Mortelle Adèle

Mortelle Adèle is a French children's comic book series created by Antoine Dole under the pen name Mr Tan. Volumes 1–7 were illustrated by Miss Prickly, and from volume 8 onward by Diane Le Feyer. The series was published from 2012 until 2022 by Bayard Jeunesse, which had acquired editions Tourbillon and Milan. It is now published by Mr Tan & Co, the publishing house founded by Antoine Dole.

Mortelle Adèle follows the daily life of a little girl named Adèle with a strong personality, who casts a cynical and unapologetic gaze on the world around her. There is something of Mafalda and Wednesday Addams in her.

Background

Antoine Dole created the character of Adèle when he was 14 years old and a victim of bullying in middle school. He imagined the character as his opposite: a girl, while he is a boy, who dares to say everything, while he was shy. As a child, not wearing fashionable clothes, Adèle suffered the scorn of the popular kids, led by Jade and Miranda. To fight back, she founded the “Club des Bizarres” (Weirdos' Club), which brought together children who were a little different.

The values defended by Adèle and her creator Antoine Dole include tolerance, acceptance of strangeness, self-assertion, and refusal to conform to social norms.

In April 2018, six years after its launch, the series reached one million copies sold. By the end of 2019, over 2.5 million copies of the comic had been sold, including 1 million in 2019 alone.

In 2020, among the 10 best-selling comic books in France, four volumes were from the Mortelle Adèle series.

In early 2021, 13 albums from the series were listed among the top 20 weekly bestsellers in comics.

By March 2024, the series had reached 18 million readers.

In January 2025, Antoine Dole and Diane Le Feyer, co-authors of Mortelle Adèle, accused their former publisher, Bayard Jeunesse, of betraying their trust and misleading readers by continuing to exploit their work without consent. Bayard Jeunesse denied these accusations, calling them “baseless allegations.”

Main characters

Adèle She is the main character of the series. A little red-haired girl with long pigtails, she wears a school uniform reminiscent of those found in British schools. She spends her time conducting wild experiments on her cat. Impertinent and rebellious, she frequently disobeys adults and constantly invents new ways to impose her own rules.

Ajax

Ajax is Adèle's pet cat and, according to the story in Volume 1 (Tout ça finira mal), Adèle had asked for a baby lion—so her parents introduced Ajax as a “real baby lion,” only for her to discover that he's actually a kitten. Ajax becomes her experiment subject and unwitting punching bag ever since.

Her parents

They try daily to understand their daughter. Bewildered, they are usually at the mercy of Adèle's whims and struggle to make her obey—she never stops tormenting them.

Comic books

Main series volumes This Will All End Badly (Tout ça finira mal) () Hell Is Other People (L'enfer, c'est les autres) () It's Not My Fault! (C'est pas ma faute !) () I Hate Love! (J'aime pas l'amour !) () Move Over, Uglies! (Poussez-vous les moches !) () Monster Talent! (Un talent monstre !) () No Mercy for the Nincompoops! (Pas de pitié pour les nazebroques !) () Parents for Sale! (Parents à vendre !) () Back-to-Slap School (La Rentrée des claques) () Choubidoulove (Choubidoulove) () Smells Like Kibble! (Ça sent la croquette !) () Gone Fishing for Noodles! (À la pêche aux nouilles !) () Big Slobbery Kisses (Big Bisous Baveux) () Atomic Fart (Prout atomique) () Funky Furball (Funky Moumoute) () Granny-saurus Rex (Jurassic Mamie) () Karmageddon! (Karmastrophique !) () You, I Totally Zut You! (Toi, je te Zut !) () Yuck-Face! (Face de Beurk !) () I’m Totally Apocalypsing! (J'apocalypse grave !) () Total RecessACTION! (RécréACTION Générale !) () Group of Applesauces! (Bande de Compotes !)(9 October 2025) Nazebrocadabra!(Nazebrocadabra !)(28 may 2026)

"Grand Adventures" volumes Mortelle Adèle in the Land of Broken Fairytales (Mortelle Adèle au pays des Contes Défaits) () Mortelle Adèle and the Galaxy of Weirdos (Mortelle Adèle et la galaxie des Bizarres) () Mortelle Adèle – Show Bizarre! (Mortelle Adèle - Show Bizarre !) () Mortelle Adèle and the Relics of the Moon-Cat (Mortelle Adèle et les Reliques du Chat-Lune) () Mortelle Adèle: In Search of the Grumplegob! (Mortelle Adèle sur les traces du Croquepote !) ()

Ajax spin-off series Paw-sitively Fine! (Chat va bien !) () Paw-sitively Worse! (Chat s'arrange pas !) () Catastropurr! (Chaperlipopette) () The Little Big Meow-venture of Ajax (La petite grande Chaventure d'Ajax) () The Little Big Meow-venture of Ajax 2 (La petite grande Chaventure d'Ajax 2) () (BNF not yet available)

Novels

Once Mortel, Always Mortel (Mortel un jour, Mortel toujours) () Mischief Starts Now (Les bêtises, c'est maintenant) () Rise Up, Weirdos (Debout les bizarres) () V.I.B. – Very Important Weirdos (V.I.B. - Very Important Bizarres) ()

Merchandise and spin-offs

Board games Deadly Challenges (Défis mortels) () Move Over, Uglies! (Poussez-vous les moches !) ()

Game books – L'Extra Mortelle Adèle series A Night with My Babyslaughter (Une nuit avec ma baby-sittrice) () Jade’s Birthday (L'Anniversaire de Jade) () The Revolt of the Weirdos! (La Révolte des bizarres !) () The Forbidden Experiment (L'Expérience interdite) ()

Activity books Make Your Own Comic with Mortelle Adèle (Fais ta BD avec Mortelle Adèle) () Make Your Own Movie with Mortelle Adèle (Fais ton cinéma avec Mortelle Adèle) ()

Companion books The Weirdos’ Journal (Le Journal Des Bizarres) ()

Music

In 2018, singer Aldebert featured Mortelle Adèle in the song Move Over, Uglies! (Poussez‑vous les moches !) on his album Enfantillages, les 10 ans; the voice of Adèle in the track was performed by actress Dorothée Pousséo.

Aldebert later collaborated with Antoine Dole (lyrics) to produce a full album titled Mortelle Adèle – Show Bizarre, released on 20 October 2021, again with Dorothée Pousséo as Adèle's voice, joined by actors such as Emmanuel Curtil and Claire Guyot.

This was followed by a Christmas album titled 365 Days to Be Good (365 jours pour être sage), released on 29 November 2022, composed by Vincent Blaviel and written by Antoine Dole. In March 2024, a four‑track EP Very Important Bizarres! was released to accompany a free anti‑bullying booklet made available online by the publisher Mr Tan & Co.

Animated series

An animated series is in preproduction as of 2022. After voicing Adèle in songs from the franchise, Dorothée Pousséo was selected to voice the main character. The broadcast of the series, which will be titled Mortelle Adèle like the comic book, the project was announced in 2020, GO-N Productions, which had acquired the adaptation rights to make the animated series with 78 episodes, each lasting 7 minutes, for January 2027.

References

Mortelle Adèle

Bron en licentie