Found around town II

Found recently in our weekly peregrinations to local yard sales and thrift shops: a 1997 first printing of "Fox One," a graphic novel (comic book with hardcover pictorial boards) by Renaud Garreta and Olivier Vidal, from Dargaud Diffusion, Paris. This is an action-packed, all-color graphic novel, almost entirely in French, though some of aeronautic slang is in English, which then requires translation into French with little footnotes. (Apparently a SWAT team busting down the door and shouting "FBI! Bouge Pas!" needs no translation.)

Our hero and heroine show up at Nellis Air Force Base in Las Vegas flying Mirage 2000 "Rafales," which are handsomely drawn though one doubts they're very stealthy. Apparently a plot is afoot to blow up the Stratosphere ... and the Goodyear Blimp ... at midnight, Jan. 1, 2000. Lengthy inscription — mostly in French but concluding "Enjoy 2000 and see you before," — in blue felt-tip takes up bottom of title page and top half of verso, signed "Olivier / 01.98." As best we can make out, one recipient is advised to ask his father for a copy of the English language edition, while to the second recipient the author admits a "gaffe," to wit: "Le Bungy n'est vraiment pas loin de Stratosphere."

Hey, we could have told him that.