Category: European Classics

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Gomer Goof volume 1: Mind the Goof!


By André Franquin, Delporte & Jidéhem: translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-358-1 (Album TPB/digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced during less enlightened times and some used for dramatic and comedic effect.

Born in Etterbeek, Belgium on January 3rd 1924, André Franquin began his astounding career in the golden age of European cartooning. In 1946, as assistant to Joseph “Jijé” Gillain on top strip Spirou, he inherited sole control of the keynote feature, and creating countless unforgettable characters like Fantasio and The Marsupilami. Over two decades Franquin made the strip purely his, expanding its scope and horizons, as co-stars Spirou & Fantasio – with hairy Greek Chorus Spip the squirrel – became globetrotting troubleshooters visiting exotic places, exposing crimes, exploring the incredible and clashing with bizarre, eccentric arch-enemies. Throughout all that, Fantasio remained a full-fledged – albeit entirely fictional – reporter for Le Journal de Spirou, popping back to base between assignments. Regrettably, ensconced there like a splinter under a fingernail was an arrogant, accident-prone office junior. He was Gaston Lagaffe; Franquin’s other immortal – or peut-être unkillable? – conception…

There’s a hoary tradition of comics personalising fictitiously back-office creatives and the arcane processes they indulge in, whether it’s Marvel’s Bullpen or DC Thomson’s lugubrious Editor and underlings at The Beano and Dandy; it’s a truly international practise. Somehow though, after debuting in LJdS #985 (February 28th 1957), the affable dimwit grew – like one of his own monstrous DIY projects – beyond all control. Whether guesting in Spirou’s sagas or his own strips/faux reports for the editorial pages, Lagaffe became one of the most popular and ubiquitous components of the comic he was supposed to paste up.

In initial cameos or occasional asides on text pages, well-meaning foul-up and ostensible studio gofer Gaston lurked and lounged amidst a crowd of diligent toilers until the workshy slacker employed as a general assistant at LJdS’s head office became a solid immovable fixture. Ultimately the scruffy bit-player shambled into his own star feature…

In terms of schtick and delivery, older readers will recognise favourite beats and elements of well-intentioned helpfulness wedded to irrepressible self-delusion as seen in Benny Hill or Jacques Tati vehicles and recognise recurring riffs from Only Fools and Horses and Mr Bean. It’s blunt-force slapstick, using paralysing puns, fantastic ingenuity and inspired invention to mug smugness, puncture pomposity, lampoon the status quoi? (and that’s British punning, see?) and ensure no good deed goes noticed, rewarded or unpunished…

As previously stated, Gaston/Gomer can be seen (if you’re very quick or extremely patient) toiling at Le Journal de Spirou’s editorial offices. At first he reported to Fantasio, but as pressure of work took the hero away, the Goof instead complicated the lives of office manager Léon Prunelle and other harassed and bewildered staffers, all whilst effectively ignoring any tasks he’s paid to actually handle. These notionally include page paste-up, posting packages, filing, clean-up, collecting stuff inbound from off-site and editing readers’ letters – the reason why fans’ requests/suggestions are never acknowledged or answered…

Gomer is lazy, hyperkinetic, opinionated, ever-ravenous, impetuous, underfed, forgetful and eternally hungry: a passionate sports fan, self-proclaimed musician maestro and animal lover whose most manic moments all stem from cutting work corners, stashing or consuming contraband nosh in the office or inventing the Next Big Thing. This situation leads to constant clashes with colleagues and draws in notionally unaffiliated bystanders like increasingly manic traffic cop Longsnoot and fireman Captain Morwater, plus ordinary passers-by who should know by now to keep away from this street.

Through it all, the obtuse office oaf remains affable, easy-going and incorrigible. Only three questions matter: why everyone keeps giving him one last chance, what does gentle, lovelorn Miss Jeanne see in the self-opinionated idiot, and will perpetually-outraged and accidentally abused capitalist financier De Mesmaeker ever get his perennial, pestiferous contracts signed?

