(Paris) An exceptional issue of the Tintin newspaper arrives in French and Belgian bookstores on Friday, celebrating the 77th anniversary of its publisher after a long break for this legendary comics periodical.

The Belgian editions Le Lombard thus celebrate their anniversary, with “nearly 400 pages of short stories specially created” by some 80 authors.

This special issue has a circulation of 60,000 copies, as many as number 1 of the newspaper, on September 26, 1946.

Classic heroes of Franco-Belgian comics, such as Blake and Mortimer, Michel Vaillant, Alix or Ric Hochet, and many others, are reinterpreted by contemporaries. Fabcaro, François Boucq and Alix Garin are among them.

Nothing new, however, from Tintin and his companions, like Snowy, Captain Haddock or Professor Tournesol. The rights holders of their creator Hergé do not authorize anyone to take them back.

We find boxes, entire boards, illustrations or sketches signed by the Belgian designer, who died 40 years ago. Some extremely famous, those from albums, others a little forgotten, made for other occasions, like an exhibition poster from 1979.

This issue should not be followed by others, as Le Lombard does not have a dedicated editorial team.

The weekly reached a circulation of 240,000 copies at its peak in the 1970s. It ceased publication in November 1988, when the appearance of a rival called Tintin reporter precipitated the disappearance of the two titles.

After a compilation of the best of the Belgian version of the newspaper in 2016, Le Lombard publishes, also on Friday, The great adventure of the Tintin newspaper, volume 2, with nearly 800 pages taken from the archives of the French version of the weekly.

As for the publisher of the albums, the competitor Casterman, he published Les Bijoux de la Castafiore on October 4 with the original drawings, those from the newspaper. This adventure was published there at the rate of one page per week between July 1961 and September 1962, before a slightly different version as an album in 1963.