10.75" 

Release Date: July 14, 2026 

ISBN: 9798875002380 

 

This iconic adventure series from the ’70s stars the bold heroine Adéle, who must contend with supernatural monsters wreaking havoc in Belle Époque Paris.

Paris, 1911. One gloomy night at the Museum of Natural History, a pterodactyl escapes from its display and wreaks havoc upon the city. Enter journalist extraordinaire Adèle Blanc-Sec, who must use her wits and firepower to get to the bottom of this bizarre mystery. An enchanting antihero, Adèle is fearless, brash, and thoroughly ill-tempered, smoking and cursing her way through the case—always barely escaping peril to tell her tale.

Masterful French cartoonist Jacques Tardi created his iconic The Extraordinary Adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec series in the 1970s. Set in the atmospheric Belle Époque Paris, the series features supernatural monsters, mad science, steampunk aesthetic, murder, humor, and delightful derring-do. This new collection of classic Adèle stories includes four episodes (previously published in two earlier volumes): “Pterror Over Paris,” “The Demon of the Eiffel Tower,” “The Mad Scientist,” and “Mummies on Parade.”

In celebration of Adele's 50th anniversary, Fantagrpahics is thrilled to re-issue these classic stories in luxuriously redesigned hardcover editions. While Fantagraphics published the first four Adele adventures 15 years ago, this new series will bring the complete 10 episode run of the series into English for the very first time. With an introduction by British journalist and comics historian Cynthia Rose.

 

To preorder this new deluxe hardcover, find The Extraordinary Adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec Vol 1 at the Fantagraphics website.

 

Thanks to Fantagraphics for providing a copy for review.

 

You can find Valerian: The Complete Collection Vol 1 at Amazon or order it from the Cinebook website.