Mickey Mouse Café “Zombo”

Mickey Mouse Cafe Zombo cover

In 2016, Régis Loisel caused a sensation by signing his big comeback as a complete author with Café Zombo: a respectful and intimately personal tribute to the famous character of Mickey Mouse. A sumptuous album that we have decided, for the holidays, to offer you in an exceptional limited edition! Benefiting from an exceptional large format (455 x 348 mm!), this unpublished work and specially supervised by the author will present on each page a strip of the album in 3 stages of creation: pencil, black and white and colours (which will be specially reworked for the occasion). Enhanced by more than ten pages of original graphic bonuses and explanatory texts, Café Zombo – Luxe is the ideal setting to celebrate the genius of Loisel.

  • Glénat, December 2019
  • ISBN 978-2344027127
  • 455mm x 348mm (18″ x 13.7″), 154 pages, slipcased hardcover
  • 199,00 €
  • Order online: BDFugue, Amazon.fr
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As with all AE format material (Artist’s Editions, Artifact Editions, Gallery Editions, Art Editions, Studio Editions, etc.), this is a collection of classic comic material and I’ll be reviewing the book and not the story. For a complete list of all current and announced editions, with review links, please visit our Index. Also, see What is an Artist’s Edition and our Artist Index. This site contains affiliate links for which I may be compensated.

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Mickey Mouse: Café “Zombo” tirage de tête is a large hardcover collection presenting Régis Loisel’s pencils, inks, and recoloured finishes, one strip per page. A complete look at the three steps of art for every panel. And along with that is a study section from the artist with preliminaries and other art. Signed and numbered out of 499.

I had picked this up last year after seeing some preview pages, but it kept getting set aside. Last week Fantagraphics released Mickey Mouse: Zombie Coffee, which I reviewed at eBabble, and that spurred me to get this book front and center.

Scan quality is superb: nary an issue to be found. You can really immerse yourself into Loisel’s heavy use of blue pencil and the amount of detail in those. Then the relative cleanliness of the inks, but make sure to look for the subtle changes to character position or gesture. Some blue pencil is still visible in the inks, as is correction fluid.

And lest you think the coloured and completed strips are a waste, these have been recoloured with a limited palette and texture to simulate old newsprint. Take a look at the comparison image further down, showing the Fantagraphics edition (which uses the same art as the original Glénat release) compared to this volume.

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This is my first deluxe volume from Glénat, and it screams luxury. It starts from the cardboard box with a carrying handle like Taschen XXL uses, then a very sturdy slipcase, and a cloth spine hardcover with gold-edged paper. A sewn binding of heavy matte paper stock with a slight coating. Plus a silk ribbon! The book lays flat when the center is smoothed, except where the signatures meet.

While this edition was 499 copies, the book notes there were 36 ultra-limited, plus 100 other copies for the artist. And if you’re interested in learning more about the origins of this story, Glénat has an excellent interview online with Loisel, easily translated.

As always, I based the title of the review on what the book is called in the colophon, but that was elusive here so I went with the title page.

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Mickey Mouse Cafe Zombo interior 14