The Extraordinary Adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec

Adèle Blanc-Sec takes place in the same fictional universe as three earlier Tardi comics: Adieu Brindavoine ("Farewell Brindavoine"), serialised in 1972 in the Franco-Belgian comics magazine Pilote #680–700, its direct sequel La Fleur au fusil ("The Flower in the Rifle"), a ten-page one-shot first published in 1974 in Pilote No. 743 and included in albums of the former, and the 1974 original graphic novel The Arctic Marauder (Le Démon des glaces, "The Demon of the Ice"). It is, however, the more technology-focused, what might now be called steampunk, Arctic Marauder that takes place first in the fictional continuity, being set in the 1890s,[3] with Lucien Brindavoine's adventures, considered a less refined, early prototype for Adèle's,[6] occurring during the World War I hiatus in Adèle's story line.

Adèle itself came about as a consequence of a commission from Casterman for a multi-album series, something Tardi had not been particularly interested in pursuing of his own accord at the time but took them up on the offer. A survey of popular series demonstrated an abundance of strong male protagonists but women in the lead role represented only by, on the one hand, the ingenuous Bécassine and, on the other, the primarily sexual Barbarella; thus, he sought to differentiate his series by centring it on a heroine every bit the equal of these other comics' heroes. Contradictorily, however, and in particular contrast to Forest's Barbarella, he was also to set the series in the 1910s of Maurice Leblanc's Arsène Lupin, when her independence would be even more extraordinary. And so he created... Edith Rabatjoie and, subsequently, Adèle Blanc-Sec (her family name coming from wine terminology, meaning "dry white") as an adversary for her. But upon the originally villainous Blanc-Sec coming into the comic he found he enjoyed drawing her far more than Rabatjoie and so she became the protagonist and title character, while ever since retaining something of a Lupin-esque moral dubiousness and disregard for the law. Her green coat, as well as complementing her red hair, is in ironic reference to the green dress of Bécassine, whom she is partly conceived as an antithesis of.[7] The comic first appeared in the daily newspaper Sud-Ouest in 1976, with the pages in colour on Sundays and black and white on others, prior to album publication in colour throughout by Casterman and later in their (À suivre).[3]

The adventures, set in Paris in the years before and after World War I, revolve around the protagonist Adèle Blanc-Sec. A cynical heroine, she is initially a novelist of popular fiction, who turns to investigative journalism as her research and subsequent adventures reveal further details of the mystical world of crime. Themes of the occult, corruption, official incompetence, and the dangers of patriotism suffuse the series.

One interesting feature is the hiatus which separates Adèle's first exploits, taking place in 1910s Paris, from later ones, instead set in the interwar milieu. The separation is explained with her having been cryogenically hibernated following a grave injury. The expedient was deemed necessary by Tardi to avoid her entanglement in World War I. In an interview he declared: "Her feisty nature made it impossible to provide her with a place in the war. She would not have been allowed to fight, and could no more have settled for being a nurse, than she could have remained home rolling bandages."

As of June 2011, nine of a projected ten albums have been published in French[7] and two different English translations have been published, the first covering only the first five and the latter currently ongoing, with the aim of releasing all ten in omnibus editions of two albums each.

A live action feature film adapted and directed by Luc Besson, The Extraordinary Adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec was released in France on 14 April 2010 and latterly in numerous other markets, including the United Kingdom.[18]