Издательство Éditions Lug: История французских комиксов

French comics publisher

Éditions Lug (lyg) was a French comic book publisher based in Lyon, operating from 1950 to 1989. Originally known for publishing digest sized reprints of old French and Italian comics, it then created its own characters and titles, such as the Tarzanesque Zembla. Later, Lug began licensing and publishing translated versions of Marvel Comics superhero comics with titles such as Fantask, Marvel, and most notably, Strange. In 1989, the company was acquired by the Semic Group, a Scandinavian comic book publisher, and later became a French company, Semic Comics.

Early on, however, Navarro decided that his company needed some original characters. He enlisted a number of French and Italian studios to script and draw original series and began experimenting with a wide variety of genres. The look of these series was often evocative of 1960s DC Comics. Éditions Lug's first major original success was a Tarzanesque jungle lord named Zembla (1963); its eponymous title was an immediate hit. Among other notable characters created at the times were Rakar, a masked Lakota chief; Tanka, another jungle lord; Gun Gallon, a John Carter of Mars type hero lost on a parallel world with three moons; World War II hero Rick Ross, aka Baroud; kung fu cowboy Jed Puma; Barbary Coast corsair Dragut; and superhero Pilote Noir.

In 1968, Claude Vistel, Auguste Vistel's daughter, returned from a trip to New York and convinced Navarro to publish the first translations of Marvel Comics in France, in a magazine titled Fantask (1969), which featured Fantastic Four, Spider Man and the Silver Surfer. Sensing that he was on to something, Navarro followed suit with his own creations. Wampus was launched the same year; it featured the eponymous alien monster sent by an evil cosmic intelligence to destroy the Earth, and the exploits of a S. H. I. E. L. D. like organization named C. L. A. S. H Unfortunately, Éditions Lug had run ins with French censorship,

The late 1970s and early 1980s were arguably the best years of the company. Its line of French language Marvel editions thrived with titles such as Titans (1976), Nova (1978), Spidey (1979), and graphic novels of The Fantastic Four (1973), Conan the Barbarian (1976), etc. A number of original titles were added, including a revamped version of Mustang (1980), which published Photonik, Mikros and Ozark. Other characters introduced during this period included Phenix (1978) and Starlock (1980). It even licensed its own creations to Spanish and Italian companies, where they sold with great success. It later became a French company, Semic Comics.