Published in El País , 08 - September , 2015 Opinion recommendations and legal news

One of the best plates of Corto Maltese Hugo Pratt drew not only his friend Milo Manara. It all characters in the series a ruthless and amoral type however is the closest thing to a friend that has the sailor in the foreground appear on a beach, with Rasputin. Look at the horizon and says: \"When he comes, I\'ll be the first to see it and say, \'I have always above\'. Then he will say to me, \'You\'re smart with that trench\'. And we will go together to another beautiful story. \" But the reader will not return Short knew that his death was orphaned Hugo Pratt his characters and his readers. Until now. Two decades after the death of the Italian artist, Spaniards Juan Diaz Canales and Ruben Pellejero have resurrected the character and published next September 30 under the midnight sun, the first album that does not sign Corto Maltese Pratt. What has been the norm in the world of comics since its origins, franchises, begins to infect literature.

David Lagercrantz has resurrected the series Millennium, Stieg Larsson, as before Benjamin Black (pseudonym of John Banville for crime novel) Philip Marlowe or recovered Sophie Hannah relaunched Hercule Poirot. Some characters have created their own, independent of any will of the original author genres, as has happened with Sherlock Holmes. The publisher Valdemar even edited a collection of apocryphal Baker Street detective in which gems like The Ring case of philosophers, Randall Collins, who joined Holmes in Cambridge, Bertrand Russell and Ludwig Wittgenstein in a detective story reported that also it reflected on the power of logic and its limits. To some extent, Arthur Conan Doyle had to make a pastiche of his own work because, after killing the detective, he was forced to resurrect (literally) by pressure from readers. In the film Mr. Holmes, now in poster, Ian McKellen plays the detective, already near its end. Based on the novel by Mitch Cullin, published by Roca, it manages to offer a human image, even fallible, the most intelligent character in world literature.

 
Lisbeth Salander.
Where does the tribute and start the business (or even betrayal)? Who owns the film and literary characters, authors or their readers? Is it possible to recover any character? How far you can stretch a series without end completely denatured? Literary franchises posed by these and many other issues.

But in the case of comics they have never been on the table. \"All superhero series and nearly 90% of Franco-Belgian comics are published as franchises, because the characters are the property of the publishers, not the authors,\" explains Alvaro Pons, one of the leading experts in Spanish comics, author of the blog Paper jail.

The only exception to this rule is Tintin, who never returned after the death of Hergé, although it could be a fabulous business. Asterix, for example, continued after the death of his alma mater and writer Rene Goscinny, hand cartoonist Albert Uderzo. Even when the latter retired, the franchise has remained open with a huge bestseller. The writer Jean-Yves Ferri recovered the character in Asterix and the Picts, and the next album, The papyrus Caesar, due out in autumn with a circulation of 1.7 million copies in France (the new Corto Maltese will be put on the street 300,000 copies). Some series like Thorgal or Blueberry have finally watered down so much that they lost their sense and shocked many fans, but others, like Blake and Mortimer, have been able to maintain their quality regardless of the authors: it is kept alive since 1947, despite its creator, Edgar P. Jacobs, died in 1987.

Even some superhero series earned quality over the years with very different authors from their original creators. \"Stan Lee, the driving force of Marvel, established a fundamental split in the superhero because it diluted the authorship: each work was a cartoonist, a screenwriter, someone that colored ... But those same people when they were recovered by more personal and creative occurred with Frank Miller and Batman, gained much strength, \"Pons said. However, neither readers nor writers novels have yet crossed the Rubicon that can change the way of thinking about literature, because the characters begin to command the authors.

 
Hercule Poirot, a character created by Agatha Christie.
On the one hand, the authors decided to revive or recreate a character to their own (as we have seen, Holmes is the clearest case, but there are many versions of Frankenstein, for example) are. It is difficult to refer to this as a franchise: would rather eternal palimpsest on which the literature (layers and layers on a single manuscript whose origin may need to look at Homer or even on the walls of the Chauvet cave) is formed. Furthermore, the characters are a family or a company that is a business too succulent as they become worthless controlled. That\'s where it is increasingly imposing the model of comics or even the series, with its succession of seasons so that viewers can withstand. An example: Forbes magazine estimated the value of the franchise of James Bond (movies, books, merchandising) amounted to 12,000 million euros, a figure too high that the mixed martinis shaken not run out.

The first great commercial operation was to resurrect a character Scarlett, in which, 70 years after Gone with the Wind, the best-selling author Alexandra Ripley recounted what happened after Scarlett O\'Hara a ruling his famous phrase: \"After all tomorrow is another day\". But the book, which worked very well commercially, lacked soul. The following resurrections have tried to find authors who are able to find their own voice to retrieve a character from others, to allow the reader is at once on familiar ground, with all the keys of the character, but also unknown. William Boyd dared in Solo, his version of James Bond published in 2013, by making the character of Ian Fleming, notably illiterate, a reader of Graham Greene. The brand had already signed such notable authors as Kingsley Amis, who published the first novel post-Fleming in 1968. In the cases of the series Bourne or Tom Clancy novels, it is franchises airport, where no it matters the author directly, as in superhero comics.

\"The resurrection of the more or less canonical consequences has become a very curious phenomenon,\" wrote The Guardian when the book by William Boyd, an author who has managed to combine the literary talent with popular themes in novels published Beach Brazzaville, like snow in the sun or Armadillo. \"It\'s a return to the nursery, a kind of fiction fans, but represents especially the refusal to accept that the last page of a book marking the end of history\". Philip Marlowe, the cynical detective created by Raymond Chandler, is one of the masterpieces of world literature beyond any genre, a stark and lucid account of American society.

To some extent, but in another time and in another place, his spirit still alive in the character of Bernie Gunther, Philip Kerr (for their Borderías, but also for its refusal to accept that an individual has to resign itself to blend and accept the rules of a rotten world). John Banville accepted the challenge Marlowe back to life with black-eyed blonde. The result was impressive (and business too). Perhaps important to keep the story to continue playing the orchestra, it is that the author is able to respect the literature, to create a new voice with antique chords. Not the same a free recreation industrial production seems born of an assembly. Meanwhile, readers will continue looking at the horizon and waiting for the new season of Fargo, the new adventure Corto Maltese, another gala banquet in the village, an endless hacking Lisbeth Salander, a case of Philip Marlowe has no end.