If you’re old, new to this and yet experiencing a dose of déjà vu, it might be because the big idiot appeared in a 1970s Thunderbirds annual, rechristened Cranky Franky. Perhaps they should have kept the original title…

This premier compilation consists of half-page shorts and comedic text story “reports” from the LJdS’s editorial page before ultimately unleashing full episodes of madcap buffoonery. As previously stated Gomer is employed (let’s not dignify his position by calling it “work”) at the Spirou offices, reporting to go-getting Fantasio and foolishly left in charge of minor design jobs like paste-up and reading readers’ letters and general dogs-bodying. He’s lazy, opinionated, forgetful and eternally hungry. Many of his most catastrophic actions revolve around cutting corners and caching illicit food in the office…

Following 26 short, sharp two-tier gag episodes – involving Gomer’s office innovations, his hunt for food, assorted pets and livestock, sporting snafus and his appallingly decrepit and dilapidated Fiat 509 auto(barely)mobile – the first of numerous prose vignettes ‘On the Line’ exposes the fool’s many delusional attempts to become an inventor. Other text forays – punctuated by more pint-sized gag-strips – follow. These comedy briefs include ‘More Than One String to his Bow’, ‘Police Report’, ‘Open Letter to Mr De Mesmaeker’ (Jean De Mesmaeker being the real name of collaborator and background artist Jidéhem and taken for the self-important businessman who became Gomer’s ultimate foil), ‘Winter Stalactites’, ‘Red vs Blue’, ‘Noise Pollution’, ‘Presence of Mind’, ‘Gomer’s stethoscope’, ‘The Firebug Fireman’, ‘Gas-powered bicycle’ and ‘Definitely-not-surreptitious advertising’.

The print then gives way to a long-running procession of half-page strips with our editorial idiot causing a cataclysm of cartoon chaos.

Further prose pieces slip into extended continuity when Fantasio embargoes all canned food (potentially explosive and always a bio-hazard) and Gomer applies all his dubious ingenuity to beating the ban in ‘The tin wars’, ‘Ticking tin bombs’, ‘Diary of a War correspondent’ and ‘Blockade’ before one final strip flurry brings the hilarity to temporary pause…

Far better enjoyed than précised or described, these strips allowed Franquin, fellow scenarist Yvan Delporte and Jidéhem to flex their whimsical muscles and subversively sneak in some satirical support for their political beliefs in pacifism and environmentalism, but at their core remain supreme examples of all-ages comedy: wholesome, barbed, daft and incrementally funnier with every re-reading.

So why not start now?
© Dupuis, Dargaud-Lombard s.a. 2017 by Franquin. All rights reserved. English translation © 2017 Cinebook Ltd.

Today in 1907, comic strip god Milton Caniff was born, as was – in 1913 – John Carter of Mars illustrator John Coleman Burroughs. Ditto Japanese teacher/political cartoonist Taizo Yokoyama (Pu-san, Eheh) in1917. Reading wise, André Franquin’s Gaston Lagaffe debuted in 1957.

If there was a February 29th this year, tomorrow we’d be commemorating the birth of Italian superstar Paolo Eleuteri Serpieri (Druuna) in 1944 and the launch of Bil Keane’s The Family Circus in 1960… but we don’t so we ain’t.

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Spirou and Fantasio volume 11: The Wrong Head


By André Franquin, translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-313-0 (Album PB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times. This book also contains Discriminatory Content included for comedic effect.

André Franquin was born in Etterbeek, Belgium on January 3rd 1924 and died on January 5th 1997. In between there were good times and bad, which he offset by creating the most incredible characters and stories, and by making people laugh and think – but mostly laugh. This is one of the very best you can find translated into English.

Adventure-seeking Spirou headlined the magazine he was named for from the first issue (dated April 21st 1938). He was created by French cartoonist Françoise Robert Velter using his pen-name Rob-Vel for Belgian publisher Éditions Dupuis. This was in direct response to the success of Hergé’s Tintin for rival outfit Casterman.

