Most Popular Books by Fabien Vehlmann

The legendary adventures of reporters Spirou and Fantasio, their squirrel Spip, and Franquin''s Marsupilami - 75 years of the finest comics tradition! The 20th title of a series as fundamental as Tintin.

In the distant future, Elijah is a member of the "Philosophical Police," who must solve conflicts that arise out of ignorance of the Other. Two species are fighting a war with roots in a crime committed centuries ago, and Elijah must solve the crime and bring peace between their species, while also confronting his own immortality in a world where science provides access to eternal life. In a world where death no longer exists, why do so many want to give up on life?

A group of little people find themselves without a home in this horror fantasy classic Newly homeless, a group of fairies find themselves trying to adapt to their new life in the forest. As they dodge dangers from both without and within, optimistic Aurora steps forward to organize and help build a new community. Slowly, the world around them becomes more treacherous as petty rivalries and factions form. Beautiful Darkness became a bestseller and an instant classic when it was released in 2014. This paperback edition of the modern horror classic contains added material, preparatory sketches, and unused art. While Kerascoët mix gorgeous watercolors and spritely cartoon characters, Fabien Vehlmann takes the story into bleaker territory as the seasons change and the darkness descends. As with any great horror, there are moments of calm and jarring shocks while a looming dread hangs over the forest.

In the abandoned town, the children have established a new home and organised a life for themselves. As they prepare for a trip to other cities in an attempt to determine the extent of the phenomenon that saw everyone else vanish, they encounter and learn to deal with the problems of an existence without adults. Until one day a tall, knifewielding figure appears, and their dream of finding someone else suddenly turns into a nightmare...

The cold war between the Campton group and Saul’s clan has finally erupted into open warfare, but the increasingly strange events that affect the abandoned city eventually silence even the most bellicose instincts: the red zone is sinking into the ground, and all of the children, regardless of their allegiance, are now trapped inside the ‘lowlands’. Their only chance to get out is to work together – if it isn’t already too late...

The five children, now accompanied by several dissidents from the Clan of the Shark, have returned to Campton, where Ivan found some clues about the night of the Vanishing. One evening, as they are discussing the organisation of their new camp, the Master of Knives comes to ask for their help ... and collapses, gravely injured. Searching the city for what attacked him, the children are stunned to discover huge piles of objects covered in red paint...

The five Campton children are travelling to neighbouring cities by bus, desperately looking for other living humans. All they find are deserted settlements, burned forests and packs of feral dogs... Until one day they discover an amusement park filled with kids, all found and gathered by Saul, the owner’s son. A strange, authoritarian child who worships the park’s great white shark, and whose arbitrary rules are not at all to the taste of the newcomers...

Five years ago, little Gwenny’s father found, inside a bottle, a map with instructions on how to reach the mysterious Isle of 100,000 Graves and its legendary treasures ― and then he vanished. Now Gwenny, having stumbled across another bottle-shipped map, enlists the dubious help of a shipful of pirates, sets out to find the island, and her long-lost dad. Little does she realize that the Isle comes by its ominous name honestly, as the location of a secret school for executioners and torturers, where apple-cheeked youngsters are taught the finer points of extracting information from prisoners… and then putting an end to their lives in a wide variety of gruesome ways. And they’ve reached the point in their studies where theory should ideally give way to practice, so an influx of uninvited visitors comes as a blessing to the faculty. And yes, this story is a comedy. Albeit a dark one.

Jean-Baptiste Poulain comes to Auvergne in central France to investigate the deaths of two young women. Both were killed one year apart in the same barbaric, ritual way, their bodies left near the Black Virgin Chapel ... and the day approaches when another victim could turn up. Unfortunately, he’s going to have to struggle against the locals’ superstitions, the hostility of the authorities, and the hatred all seem to direct at the neighbouring gypsies.

Ivan, Leila, Camille, Terry, Dodzi. Five children who have never met each other, who live very different lives in a small city. Then, one day, they all wake up in their empty homes, walk out into empty streets and wander through the empty city... No adults, no other children; just the five of them eventually finding each other, and forced to band together to face the inevitable questions – and the dangers of a modern city suddenly emptied of its inhabitants.

Isère, on the marches of France. A regiment of dragoons enters a seemingly deserted village to find several badly mangled bodies and evidence of an attack by a wild animal. Survivors speak of a massive beast with almost human eyes, of a werewolf... The thing’s trail leads over the border with the Duchy of Savoy, and the commander of the dragoons takes a small detachment, in civilian clothes, after it. With them is his cousin: Jean-Baptiste Poulain...

Jean-Baptiste Poulain has been hired by the Baron of Brac to tutor his son. When the young teacher arrives on the island off the coast of Brittany, he’s immediately struck by how much the population seems to both hate and fear their lord. Which doesn’t stop the locals from going after the aristocrat’s people. Jean-Baptiste is brutally attacked – just after Nolwenn, the baron’s son, is found beaten to death...

It’s a sad day for the Campton kids: they’ve just discovered Dodzi’s lifeless body at the foot of a building, shot once in the chest. Convinced that whoever killed him must have come from the red zone – the no man’s land marked out by the monkeys’ cairns – Leila and Ivan decide to send an expedition there. But none of the children could possibly imagine what awaits them inside the zone, no more than what will happen back at the camp.

Jean-Baptiste Poulain is back in Paris when the Countess of Almedia invites him to join her salon in Andalusia. Her offer is too good to refuse, and they’re soon on their way to San Fernando by sea. During a storm, they narrowly avoid a collision with a drifting ship, the Providence. When they go aboard the derelict, all they find are corpses – and yet Jean-Baptiste is convinced he’d seen a survivor...

Even as his friends seem finally on the verge of being reunited after all their adventures, the time has come for Dodzi to regain his freedom. He must first pass the test prepared by his kidnapper, the Mad Master: an obstacle course with, perhaps, at the end, his release. Except the young boy doesn’t trust that deal, and plans to escape his own way. But nothing has prepared him for the extraordinary discoveries he’s about to make ...

Umberto Leone, a wealthy eccentric, dies in Egypt. In his will, he bequeaths enormous amounts of money to several perfect strangers – including Jean-Baptiste! Intrigued by such a curious inheritance, the young man decides to follow Leone’s tracks and sails to Cairo, last destination of the late explorer. There, in the shadow of the pyramids, he will meet French expatriates with dubious motives, gold-crazed janissaries, mysterious holy men ... and above all the beautiful Dieneba...

In the arenas, the Campton kids have won their ‘citizenship’ of the In-Between-World’s strange society. Now free to come and go as they please, they’ve left town for the mountains, following Dodzi without really knowing why. When the young boy explains to them that he is in fact trying to discover whether he is the herald of Evil – the Midnight Child – a violent dispute ensues. Meanwhile, hidden nearby, the soldiers of the First Families await an opportunity to attack...

Captured by a mysterious army just as they escaped a Campton overrun with ‘zombie’ children, Dodzi’s group, along with what’s left of the Clan of the Shark, discover an entire civilisation, ruled over by children who have been in the In-Between-World for a long, long time. Strict rules, a caste system, bizarre superstitions... All new obstacles for the group to overcome – although Saul is being treated like a messiah. And over it all hangs the threat of the sinister Midnight Child...