By Willy Lambil & Raoul Cauvin, translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-80044-004-3 (Album PB/Digital edition)
Devised by Louis “Salvé” Salvérius & Raoul Cauvin – who scripted the first 64 volumes until retirement in 2020 – Les Tuniques Bleues (or Dutch co-incarnation De Blauwbloezen) debuted at the end of the 1960s: created to replace Lucky Luke when that laconic maverick defected from weekly anthology Le Journal de Spirou to rival publication Pilote.
From its first sallies, the substitute strip swiftly became hugely popular: one of the most popular bande dessinée series in Europe. In case you were wondering, it is now scribed by Jose-Luis Munuera and the BeKa writing partnership…
Salvé was a cartoonist of the Gallic big-foot/big-nose humour school, and after his sudden death in 1972, successor Willy “Lambil” Lambillotte gradually adopted a more realistic – but still overtly comedic – tone and manner. Lambil is Belgian, born in 1936 and, after studying Fine Art in college, joined publishing giant Dupuis in 1952 as a letterer.
Born in 1938, scripter Cauvin was also Belgian and – before entering Dupuis’ animation department in 1960 – studied Lithography. He soon discovered his true calling was comedy and began a glittering, prolific writing career at Le Journal de Spirou.
In addition, he scripted dozens of long-running, award winning series including Cédric, Les Femmes en Blanc and Agent 212: more than 240 separate albums. Les Tuniques Bleues alone has over 15 million copies of its 66 (and counting) album sequence. Cauvin died on August 19th 2021, but his vast legacy of barbed laughter remains.
Here, designated The Bluecoats, our long-suffering protagonists are Sergeant Cornelius Chesterfield and Corporal Blutch; worthy, honest fools in the manner of Laurel & Hardy: hapless, ill-starred US cavalrymen defending America during the War Between the States.
The original format offered single-page gags set around an Indian-plagued Wild West fort, but from second volume Du Nord au Sud the sad-sack soldiers were situated back East, fighting in the American Civil War.
All subsequent adventures – despite often ranging far beyond the traditional environs of the sundered USA and taking in a lot of genuine and thoroughly researched history – are set within the timeframe of the Secession conflict.
Blutch is your run-of-the-mill, whinging little-man-in-the street: work-shy, mouthy, devious and ferociously critical of the army and its inept orchestrators and commanders. Ducking, diving, deserting whenever he can, he’s you or me – except at his core he’s smart, principled and even heroic… if no easier option is available.
Chesterfield is a big, burly professional fighting man; a proud career soldier of the 22nd Cavalry who passionately believes in patriotism and the esprit-de-corps of the Military. He is brave, never shirking his duty and hungry to be a medal-wearing hero. He also loves his cynical little troll of a pal. They quarrel like a married couple, fight like brothers but simply cannot agree on the point and purpose of the horrendous war they are trapped in: a situation that once more stretches their friendship to breaking point in this cunningly conceived instalment.
Coloured by Vittorio Leonardo, Les cinq salopards was originally serialised in Le Journal de Spirou (#2357-2368) before collection into another mega-selling album in 1984: the 33rd European release. In 2020 it was Cinebook’s 14th translated Bluecoats volume.
The Dirty Five offers a lighter touch and more adventuresome fare with the underlying horror salved by a farce-driven mission that degenerates into ridiculously surreal black comedy.
As is so often the case, the Union forces are stalemated with no advance possible. Even the 22nd Cavalry – still under the ruthless leadership of utterly deranged, apparently invulnerable Gentleman maniac Captain Stark – are helpless; reduced after countless pointless assaults to a force of three: Stark himself, Sergeant Chesterfield and poor treacherous Blutch…
With no end in sight and the infantrymen stuck in dugouts, dodging enemy artillery fire, boredom and idiotic orders, the ordinary foot soldiers are infuriatingly idle, forcing the commandeering general into a frenzy of inspiration…
What’s needed is one last push and if they have no cavalry, then volunteers must be found to repopulate the 22nd. Thus, the eager sergeant and appalled corporal are sent out amongst the civilian population to recruit a force of daring horsemen to turn the tide…
The mission has brought the pals to the edge of murder. They are at odds from the start, with the Sergeant proudly keen to recruit new warriors and convinced they will all be happy to die for their country, whilst Blutch is determined not to be the cause of more pointless deaths and maimings…
By the time they leave nearby Frogtown, they are at each other’s throats, mostly thanks to Blutch having frittered away the bribe fund of recruiting cash and “losing” all the enlistment papers signed by the suckers Chesterfield bamboozled with flowery speeches and cheap booze…
The mission is a complete fiasco but takes a decidedly dark turn when they meet a prison guard escorting a group of criminals to their executions. Chesterfield believes it’s the perfect solution to their problem and soon the still-squabbling squaddies are touring Greenbush State Prison looking for a few bad men…
There are plenty, but the job is no done deal. The first convict – a deserter – chooses to stay and be hanged than go back to serve under Stark…
In the end only, five doomed men ostensibly sign up to serve their country, but it soon becomes clear they might not be completely sincere. That’s not Chesterfield’s concern. He knows he’s done his duty once the felons are delivered to the General.
Blutch has more nuanced worries. Apart from the sheer insanity of letting loose – and even arming – religious serial killer Reverend Osgood, obsessive horse thief/cannibal Shorty Fink, karate killer Yang and the murderously psychopathic duo of blind knife thrower Rupert and his lethal human targeting system Abel there’s the purely practical problems of getting the killer quintet back to the front lines: a mammoth task that takes all the soldiers’ individual ingenuity and ultimately unity and teamwork to accomplish.
Of course, once the Bluecoats complete their mission and the Five officially join the 22nd, the real problems begin, not just for the Northern regiments but also for the Confederate forces so defiantly opposing them…
Combining searing satire with stunning slapstick, The Dirty Five mordantly manipulates the traditions of war stories to manifest a beguiling message about the sheer stupidity of war and crushing cruelty of obsessions equally effective in deprogramming younger, less world-weary audiences and even us old lags who have seen it all.
These stories weaponise humour, making occasional moments of shocking verity doubly powerful and hard-hitting. Funny, thrilling, beautifully realised and eminently readable, Bluecoats is the best kind of war-story and Western appealing to the best, not worst, of the human spirit.
© Dupuis 1984 by Lambil & Cauvin. All rights reserved. English translation © 2020 Cinebook Ltd.