Originally a plucky bellboy/lift operator employed by the Moustique Hotel (a sly reference to the publisher’s premier periodical Le Moustique), his improbable exploits with pet squirrel Spip gradually grew into high-flying, far-reaching, surreal comedy dramas. That evolution was mainly thanks to Velter’s wife Blanche “Davine” Dumoulin who took over the strip when her husband enlisted in 1939 and Belgian artist/assistant Luc Lafnet… at least until 1943 when Dupuis purchased all rights to the property, after which comic-strip prodigy Joseph Gillain (Jijé) took the helm.

Our interest really begins when Jijé handed his own trainee assistant complete responsibility for the flagship strip part-way through Spirou et la maison préfabriqué (Le Journal de Spirou #427, June 20th 1946). André Franquin ran with it for two decades; enlarging the scope and horizons until it became purely his own. Almost every week fans would meet startling new characters such as comrade/rival Fantasio or crackpot inventor and Merlin of mushroom mechanics the Count of Champignac. Spirou and Fantasio became globe-trotting journalists, travelling to exotic places, uncovering crimes, exploring the fantastic and clashing with a coterie of exotic arch-enemies such as Zorglub and Fantasio’s unsavoury cousin Zantafio.

Franquin, plagued in later life by bouts of depression, passed away in 1997 but his legacy remains; a vast body of work which reshaped the landscape of European comics.

Here then as originally serialised in LJdS #840-869 in 1954 and subsequently released on the continent in 1957 as hardcover album Spirou et Fantasio 8 – La Mauvaise Tête, this sinister yarn begins as Spirou visits short-tempered pal Fantasio and finds the house a shambles. The intrepid investigator has ransacked his own home in search of missing passport photos with his insensate fury only abating (a bit!) after Spirou convinces him to come play paddleball.

Later, whilst looking for a lost ball in the woods, Spirou finds one of the missing photos but thinks nothing of it…

That evening strange events begin: Spirou sees Fantasio acting oddly in town and when a jeweller is robbed, the brutalised merchant identifies Fantasio as the smash-and-grab thief…

More seeds of suspicion are sown and Spirou doesn’t know what to think when a solid gold Egyptian mask is stolen on live TV. The bandit is clearly seen to be his best pal…

Spirou is still seeking to reason with Fantasio when the cops arrive and, with nobody believing the reporter’s ridiculous story of being in Paris on a spurious tip, watches with helpless astonishment as the accused makes a bold escape bid…

Still astounded, Spirou wanders to the ramshackle house where he found the missing photo and finds a strange set-up: a plaster cast of Fantasio and weird plastic goo in a mixing bowl…

His snooping is suddenly disturbed by screams and sounds of a struggle. Chasing the cacophony, he finds one man holding the stolen gold mask and another on the floor. The standing man is too quick to catch and drives away with a third stranger, but as Spirou questions the beaten victim he learns that the loser of the fight is a sculptor who was hired to make astounding life-like masks of some journalist…

Soon Spirou is hot on the trail of the criminal confederates, uncovering a diabolical scheme to destroy Fantasio by an old enemy they had both discounted and almost forgotten. He has not forgotten them, however, and soon everything is up in the air and beyond belief. Even the nation’s sacrosanct sport of cycle racing is not beyond the scope of the vile manipulator’s brazen scheming…

Fast-paced, compellingly convoluted and perfectly blending helter-skelter excitement with keen suspense and outrageous slapstick humour, the search for The Wrong Head is an utterly compelling romp to delight devotees of easy-going adventure.

As if criminal capers and a spectacular courtroom drama climax is not enough, this tome also includes a sweet early solo outing for the marvellous Marsupilami as ‘Paws off the Robins’ finds the plastic pro-simian electing himself guardian of a nest of newborn hatchlings in Count Champignac’s copious gardens, and resolved to defend the chicks from a marauding cat at all costs…

Stuffed with fabulously fun, riotous chases and gallons of gags, this exuberant tome is a joyous example of angst-free action, thrills and spills. Readily accessible to readers of all ages and drawn with beguiling style and seductively wholesome élan, this is pure cartoon gold: an enduring comics treat, destined to be as much a British household name as that other kid reporter and his dog…
Original edition © Dupuis, 1957 by Franquin. All rights reserved. English translation 2016 © Cinebook Ltd.

