Fantask #6

History

Fantask was conceived after Claude Vistel — editor at Éditions Lug and daughter of company co-founder Auguste Vistel — returned from a 1968 trip to New York and negotiated with Transworld Features, a syndication firm representing Stan Lee and Marvel, to publish the Fantastic Four, Silver Surfer, and Amazing Spider-Man in France. Éditions Lug, a Lyon-based publisher best known for digest-format adventure comics like Zembla, launched the title in February 1969 in the small 'petit format' size. Fantask #6 appeared in July 1969, and the series was shut down by the Commission de surveillance et de contrôle des publications destinées à l'enfance et à l'adolescence — which condemned its 'terrifying science fiction,' 'traumatising monster battles,' and 'violent colours' — before a seventh issue could complete the run normally. The abrupt censure forced Lug to relaunch Marvel material the following year under the title Strange, this time in a more cautious black-and-white-adjacent bichrome format to avoid further regulatory trouble.

Trivia · 8 facts

• Fantask #6 was published by Éditions Lug (Lyon, France) with a cover date of July 15, 1969, edited by Claude Vistel, and ran in the small 'petit format' (15 × 21 cm) used throughout the series.
• The issue reprints Amazing Spider-Man #2 (May 1963, script Stan Lee, art Steve Ditko), marking the French-language debut of the Vulture (Adrian Toomes) — who is explicitly flagged as an introduction in the Grand Comics Database entry for this issue.
• It also contains material from Fantastic Four #15 (June 1963, Lee/Kirby/Ayers), which introduces the Mad Thinker (Le Cerveau / Le Penseur Fou) and his Awesome Android (L'Androïde du Penseur Fou) to French readers.
• Fantastic Four #16 (July 1963, Lee/Kirby/Ayers) also appears, featuring a crossover with Ant-Man (Hank Pym) and a cameo by the Wasp (Janet Van Dyne) in the Micro-World of Doctor Doom story.
• The Silver Surfer segment reprints the first 19.5 pages of Silver Surfer #6 (June 1969, 'Worlds Without End!', Lee/Buscema/Buscema), with the story's conclusion serialised across the next issue — consistent with Lug's practice of splitting longer American stories across multiple French instalments.
• Fantask was the first vehicle to publish Marvel Comics in France on a continuous basis, with the Fantastic Four, Silver Surfer, and Amazing Spider-Man all appearing in its pages across the seven-issue run (February–August 1969).
• The series also ran alongside Wampus, an original Éditions Lug superhero creation launched the same year, establishing Lug's dual strategy of translated Marvel content alongside homegrown French superheroes.
• Fantask #6 is one of the final two issues before the French censorship board's ruling halted the series; Lug subsequently relaunched Marvel material in 1970 under Strange, which ran for 28 years.

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