The output blue vw truck of the Last Pharaoh , episode of Blake and Mortimer reviewed and magnified by François Schuiten, put the artist of Cited the obscure under the media spotlight. On this occasion, it was able to read that the artist, 63-year-old stopped the COMIC, that he was not living his art… Contacted by Le Figaro , François Schuiten made a point.

LE FIGARO. – Stop-you are definitely the comic?

François SCHUITEN. – You can never say never! (Laughter). I know that this statement that I made during an interview a strong reaction. In saying this, I was not trying to make my farewells to the BD, nor to sensationalize. Let’s say that I have one more project in the comics and that I no longer have for the moment. I have worked for three and a half years on the album The Last Pharaoh of Blake and Mortimer . It was my personal tribute to the work of Edgar P. .Jacobs. This exhausted me. It was a “one shot”. There will be no sequel. If I take a step back with all of my years of hard work, I realize that I am no longer in phase with the system of the BD present. I don’t know I could adapt to it. This system of publishing, which leads the authors to the overproduction of albums, worries me and scares me.

what is it that has changed according to you?

today, you no longer need simply to be a cartoonist of a comic strip, you must be present on the social networks, do marketing around your album or exhibits… Make a comic strip becomes an equation more complex. We can no longer afford to do only that. While according to me, to do well in the BD, it should be in the concentration. It takes time. I know that for some, the case may seem slight. But I feel that the comic is something serious.

“I’m good out. But I have the feeling that today a COMIC book artist saw less and less of his art”

François Schuiten

Some articles published recently declare that you do not live decently from the BD. Is this true?

No, this is not true. I am good out. The Blake and Mortimer starts with a bang. I only have to look at the wide smile from my editor every time I see it… But I find that the restocking of the albums is shrinking. It is this replenishment which made them live up to then, the artists of COMICS, thanks to copyright. I have the feeling that today a COMIC book artist saw less and less of his art Myself, as my career, I had to diversify. I turned to the illustration, the poster, the set design. To finance the establishment of long of my BD, I had to sometimes resort to the sale of the original. It is an equation that I can’t solve. It is for this reason that I want to pull the alarm signal for me and the other artists. The writer Yann said there is little that “the designers of BD were the adjustment variable of the creation” . .. I see a system that panics… This worries me greatly.

Are you sad about the changing landscape of publishing comics?

Attention, do not make me say what I haven’t said. I have no bitterness. I would like to thank BD for all that she has given me. But I feel that I am at the end of what I had to do as a comic. I feel as if I have said it all. I want to renew, and to go to other art forms. For me, after the publication of the Last Pharaoh , turns a page. There, at the bottom of me, fear of making the book too. And then, I’ve got a lot to prove in other areas…

This is to say?

I have other ambitions. I would like for example to make books, illustrations, interventions in the city. I am currently working on the establishment of a huge organ in the city of Brussels. I am also in the cinema as a co-writer or visual designer…

Adapt Les Cités obscures on the big screen, is this news?

I think that if it is decided to adapt the Cited the obscure to the cinema, it would be necessary to opt for a job from the universe that we have put in place Benoît Peeters and me. But I do believe that we can adapt the albums themselves. They are too specifically related to the comic…