Futura #11
Futura #11 marks a notable structural and editorial turning point within the series: it is the first issue to appear in the new round-spine stapled format, abandoning the square-spine perfect binding used for issues #1–10, signalling a production shift mid-run. It also debuts two new ongoing strips — *Aster* and *L'Autre* — that replace the concluded *Homicron* and *Brigade Temporelle* (temporarily) slots, making this the issue where Futura's second creative phase begins in earnest. The debut of *L'Autre* is particularly telling editorially: scripted by Franco Frescura and drawn by Luciano Bernasconi, the strip was a deliberately softened revival of *Wampus*, the Lug monster-hero series that had been banned by French censors — a telling example of how French publishers of the era navigated regulatory pressure by reformulating suppressed content under a new identity. As part of Lug's committed science-fiction anthology *Futura*, this issue contributes to the broader legacy of the series, whose original characters — including *Jaleb le télépathe* from the very first issue — were later revived by Hexagon Comics after surviving through several publishing transitions.
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Éditions Lug launched *Futura* in August 1972 as a monthly small-format (13 × 18 cm) science-fiction anthology running entirely on original material, with writer Claude-Jacques Legrand as its chief creative architect and Luciano Bernasconi as its most prominent artist. Issue #11, deposited legally in June 1973, sits at the midpoint of the 33-issue run and is the first to carry the new round-spine stapled binding, while every issue maintained a consistent 132-page count throughout the series. Covers for this middle stretch of the series (issues #8 through #20) were produced by Jean Frisano, giving the run a recognisable visual identity during its peak years.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Published by Éditions Lug (Lyon, France); legal deposit June 1973; 118 pages; black-and-white interior art.
- Contents confirmed by Bedetheque: three serial strips — *Jaleb le télépathe*, *Aster*, and *L'Autre* — plus a short prose story by Claude-Jacques Legrand.
- Issue #11 is the first to use the round-spine stapled binding; issues #1–10 had been published in a square-spine perfect-bound format.
- *Aster* (art: Annibale Casabianca) debuted with issue #11 and ran through issue #13 only.
- *L'Autre* (script: Franco Frescura; art: Luciano Bernasconi) also debuted with issue #11 and ran through issue #18; it was a consciously toned-down reworking of Lug's earlier *Wampus* series, which had been cancelled under French censorship pressure.
- Cover art by Jean Frisano, who handled covers for *Futura* issues #8 through #20.
- Creative credits for the issue: scenarios by Claude-Jacques Legrand, Franco Frescura, Annibale Casabianca, and J.K. Melwyn-Nash; interior art by Annibale Casabianca and Luciano Bernasconi.
- The *Futura* series as a whole ran 33 issues from August 1972 to April 1975; its original characters were later revived under the Hexagon Comics banner after Éditions Lug was sold to the Semic Group in 1989.