La Quête de l'oiseau du temps (The Quest for the Time-Bird, or Roxanna and The Quest For The Time Bird) is a French language

French language

French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

 fantasy

Fantasy

Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common...

 comic series written by Serge Le Tendre and drawn by Régis Loisel

Régis Loisel

Régis Loisel is a French comics writer and artist, best known for the long running series La Quête de l'oiseau du temps, written by Serge Le Tendre.He worked with Walt Disney Studios on the animated films Atlantis and Mulan....

 (1st cycle) and others (2nd cycle), published by Dargaud

Dargaud

Les Éditions Dargaud is a publisher of Franco-Belgian comics series, headquartered in the 18th arrondissement of Paris. It was founded in 1943 by Georges Dargaud.Initially, Dargaud published novels for women...

 since 1983.

Story

The world of Akbar is in danger: Ramor, the cursed god, is about to be liberated. The sorceress Mara has found a way to prevent the god's resurrection and to bound him again to his prison, a conch. To succeed during the incantation however, she needs the legendary Time-Bird, a mythical beast able to control the flow of time. She sends her daughter, Pelisse (Roxanna in the English translation) to a past lover, Bragon, once a fearsome warrior, now a gray-haired lord of the manor, to convince the aging hero to embark on one last adventure in order to save the world of Akbar.

Themes of the comics include imaginary fauna and flora and nostalgia, as aging heroes deal with their fading glory, new heroes take their place and villains accept their past and manage to find peace. A melancholic mood permanates the whole story.

Publication

• Original story
  • Volume 1 : Ramor's Conch (La Conque de Ramor, 1983)
  • Volume 2 : The Forgotten Temple (Le Temple de l'oubli, 1984)
  • Volume 3 : The Rige (Le Rige, 1985) - « Lucien » award at the Festival of Angoulême the following year
  • Volume 4 : The Darken Egg (L'Œuf des ténèbres, 1987)
• Second cycle (prequel)
  • Volume 5 : Friend Javin (L'Ami Javin, 1998)
  • Volume 6 : The Book of the Gods (Le Grimoire des Dieux , 2007)

Translations

The series have been translated into several languages, including Spanish, German, Danish, Swedish and Serbian. An English translation, "Roxanna" was published in the late 80's by NBM.