Two comics: Coltrane and Valerian

Last week I placed an order for Coltrane by Paolo Parisi. Promising reviews. The bookshop texted me this weekend to let me know it had arrived. I ought to be collecting it tomorrow. Maybe I'll read it on the train to London this week.

I thought I would take this opportunity to brifely discuss another comic, too. Out in April is the third album of Jean-Claude Mézièrs and Christin's vintage time travelling science fiction strip, Valérian. Interestingly it's being titled Valerian and Laureline for these editions published by the Canterbury based Cinebook, perhaps its because the first thing that springs to mind otherwise is the herbal remedy? It's probably a search engine thing, too. Then again it might have been left loose all along. More after the jump.
My first introduction to Valerian was a trade paperback edition of an older English translation. It was the later story The Circles of Power which has links to the Luc Besson film The Fifth Element, starring Bruce Willis. My understanding is that the story was spawned from concept work Mézièrs did for an unmade incarnation of the film and that the film we see today is inspired by the album Mézzièrs and Cristin made.

More recently I've read the first two albums in the series: The City of Shifting Waters and The Empire of a Thousand Planets. It's my intention to do a round-up of them both along with the upcoming The Land Without Stars. That's the first three albums published by Cinebook though the first ever album is actually Bad Dreams which predates them and introduces Valérian and Laurelie for the first time--it's commonly denoted with a zero in the series.

Here's the cover for The Land Without Stars, I'm thoroughly looking forward to April when it comes out.