More XIII For British Viewers And Readers

By Jeremy Briggs on April 13, 2014

The bandes dessinee series XIII written by Jean Van Hamme and illustrated by William Vance began in the French weekly Spirou in 1984 and ran for nineteen albums between 1984 and 2007.

In 2008 XIII was brought to the small screen in a English-language Franco-Canadian TV mini-series entitled XIII: The Conspiracy which was screened by Channel Five in 2009 and is available in the UK on DVD. This acted as a pilot for a TV series simply entitled XIII that ran for two seasons in 2011 and 2012.

That TV series, featuring Stuart Townsend as XIII and Aisha Tyler as Jones (above), is now being screened on Sky 2 (Sky channel 121) in the UK. New episodes are broadcast on Wednesdays at 10pm with a repeat on Saturdays at 11pm. The series has 13 episodes in each of its two seasons.

Copyright © 2014 Sony Pictures Television. All rights reserved. With thanks to SkyTV

Cinebook translated the XIII albums into English between 2010 and 2013, all on which were reviewed here on downthetubes. Meanwhile in France a sister series XIII Mystery has been published as well as new XIII albums by a new creative team. It is good to report that Cinebook now have the rights to print both these new series in English.

The first of the XIII Mystery series, The Mongoose written by Xavier Dorison and illustrated by Ralph Meyer, is due to be published in August 2014 and the first of the new main series The Day Of The Mayflower written by Yves Sente and illustrated by Youri Jigounov, is due to be published in November 2014.

In the meantime if you have never read a XIII book before then Cinebook’s entire English version of the first book in the series The Day Of The Black Sun is available to read for free via the official French XIII website.

• There are more details of the English language XIII books on Cinebook’s website.

• There are more details of the original French XIII albums on the official XIII website (in French).

• You can read an interview with Cinebook publisher Olivier Cadic and XIII translator Jerome Saincantin on downthetubes at XIII Questions About XIII.

Jeremy Briggs

News, reviews, interviews and features for print and on-line: Spaceship Away (since October 2005), Bear Alley (since February 2007), downthetubes (since June 2007), and Eagle Times (since October 2008). Plus DC Thomson’s The Art Of Ian Kennedy, Titan’s Dan Dare and Johnny Red reprints, Ilex’s War Comics: A Graphic History and 500 Essential Graphic Novels, and Print Media’s The Iron Moon and Strip magazine.