Lastman (comic book)


Lastman is a French comics series written by Bastien Vivès and Balak and drawn by Bastien Vivès and Michaël Sanlaville. It has been published since March 2013 by Casterman in the collection KSTЯ. In 2016, an adult animation telling the genesis of the main character started being aired on the public French TV channel France 4.

Synopsis

In the "Valley of Kings", a world where magic is acknowledged as reality, an annual grand tournament sponsored by the King and Queen is being prepared. Young Adrian Velba works all year in the combat school of Master Jansen to participate. Sadly, Adrian's partner suddenly falls ill and deserts. Since it is a duo tournament, the young boy is forced to give up his dream... until Richard Aldana, a hunk with bearish manners comes out of nowhere to unexpectedly ally himself with Adrian.

Characters

Main Characters

The series was initially pre-published on delitoon.com, a free website for the publication of comic books on the web. In adapting Lastman to Delitoon, each panel was split up to follow the traditional webtoon type of manhwa, where instead of clicking to advance to the next page, the reader scrolls down to keep reading. None of Lastman's spin-off titles have yet to appear on Delitoon. Some visual differences appear between the physical and Delitoon releases of the series, notably the entirety of the eighth volume being entirely in colour on Delitoon, whereas in the physical release, only the first few pages are, with the remainder being in black and white.
Lastman is depicted as a "French-style manga", by Bastien Vivès: "We use the format and some codes of the manga but we’re not playing at imitating Japanese culture". Vivès also mentions other influences such as Disney movies and blockbusters from the 80's and 90's. Most of the characters in Lastman are named after busty pornographic actresses, notably Rachel Aldana, and Tomie Katana having both her name and likeness based on Hitomi Tanaka.
To keep up with the exacting publication rhythm of 20 sheets per week, the authors have well-defined tasks: "Bastien imagines the story in its main arcs, the intentions of the characters, the way the action will evolve, then talks about with the other two: Balak is in charge of the storyboard, cuts the album into episodes, in the way of a TV series season Finally, Michaël draws 20 sheets weekly with Bastien, and everyone checks everyone else’s sheet". The narration rhythm is based on that of a TV series’: "We try to adapt to the rhythm of quickly fast produced and aired TV series, like The Walking Dead or Game of Thrones’s adaptations. And as for this, we really have to bow down to Balak, who rapidly creates and storyboards without losing anything of his quality".
The main line of comics concluded with its twelfth volume, released on the 20th of November, 2019. As of May 2020, First Second Books has only published the first six volumes of the series in English.

Volumes List

The series has received mixed review from both generalist and specialised press. Du9, who considers that the series is a success from a formal point of view, especially thanks to the "charm of Vivès’s typical feminine characters, whose beauty is sometimes only shown by a few strokes of the pencil", also thinks that it "would be less likely that the series trigger the massive adhesion of children and pre-teen readers", the authors addressing "rather young adults or, more likely, geeks nostalgic of Japanese series and/or being receptive to "fan service"". Télérama finds "the story efficient and funny, clearly inspired by Dragon Ball of Akira Toriyama ". The Huffington Post points out that "Vivès uses the classical codes of martial arts tournament manga only to crush them more efficiently with his bearish and ruthless Aldana".
The series has met with quite a success in Europe with nearly 100 000 volumes sold. 10 000 copies were distributed in USA in March 2015.

Adaptations and other media

Adult animation (series)

An adult animated prequel to the comic book was produced thanks to a successful crowdfunding campaign in the summer of 2016. The episodes were all aired on France 4, on Tuesday evenings from November 22 to December 14, 2016.
The show was made available for streaming on Netflix in France and Belgium in 2018, and also on the Mondo Media VRV channel in the United States.
In June 2019, Vivès and Sanlaville confirmed that the animated series would be getting a second season.

Video game

A video game, Lastfight, developed by the independent publisher Piranaking, came out on September, 20th 2016. It was also released for the Nintendo Switch on November 30th, 2019.

spin-off volumes

In March 2020, Vivès revealed in an interview with BFMTV that he was working on a second Lastman Stories volume.

Exhibition

Nominations