Francois Schuiten, the Belgian comic book artist known for his architecturally impressive Les Cities Obscures  (Cites of the Fantastic), has been chosen to draw the next volume in the Blake & Mortimer series, one of the bestselling adventure comic franchises in the Franco-Belgian market.  Created by Belgian artist Edgar P. Jacobs in 1946, Blake & Mortimer, a team made up of leading British scientist Phillip Mortimer and his friend Captain Francis Blake of MI5, do battle with their nemesis Colonel Olrik in a series of adventures that mix mystery, adventure, science fiction, and exotic locales.

Jacobs died in 1987, but in 1996 Dargaud began publishing new Blake and Mortimer adventures, which were written by two different teams of artists and writers.  Jan Van Hamme, who is best known here in the States for the Ludlum-like XIII series that he created, collaborated with Belgian artist Ten Benoit on one series of Blake & Mortimer books, while writer Yves Sente and artist Andre Juillard produced the other series of post-Jacobs Blake and Mortimer books.

So the announcement of a third team with Schuiten will draw a volume with Thomas Gunzig writing, which was reported on French Blake & Mortimer blogs is big news indeed, especially in the world of Euro-comics where Blake & Mortimer volumes remain huge sellers.  Cinebook has made almost all of the Blake & Mortimer volumes available here in English (see “Erica Jeffery of Cinebook Ltd. On Upcoming Releases”), and games involving “the very British duo” are also available here now (see “Asmodee Winter 2015 Round-Up”).

Schuiten, who is known for his soaring architectural backgrounds, was also very influential in the development of “steampunk” with his elaborate retro creations, and his style should be a perfect complement to the science fiction-infused Blake & Mortimer narratives.