Above you see a cover from the long running Elvifrance bande dessinée Jacula, with uncredited art. We picked this up from a Paris bouquiniste a few weeks ago. The backstory here is that a woman named Jacula Velenska is bitten by a vampire and, once turned, roams far and wide quenching her thirst for blood. She's accompanied by her vampire husband Charles Verdier, and his dog servant Wolf. This is in French but the series originated in Italy as a fumetti, or adult comic book, and ran from 1969 to 1982 for a total of 327 issues, which strikes us as quite a lot.

Our French reprint is from 1971 and is 14 in the series. We were anticipating some foundational Jacula vamp action, but were surprised to discover that it deals almost entirely with a loup garou, or werewolf, named Charles, and how he ends up eating his own child and wife. At the end of the tale he encounters Jacula, who he captures and plans to kill before thinking better of it, for reasons that are unclear. It could be this is the same Charles that later becomes her companion. We'll figure it out. One of the reasons we bought this was to practice French, which comes in handy where we live.

We said the cover art was uncredited, but generally they were painted by three guys—Leandro Biffi, Fernando Tacconi, and Carlo Jacono. Thanks to the powers of the internet we were able to determine that this one is by Biffi. The interior art by Alberto Giolitti is a bit more basic, which is usually true of comic books, but you're buying these for the story, 112 pages of it in this case, written by Giuseppe Pederiali. We have a few scans below, and if you want to see more from Elvifrance, start here.

Where we stayed in Paris near the famed Sorbonne seemingly dozens of comic book shops had sprouted. Here’s an amazing cover that caught our eye—Dans les spirales du temps, from Elvifrance, number 103 in its Serie Verte, 1973. See more Elvifrance here, here, here, and here.

A selection of ten amazing Elvifrance comic book/graphic novel covers, 1978 to 1982.

Above are assorted issues of the lowbrow Elvifrance comic Mafioso, which lasted for ninety-six issues between 1982 and 1992. Elvifrance comics were a favorite target of French censors, and 176 releases of various titles were banned for sale, which is no surprise considering their emphasis on violence against women. You can read an issue of Mafioso here. If you read French, that is. 

Wallestein was an adult comic originally produced in Italy from 1974 to 1982, but popularized in France by the publisher Elvifrance when they picked up the series in 1977. Jimmy Wallestein is a nobleman and playboy who hides his deformed face behind masks that allow him to assume various identities. He’s on a mission of vengeance against those who killed his father Count Wallestein, but he’s also a crimefighter—though a particularly vicious one. Posted here are twelve beautiful Elvifrance Wallestein covers depicting this curious character. And if the guy on the last cover isn’t Iggy Pop, we must need a new Ritalin prescription.