Valerian (comics)

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Created by writer Pierre Christin (born 1938) and artist Jean-Claude Mezieres (born 1938), Valérian and his redhead companion Laureline are space-time law enforcement agents. This French creation debuted in 1967, at issue #420 of "Pilote" Magazine, and new stories have been published since (at least as recently as of 2001).

Some of his stories feature temporal paradoxes. The strip has been translated into several languages, including English, Swedish and Brazilian Portuguese (it was once a weekly feature of the influential newspaper "O Globo").

Table of contents

1 Setting 2 Characters 2.1 Valérian & Laureline 2.2 The rest 3 List of volumes 4 External link

Setting

Valérian and Laureline are space-time agents working for the galactic Earth empire Galaxity. The agents patrol the past to protect Galaxity, as well as explore and patrol other planets. The setting of the story is in the future in the 28th century. While the stories take place at a very wide range of worlds or epochs, there are some important central locations. One of them is the Point Central space station, which is a big meeting place for people of many different species from all over the galaxy. Point Central was built a long time ago, and some of its history is unclear. It is expanded as new races add their modules to it. It is administered by ambassadors.

Galaxity is the capitol city of the Earth empire.

The spaceship Valérian and Laureline are using, called xb982, is ofcourse central to the story. It is always used by the agents to travel everywhere, sometimes using a space-time jump, a sort of hyperspace drive enabling near-instant transportation.

Characters

Valérian & Laureline

In the first adventure, Valérian was working alone. During a time travel mission to the French middle ages, where he was to capture the Galaxity scientist Xiombul, Valérian is saved by Laureline, a local young woman. Because the people living in the past are not allowed to know about time-travelling, she has to go to the future with Valérian to eventually become his partner as an agent.

Valérian is the more calm one of the two, he was raised into believing that the actions and policies of Galaxity were always right, and wants to do things properly and by the book. Laureline, on the other hand, have a skepticism towards authorities in general, and is sometimes more impulsive in her actions.

The rest

There are plenty of other characters, some of them occurring more than once in the series. Here are a few of them:

• The head of the Space-Time Service.
• Mr. Albert - Galaxity's contact in the 20th century.
• Shingouz - Three alien characters always in the business of trading.

List of volumes

• La cité des eaux mouvantes (1970)
• L'Empire des Mille Planètes (1971)
• Le Pays sans Etoiles (1972)
• Bienvenue sur Alflolol (1972)
• Les oiseaux du maître (1973)
• L'ambassadeurs des ombres (1975)
• Sur les terres truquées (1977)
• Les Héros de l'Equinoxe (1978)
• Métro Châtelet Direction Cassiopée (1980)
• Brooklyn Station Terminus Cosmos (1981)
• Les spectres d'Inverloch (1984)
• Les foudres d'Hypsis (1985)
• Sur les frontières (1988)
• Les armes vivantes (1990)
• Les cercles du pouvoir (1994)
• Les otages de l'Ultralum (1996)
• L'orphelin des astres (1998)
• Les mauvais réves (1968, republished 2000)
• Par des temps incertains (2001)

External link

• Valérian @ Cool French Comics