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International Printings - French

Contents:

• Notes
• List
• Covers

Notes

Merci beaucoup to Xavier Lancel for providing all of the information on this page, including the cover scans! Most of the below text was written by him. I mainly did some editing to improve the English. (His English is much better then my French, though.)

In France, Rom was predominantly printed in the monthly anthology comic Strange, published by Lug. (The name Lug comes from Lugdunum, the Roman Age name of Lyon, where the company was based.) The first annual and the second story of the Rom #25 were printed in the anthology Spidey. Power Man and Iron Fist #73 and Rom #23 were also published by Artima in Hulk contre Quasimodo Hors-série in January 1984. (It had one less page than Lug's version because when Artima didn't have enough place, they often cut the first page of the story.)

Because Lug wanted to pay less tax, Strange and their other anthologies were "youth publications" ("publication destinées à la jeunesse" in French). But there were some requirements: 10% of the content had to be information or documentation on things other than superheroes and there were limits on violence, blood and other things that the censure commision didn't like. Several stories were not published because the Lug staff thought they were too violent for kids. A lot of drawings have also been redrawn (no more sharp teeth, blood or weapons). Therefore Rom #9 has not been published and the first appearance of Hybrid was cut a lot.

Now, about the cutting the stories into halves. Because a lot of Marvel stories began to have 22 pages instead of 17, Lug had to cut one of the four stories published in Strange (Daredevil, Iron-Man, Rom or Spider-Man) per month. (There were only 84 pages). Later, after Rom had disappered, Alpha Flight was brought in. Two months later, they added 16 pages to Strange to have 100 pages. No more cut stories!

About the stories in Spidey: Lug had bought Alpha Flight but they didn't know which anthology it should be in, so they asked to the readers. After several months of uncertainty, they decided to give Alpha Flight to Strange and move Rom into Nova. Nova was a small anthology where the horror in Rom would perhaps have been ignored by the censure commision because of its little pages (large pocket format). Xavier think its possible that they put some Rom stories in Spidey to see if Rom would be accepted in it in the future. Another possibility is that they simply didn't know what to put in Spidey at the time. But Rom never appeared in Nova and was forgotten. A lot of people wrote to Lug asking for the return of Rom but all was forgotten a year later.

List

Here is a complete listing of the French version of Rom's adventures. For more information (in French), see the Rom page at Comics VF.

U.S. comic	French comic	Pages
Rom #1	Strange #133 (Jan 1981)	18
Rom #2	Strange #134	18
Rom #3	Strange #135	17
Rom #4	Strange #136	17
Rom #5	Strange #137	17
Rom #6	Strange #138	17
Rom #7	Strange #139	17
Rom #8	Strange #140	17
Rom #10	Strange #141	17
Rom #11	Strange #142	17
Rom #12	Strange #143	22
Rom #13	Strange #144	22
Rom #14	Strange #145	22
Rom #15	Strange #146	22
Rom #16	Strange #147	22
Rom #17 & #18 (portions)	Strange #148	23
Rom #19	Strange #149	22
Rom #20	Strange #150	22
Rom #21	Strange #151	21
Rom #22	Strange #152	21
Power Man and Iron Fist #73	Hulk contre Quasimodo Hors-sèrie (Jan 1984)	20
Rom #23	Strange #153	21
Rom #23	Hulk contre Quasimodo Hors-sèrie (Jan 1984)	20
Rom #24	Strange #154	21
Rom #25 (first story)	Strange #155	21
Rom #25 (second story)	Spidey #48	17
Rom #26	Strange #156	21
Rom #27	Strange #157	21
Rom #28	Strange #158	22
Rom #29	Strange #159	22
Rom #30	Strange #160	21
Rom #31	Strange #161	22
Rom #32	Strange #162	20
Rom #33	Strange #163	22
Rom #34	Strange #164	22
Rom #35 (first half)	Strange #165	11
Rom #35 (second half)	Strange #166	11
Rom #36	Strange #167	21
Rom #37	Strange #168	22
Rom #38	Strange #169	20
Rom #39	Strange #170	22
Rom #40	Strange #171	22
Rom #41	Strange #172	22
Rom #42 (first half)	Strange #173	11
Rom #42 (second half)	Strange #174	11
Rom #43	Strange #175	20
Rom #44	Strange #176	22
Rom #45	Strange #177	22
Rom #46	Strange #178 (Oct 1984)	18
Rom Annual #1 (first half)	Spidey #46	16
Rom Annual #1 (second half)	Spidey #47	18

Covers

Below are thumbnails of all the covers of Strange featuring Rom. Jean Frisano did the art for all of them. Note that some of them are very close to the American version of the cover. To see a larger version, click on the thumbnail image.