Izneo is the Comixology for France but they have an English language portal, and two albums you can download for free in English. They’re the digital versions of the editions published here in the US by Cinebook, and besides the free ones there’s a treasure trove of English language reading material on Izneo.
Sadly one is only available until the 30th – so hurry up and download Valerian & Laureline: The City Of Shifting Waters by Jean-Claude Mézières and Pierre Christin – it’s a warm-up of sorts, for this summer’s Valerian movie. Be forwarned, there are often gigantic blocks of test crowding out the drawings on the 9-11 panel a page layouts…I guess they really needed to conserve paper. But it’s a good intro to the series.
Also available for free permanently is The Swimming Pool of Micheville by Baru. Originally published in 1985, this is the kind of quintessential “portrait of a teenage loser” comics you’ll be familiar with from the US, only set at a public pool in Micheville here the shutdown of factories and destruction of jobs form a to familiar background.
Thanks to Augie De Blieck Jr. for pointing out these comics – and check out his site for reviews of many more Euro comics from Izneo and beyond.
