By De Groot & Turk, translated by Mark Bence (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-407-6 (Album PB/digital edition)
For some inexplicable reason and despite our recent obnoxiously ungrateful behaviour, most of Europe’s comics cognoscenti – most especially French and Belgians – seem fascinated with us Brits. Maybe it’s our shared heritage of Empires lost and cultures in transition? An earlier age might well have claimed it’s simply a case of “Know your Enemy”…
Whether we look at urban guttersnipes Basil and Victoria, indomitable adventurers Blake and Mortimer, the Machiavellian machinations of Green Manor or even the further travails of Long John Silver, so many serried stalwarts of our Scepter’d Isles cut a dashing swathe through the pages of the Continent’s assorted magazines and albums, it’s like Europe is our second home.
…And then there’s Clifton…
As originally devised for iconic comic Le Journal de Tintin by strip genius Raymond Macherot (Chaminou, Les croquillards, Chlorophylle, Sibylline), this doughty True Brit troubleshooter first appeared in December 1959. After three albums worth of material – compiled and released in 1959 and 1960 – Macherot quit Tintin for arch-rival Le Journal de Spirou, leaving the eccentric crime-fighter to flounder until LJdT revived him at the height of the Swinging London scene. This was courtesy of Jo-El Azaza & Greg (Michel Régnier), and those strips were subsequently collected as Les lutins diaboliques in French and De duivelse dwergen for Dutch-speakers in 1969.
It was back to retirement for a few years until the early 1970s saw writer Bob De Groot & artist Philippe “Turk” Liégeois revive Clifton for the long haul: producing 10 tales of which this – Sir Jason (from 1976) – was their seventh collaboration.
Son of a cabinet maker, Turk was born in Durbuy, Belgium on July 8th 1947. His wonderful mother ran a boarding house and didn’t seem to mind that her dreamy, lazy lad spent his days taking things apart or redrawing (“improving”) his favourite comics – usually ones by Peyo and Franquin.
In fact, in 1963, when Phillipe was just 16, she sent a bunch of those upgrades to Le Journal de Spirou where editor Yvan Delporte promptly arranged for the kid to become an office apprentice, learning the profession under celebrated cartoonist Maurice Rosy (Jerry Spring; Spirou et Fantasio; Tif et Tondu; Max the Explorer; Boule et Bill/Billy & Buddy).
Young Liégeois worked for two years at Dupuis’ Brussels studio, and his first professional sale – to LJdS – came in 1967. It was the year he first met Bob De Groot as they collaborated as artists on a strip scripted by “Fred” (AKA Frédéric Othon Théodore Aristidès) to appear in Pilote. The casual alliance became a life-long association in such series as Archimède; Robin Dubois; Léonard and more. The price of success is increased workload and they were convinced to add Macherot’s moribund spy saga to their schedules…
Those comic escapades all ran in parallel with Turk’s other projects such as Les Club des “Peur-de-rien”; La Plus Grande Image du Monde; Docteur Bonheur and more.
Bob de Groot was born in Brussels in 1941, to French and Dutch parents. He was art assistant to Maurice Tillieux on Félix before creating his own short works for Pilote. A rising star in the 1960s, he was drawing 4 × 8 = 32 L’Agent Caméléon when he met Philippe Liégeois. They hit it off and as established a team with De Groot beginning a slow transition from artist to writer on Clifton and 1989’s Digitaline – devised with Jacques Landrain and a strong contender for the first comic created entirely on a computer. He kept busy, working with legendary creator Morris on both Lucky Luke and its canine comedy spin-off Rantanplan whilst co-creating Des villes et des femmes with Philippe Francq; Doggyguard with Michel Rodrigue, Pére Noël & Fils (Bercovici art) and Le Bar des acariens (with Godi) and so much more.
The association with Clifton is perennial however and even after their first tour of duty ended they stayed in touch. From 1984 on, artist Bernard Dumont – AKA Bédu – limned De Groot’s scripts: eventually assuming the writing role as well, persevering until the series ended in 1995. In keeping with its rather haphazard nature and typically undying nature, the Clifton experience resumed once again in 2003, crafted by De Groot & Rodrigue for four further adventures: a grand total of twenty album length tales and as many shorter exploits.
