Jommeke Kirillovic Karenina

Jommeke sales have unfortunately been dwindling for the past decade or so. The past few years especially, the situation has become this bad that it's looking like Belgium's friendliest comic book hero's financial worth will be forced into the red and in the near future perhaps even be suffering from cancellation.

Luckily, the Jommeke team has been as resilient and motivated as ever, not quite ready to toss in the towel just yet. The team has been meticulously looking for new ways to keep Zonnedorp's most adventurous boy relevant and very recently have even decided to take drastic measures, which will involve moving Jommeke from the start of 2026 into a new and more literary universe, that of Russia's most famed author Leo Tolstoy.

We were privileged to sit in on the latest meeting with the Jommeke team.

At first we were taken along for a presentation of the underlying themes of the Anna Karenina novel. As most fans of the novel know, there are many, including a deep delve into dealing with hypocrisy, jealousy, faith, fidelity, family, marriage, society, progress, carnal desire and passion, and the agrarian connection to land in contrast to the lifestyles of the city, of which, of course many Jommeke albums are already playing around with. Anatool's jealousy, Theofiel's and Marie's marriage, Jommeke's personal value on freedom and adventure contrasting that with his parents wish of wanting to raise him in a more conservative way, and of course the contrast of professor Gobelijn's technological inventions (and how technology can doom the world) with the small village agricultural lifestyle of Zonnedorp.

But most importantly, this meeting we attended happened to be one where one of the toughest decisions of the transition was made. Which character would Jommeke be playing as? For many months, the answer seemed obvious, that of Sheryozha, the eight year old son of Anna Karenina. This made a lot of sense, since Jommeke is about the same age as the curious little child. However, this was refuted in this latest meeting, due to the fact that Jommeke is actually supposed to be 10 years old, not 8, and the two year age difference proved too big of a gap for the Nys Family to approve on, so now instead there has been chosen to turn Jommeke into Tolstoy's portrayal of Vronsky, thus instead of her son, becoming Anna Karenina's former lover.

This does make sense as Vronsky is a cavalry officer and Jommeke has proven his riding skills in albums like Two Halve Rags, Jommeke In The Far West and even The Flag Of Lord Chester, where our straw roofed hero was found riding on the back of an ostrich!

These new upcoming Jommeke albums will start off with where Tolstoy left off our dear Vronsky (now Jommeke), where Jommeke will travel to Serbia to battle the Serbian uprising against the Turks along with a group of volunteers. Of course, we are all wondering if his dear friend Filliberke will be introduced as one of these volunteers (or maybe as his new adversary as one of the Turks, surely not!), or whether it will all be regular Russian characters taken from history books, maybe even different Tolstoy novels.

These are amazing times for us Jommeke fans!

I am highly excited.