#code lyoko comics

[justgrace13]

Comic Sunday Sillies!

yall are going to have to give me more ideas for themes after this 😂 I’m running out

[a-queenoffairys]

Yumi & Ulrich in the comics

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Aelita & Jeremie in the comics

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Aelita & Ulrich in the comics

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Odd & Aelita in the comics

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I recently scanned the first three comics in high quality, so here are some detail closeups of my favourite small-scale drawings.

[a-queenoffairys]

Code Lyoko comic books

Back in 2007-2008, there was a French magazine called Code Lyoko 2.0 that published news and information about the series, and included 32 pages of original comics. The magazines are hard to come by these days but if you’re interested in owning the comics, the first 3 (of 5) were published as standalone books in France and Spain.

In French, Panique à l’usine ! contains the first comic “Secouée.” In Spanish, Pánico en la fábrica contains the first comic, and Ataque en la academia contains the next two, “Abeilloïde” and “Un vrai casse-skate !” Pánico en la fábrica was released in both hardcover and paperback; the other two books are in hardcover only.

Even if you don’t speak either language, maybe you’d like to own a copy of the comics so you can look at the illustrations in high quality. So, you have three options when it comes to owning the first comic - which one do you aim for?

I would say Panique à l’usine ! is the definitive version. The image and colours are crisp and the lettering is good. There are no pages missing or in the wrong place, and the quality is consistent across all the pages. Also there are no page numbers to obscure the illustrations. But in my experience, this version is pretty hard to find at the moment, and you’ll have much more luck getting your hands on the Spanish books if you know where to look.

I decided to buy both versions of Pánico en la fábrica to see if there were any differences between the two, aaand yep. There sure are.

The hardcover version doesn’t have page numbers; the paperback does. They both have the same translation but different lettering, and the hardcover keeps the original sound effects in tact while the paperback makes them more Spanish, especially by adding ¡ at the front of them. And the hardcover has all the pages in order; the paperback has page 30 printed on page 3, but with the page 3 speech bubbles.

What’s more, the paperback has a few pages that are kinda weird quality, like the image is doubled somehow? I’m not sure how to explain it. So the hardcover sounds pretty good, right? Well... Some of the lettering almost leaves the bounds of the speech bubbles, and on some pages the text is a light grey instead of black. Plus the font choice is just much nicer in the paperback. Oh, also the hardcover illustrations are all blurry... All of them.

So while the hardcover edition definitely looks nicer on the shelf next to Ataque en la academia, I’d say go for the paperback instead. It does have 3-4 pages that are in lesser quality, but it’s better than 32.

As for Ataque en la academia, it’s really your only choice for comics 2 and 3, and thankfully it’s good quality. I’d say it’s comparable to Panique à l’usine ! - clear illustrations and colours, no print errors that I can see. It has page numbers and the sound effects are Spanish-ified. Two things to note: they string the two comics together by removing the credits from the first page of “Un vrai casse-skate !” and putting in a speech bubble where Odd relates what he’s doing now to the events of “Abeilloïde,” and page 3 of “Un vrai casse-skate !” is missing, though the story still makes sense without it. Overall, I’m definitely satisfied with this book

I know I had questions about these books when I first saw them, so I hope this will be helpful!

[a-queenoffairys]

Now the WIP and digital versions of comics 2 and 3 are available, I wanted to share something I noticed while I was working on them a few months ago. When reading the comics I often felt like the dialogue was a bit weirdly paced in places, like you'd have characters with open mouths but there was no speech bubble, or a clearly missed opportunity for drawing out the suspense using bubble placement.

When I looked at the sketch versions of the comics (which have draft dialogue written on them), it became more clear. The illustrator had planned out the speech bubbles and the panels so they both flowed perfectly together, but the letterer apparently preferred to condense as much dialogue into as few bubbles as possible.

This page was the most offensive example in my opinion - they even switched two of the bottom panels around, ruining what could've been some really good emotion in this scene.

Here we have the final page as it was published (I added the bubbles to the blank page and did the English translation). Aside from Odd's open mouth in the second panel, nothing seems too amiss, though Delmas's rant might feel a bit condensed. But then you look at the concept version.

Odd's speech bubble is in the right place and Delmas's rant isn't so condensed. But then you also have Odd and Ulrich sharing that look in the middle panel because they are off battling the forces of evil. Suddenly this shared glance turns from "Oh no we're in trouble" to "He hit the nail on the head but we can't tell him that." And Delmas facing away from them as he says they may need to repeat the year gives a more sombre tone to the end of this scene. He's not angry, he's disappointed. He knows they can do better.

There are plenty more examples of the letterer not following the illustrator's plan for the speech bubbles, but I think most of them read as a little awkward and not as tone-destroying as this one. Still, I think it's a shame everything was planned out so well and then it got ignored.

Illustrated by Ullcer, full pages available on codelyoko.fr