Today in 1897 British illustrator and cartoonist Edgar Henry Banger was born, as was our graphic comedy god Dudley D. Watkins in 1907. In the US, Norm (Batman) Breyfogle and Jeff (Bone) Smith arrived in 1960, and Andy Kubert in 1962.

Big day for departures too, with “Father of Turkish Comics” Cemal Nadir leaving in 1947; Bill Everett in 1973; Italy’s Carlo (Sor Pampurio) Bisi in 1982 and both Bill (Smokey Stover) Holman and Darrell Craig MacClure (Little Annie Rooney) in 1987.

Achievement-wise, UK pre-school comic Jack and Jill began its 1600+ week run today in 1954.

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Shorts


By Milo Manara, translated by Tom Leighton (Catalan Communications)
ISBN: 978-087416-060-4 (HB)

For some folks the graphic novel under review here will be unacceptably lewd, even “dirty”. If that’s you, please stop here and come back tomorrow when there will something you’ll approve of but which will surely offend somebody else.

It’s another amatory Final Countdown moment and possibly a last chance to impress that significant one this year so let’s maturely and contemplatively review a rather quirky, philosophical – and typically unattainable – tome by one of the world’s greatest graphic eroticists. Originally translated into English from the French edition Courts Métrages by Catalan in 1989, it’s another inexplicably Out-of-Print graphic gem desperately in need of an English language release.

Maurilio “Milo” Manara (born September 12th 1945) has always been a puckish intellectual and whimsical craftsman with a dazzling array of artistic skills ranging from architecture, product design, filmmaking & animation, painting and of course an elegant, refined, clear-clean line style with pen and ink. He is best known for his wry, controversial and generally sexually explicit material – although that’s more an indicator of our comics market than any artistic obsession. He’s even drawn the X-Men – but mostly the women…

After studying painting and architecture he began crafting comics for money in 1969, beginning with Fumetti Neri series Genius, and thereafter working on the magazine Terror. His life’s goal came in 1971 as he began his “adult” career (see what I did there?) illustrating Francisco Rubino’s Jolanda de Almaviva which led, four years later, to his first major work and success. Originally released as Lo Scimmiotto, The Ape was a bold, bawdy reworking of the Chinese tales of the Monkey King.

By the end of the seventies he was working for the vast Franco-Belgian market where he is still regarded as an A-list creator. It was while creating material for Charlie Mensuel, Pilote and L’Écho des savanes that he created his signature series HP and Giuseppe Bergman for A Suivre.

As the 80’s staggered to a close he wrote and drew, in his characteristic blend of raunchy burlesque and saucy slapstick, the eccentric selection of satirical, baroque tales gathered here as a barbed and penetrating assault on modern media and bastardized popular cultural, which were increasingly being used to cloak capitalist intrusions and commercial seductions.

In these absurdist, voyeuristic, fourth-wall breaking, intellectually-challenging, exceedingly sexy monochrome vignettes, Manara highlights the diminishing divisions between Art and Selling, with tales intended to make your head throb as much as your nethers.

