Mourad Boudjellal, then president of the Toulon Rugby club, on October 14, 2018 at the Mayol stadium in Toulon (AFP / Archives / GERARD JULIEN)
The former president of the Toulon rugby club Mourad Boudjellal announced on Monday his return to publishing in comics, with the first title being a fiction on a presidency Éric Zemmour.
“I decided to come back to the world of publishing. And then I was seduced by the proposal and the Editis project,” he said in a video on Twitter.
“It’s an activity that will take up a lot of space, because I have a very big ambition and I believe that the group can also do great things,” he added.
The name of the house is being kept secret for the moment, it told AFP.
Its first title, to be released on March 10, will be called “Élyzée”, with the script by historian François Durpaire, and the drawing by older brother Farid Boudjellal. These two authors imagine a France where Éric Zemmour would have been elected President of the Republic.
They had already published in 2015 “The President” (Arènes BD editions), where it was Marine Le Pen who became head of state.
On the cover of “Élyzée”, appears the mention “Mourad Éditions” where Mourad has been crossed out to be replaced by Maurice, in reference to Mr. Zemmour’s project to strictly regulate the choice of first names for newborns.
In October, in the program Les Grandes Gueules on RMC, the presidential candidate had launched to the businessman, converted into football in Hyères (Var): “You should not have called yourself Mourad, because it was prohibited by law before 1993”.
Mourad Boudjellal had founded the Soleil editions in 1989 in Toulon and had sold them to a long-time ally, Delcourt, in 2011.
He also participated in the revival of Futuropolis editions in 2004, with Antoine Gallimard. Announced in 2017 as collection director at another comic book publisher, Glénat, he had “not honored” his contract, he said in a book published in 2020.
Editis (Vivendi group) created its 51st publishing house there, and the second in comics, after Philéas, founded in 2020.
“This reflects not only the group’s desire to continue – after the creation of Philéas – its development in the field of comics, but also to create houses around talented personalities and ambitious projects”, underlined the general manager. of Editis, Michème Benbunan, in a press release.
Comics are by far the fastest growing sector in books in France, by 34% in 2021 according to Xerfi figures published by Livres Hebdo. According to another firm, GfK, it comes second in number of copies on the book market, with 24% against 25% for general literature.
© 2022 AFP
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