In 2016 the old comrades even co-operated on more Clifton cases with Zidrou scripting…. and one day we’ll see English editions of Clifton et les gauchers contraries (Clifton and the Upset Left-Handers???) and 2017’s Just Married…
So what’s the Sit Rep?
The scenario is deliciously simple: pompous and irascible Colonel Sir Harold Wilberforce Clifton, ex-RAF, former Metropolitan Police Constabulary and recently retired from MI5, has a great deal of difficulty dealing with being put out to pasture in rurally bucolic Puddington. He thus takes every opportunity to get back in the saddle, occasionally assisting the Government or needy individuals as an amateur sleuth.
Sadly for Clifton – as with that other underappreciated national treasure Captain George Mainwaring in TV landmark Dad’s Army – he is convinced that he is the only truly competent man in a world full of blithering idiots. Of course, he’s generally proved correct in that assumption…
In this translated album from 2018, the Gentleman Detective is again enduring the mixed blessing of a holiday in England when he is outrageously dragged out of his permanent dudgeon and unwanted retirement by his old spymaster handlers who need him to attend to a tricky problem only someone of his vast experience and discretion could handle…
It begins in the sleepy hamlet of Dormhouse, where the vacationing surly sod livens up his day by furiously debating the correct surface temperature of toast, annoying village “bobby” Constable Walrus and failing to fish in idyllic streams. That changes in an absurdly fraught instant when old associate Captain Twincam ambushes him…
The government operative is in a bit of a pickle and needs the old Clifton finesse…
Twincam’s partner is Sir Jason: a strapping Adonis of a young man with generations of pedigree and privilege behind him. His family – the highly-entitled clan Macassock -have always produced sons who became spies or clergymen, and despite this lad’s heartfelt desire to be a jazz musician, he will do his duty and follow family tradition…
The minor noble has finished training and is – on paper at least – a superbly-schooled, hyper-fit, lethally capable super-agent in waiting. There’s only one small snag: this aristocratic boy wonder freezes at the merest hint of actual action…
With the future of the whole hidebound spycraft system under threat, the Secret Service need someone to teach the lad how to use what he knows for the good of the nation. No expense spared, carte blanche in methods used and the promise of some much-missed excitement finally induce old warhorse Clifton to agree, and no sooner does he accept the mission than fate smiles on them as mentor and apprentice stumble into an armed robbery and indulge in a spectacular high speed chase through the verdant countryside…
It’s an utter disaster and the Colonel realises he has his work cut out for him if he’s to unleash the tiger buried deep, deep, deep inside the spy scion…
After a short stopover in his own house in bucolic Puddington and a fractious reunion with Housekeeper Miss Partridge, it’s off to London for Clifton and his protégé. Unbeknownst to Sir Jason (as most things seem to be), the wily old spy has hired some of his seedier acquaintances to jump the lad as a kind of live fire test. Confidant that in the crunch, superb training, heroic heritage and elevated lineage will kick in, the old soldier lets himself get beaten up and witnesses some truly shameful acts of cowardice before giving up…
They are down by the Embankment cleaning up when Clifton sees two frogmen riding a minisub emerge from the waters. He knows true evil in play when he sees it but is barely able to stop these really capable villains killing them both to keep whatever they’re up to secret…
Now mentor and terrified apprentice are on the run with relentless, ruthless hunters chasing them all over the landscape. Jason gains plenty of on-the-job experience but no appreciable increase in confidence, gumption or backbone. Cut off from all possible assistance, the veteran warrior has no choice but to go after the killers’ boss himself, using his partner’s failings to his advantage and hoping they all make it out alive and relatively unscathed…
Visually spoofing 1970’s London and eternally staid and stuffy English Manners with wicked effect, these comfy thrillers are big on laughs but also pack loads of consequence-free action into their eclectic mix. Delightfully surreal, instantly accessible and doused with daft slapstick in the manner of Jacques Tati and humoresque intrigue like Margaret Rutherford as Miss Marple, this wild ride rattles along in the grand comedic manner of Will Hay, Terry-Thomas and Alistair Sim (maybe Wallace and Gromit or Johnny English if you’re of a later generation) by channelling classic crime series like The Sweeney or The Professionals – offering splendid fun and timeless laughs for all.
Original edition © Les Editions du Lombard (Dargaud-Lombard S. A.) 2001 by Turk & De Groot. English translation © 2018 Cinebook Ltd.