The sensorial incursion commences with ‘Commercial’, as a typical couch-potato is inexorably drawn into the Casanovan drama he’s watching. However, the drama’s TV-contained characters are impeded in their roles by the intrusive presence of the sponsor’s unsavoury product: adult diapers…

All of these yarns are visually influenced by iconography of the Great Arts, like Luciano Pavarotti and Fellini, and ‘Blue Period’ details the ruthless nature of commercialism as a photographic director goes to extraordinary lengths to reproduce a Picasso painting for an album cover. Sadly, under normal conditions, the human body just don’t bend that way…

‘X3’ offers to reveal your sex-portrait with a brief questionnaire survey carried out by aliens well-versed in the techniques of abduction and probing whilst ‘John Lennon’ delightfully describes what happened after the master musician got to Heaven before ‘Acherontia Atropos’ plays a very dark prank on a cameraman who signs up to film a genuine snuff-movie…

‘Untitled’ returns to the role of unsatisfied Casanova as the legendary lover suffers an unquantifiable loss and surreal challenge to his life-style, whilst ‘The Last Tragic Day of Gori Bau & the Callipygian Sister’ sinisterly shows the dark side of “underage” explorations and pubescent curiosity when a trio of kids invoke feelings and powers they are not equipped to cope with. This comes from a far less sensitive time and might well be the most emotionally triggering tale here, so please read with care and your eyes and conscience open…

Our allegorical ambuscade concludes with the calamitously comedic surreal science fiction yarn ‘And’ as an Earthman and an Arcturian escape from a dying planet thanks to the power of a book which writes itself and predicts the future. If only the incredible chronicle had a spell-checker too…

Delineated in Manara’s beautifully rendered, lavish linework this explicit, daringly deep and sexually charged selection makes intriguing points of social and creative commentary in an utterly seductive and fascinating manner, but even at its most raunchy, funny and challenging this tome is first and foremost a work of sublime pictorial entertainment desperately worthy of a new edition.
© 1989 Milo Manara/Staletti, agent, Paris. English Language edition © 1989 Catalan Communications. All rights reserved.

Today in 1877 strip cartoonist Sidney “The Gumps” Smith was born as was Bud Blake (Tiger) in 1918 and letterer Danny Crespi in 1926. We lost The New Yorker stalwart Gluyas Williams in 1982 and the astounding Ron Embleton (Wrath of the Gods, Stingray, Biggles, Look and Learn, World of Wonder, Oh Wicked Wanda, those images in the closing credits of Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons).

The day also saw the beginning of Hal Foster’s Prince Valiant in 1937, Leo Baxendale’s The Bash Street Kids in The Beano in 1954 and the last Peanuts strip by Charles M. Schulz in 2000.

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Bluecoats volume 19 Drummer Boy


By Willy Lambil & Raoul Cauvin, with Leonardo; translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-80044-177-4 (Album PB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times but also emphasised for dramatic and comedic effect.

Devised by Louis “Salvé” Salvérius & Raoul Cauvin – who scripted the first 64 volumes until retirement in 2020 – Les Tuniques Bleues (or Dutch iteration De Blauwbloezen) began as the 1960s ended: created to soften the blow of losing Lucky Luke when that mild-mannered maverick megastar defected from Le Journal de Spirou to arch-rival periodical Pilote. From the start, the substitute strip was popular: swiftly becoming one of the most-consumed bande dessinée series in Europe. After stints by the Jose-Luis Munuera/BeKa writing partnership, it is now scribed by Kris and up to 68 volumes…

Salvé was a cartoonist in the Gallic big-foot/big-nose humour manner, and after his sudden death in 1972, successor Willy “Lambil” Lambillotte gradually moved towards a more realistic – but still overtly comedic – tone and look. Born in 1936, Lambil is Belgian and, after studying Fine Art in college, joined publishing giant Dupuis in 1952 as a letterer. Arriving on Earth two years later, scripter Cauvin was also Belgian and (prior to joining Dupuis’ animation department in 1960) studied Lithography. He soon discovered his true calling was comedy and began a glittering, prolific writing career at LJdS. In addition, he scripted dozens of long-running, award winning series including Cédric, Les Femmes en Blanc and Agent 212: clocking up more than 240 separate albums. Les Tuniques Bleues alone has sold over 15 million copies… and counting.

