59 - Schwartz

Schwartz OLIVIER SCHWARTZ AN ADVENTURE OF SPIROU AND FANTASIO The Memory of the Future (Vol. 57), Dupuis 2024 Original cover. Signed. India ink on paper 40 × 50 cm (15.75 × 19.69 in.) Olivier Schwartz demonstrates once again that simplicity often goes hand in hand with effectiveness. Here, he has created a cover that could be described as conceptual. On one hand, he magnifies today’s Spirou—the real one, the one who puffs out his chest and shows us he’s very much alive. And on the other, like a Russian nesting doll, he draws—much smaller—the virtual Spirou from the 1950s. The one that Cyanure, the artificial intelligence, recreated. He wears the number 56 because *The Death of Spirou* was the 56th album in the series. Other elements, arranged like pieces of a puzzle, provide us with additional clues. The Atomium tells us that we’re about to be transported back in time, and Fantasio—very active in the upper left corner of the image—suggests that he’ll do everything he can to bring our hero back to reality. “I drew inspiration from the covers of albums like *Les Chapeaux noirs* or *Quatre aventures de Spirou*. You see very simple things there—silhouetted characters, like elements of the scenery.” O.S.