Cauvin died on August 19th 2021, but his vast legacy of barbed laughter remains and – as of ten minutes ago – Lambril, at 87, is still drawing the Boys in Blue…

The Bluecoats are long-suffering protagonists Sergeant Cornelius Chesterfield and Corporal Blutch: worthy, honest fools in the manner of Laurel & Hardy; ill-starred US cavalrymen defending a vision of a unified America during the War Between the States – well, at least one of them is…

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, perpetually fighting in the American Civil War. Subsequent exploits are set within the scant timeframe of the Secession conflict, but – like today’s tale – occasionally range far beyond the traditional environs of the sundered USA, dipping into and embracing actual events (also like today’s tale), tackling genuine, thoroughly researched moments of history…

Blutch is an everyday, 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 at every opportunity, he’s you or me – except at his core he’s smart, principled, loyal and even heroic… if no easier option presents itself. Chesterfield is a big, burly professional fighting man: a proud career soldier of the 22nd Cavalry who devoutly believes in patriotism and esprit-de-corps of The Army. Brave, bold, never shirking his duty and hungry to be a medal-wearing hero, he’s quite naïve and also loves his cynical little pal. Naturally, they quarrel like a married couple, fight like brothers and simply cannot agree on the point and purpose of the horrendous war they are trapped in. That situation again stretches their friendship to breaking point in this cunningly conceived instalment, in which both find themselves pretty much fish out of water…

On offer this time is a rather more straightforward and trenchant outing with characters rather than settings providing most of the humour. Coloured as ever by Vittorio Leonardo, Les Tuniques Bleues – Drummer Boy was serialised continentally in Le Journal de Spirou #2720-2730, before becoming the 31st album in 1990, and now Cinebook’s 19th translated Bluecoats book.

As already hinted, it differs somewhat from the majority of tales, which tread a fine line between comedy and righteous anger, so if you share these books with younger kids, best read it first. However, biting wit and sardonic comedy are curbed for a mostly moving message here as a battlefield policy decision divides the old comrades and unleashes calamity and catastrophe. It begins in polemical mode as the aftermath of another battle leaves corpses and cripples underfoot (on both sides) and colonels and generals (ditto) unable to ascertain why their great plans and bold strategies just don’t work.

As always the casualty lists provoke a drive for new recruits, the one area where Union forces can outdo the Confederacy. As Chesterfield & Blutch indulge a rare quiet moment in a nearby town, they dispassionately watch the hundreds of poor folk, recent immigrants, unemployed men and thirsty ne’er-do-wells signing up, but only until Blutch spots a very young boy in the queue. Chesterfield cannot understand his pal’s towering outrage as Blutch tries everything to get the so-determined kid out of the line and away from the meatgrinder of imminent slaughter. What lands the little rebel in the guardhouse, however, is the patriotic Sergeant “taking care” of the problem by rushing the waif to the front of the line and personally signing him up.

At war with each other for the rest of the tale, Blutch – as chuck wagon commissary server – provides most of the laughs from this point on, as even the madmen running the 22nd Cavalry and Union top brass can find no suitably bellicose role for the plucky orphan in their ranks. Thus little Pucky Potts is made company drummer boy as both sides build up for the next – deciding – pitched battle.

Only that’s not quite how things work out, as the Rebs somehow anticipate every move and stratagem before delivering a stinging defeat. It keeps happening and eventually even the Generals work out what Blutch has already deduced. Pucky is a spy for the other side…

Refusing to let any child be killed for this stupidity, the corporal pulls out all the stops and even makes up with his old ally to ensure that the travesty of an underage execution will not happen. First, though, he has to stop being thrown in the guardhouse and get Chesterfield to talk to him…

Again highlighting not only divisions and disparities of officers and enlisted men but also of the American class structure – particularly the inherent racism driving rich and poor players on all sides – Drummer Boy is another disturbingly edgy epic that makes fun from the very worst of human endeavour. Shocking, powerful and hard-hitting as well as funny, thrilling, beautifully realised and eminently readable, this is one of finest Bluecoats yarns in the entire canon and best kind of war-story/Western. it appeals to the best, not worst, of the human spirit and hopefully that means you. © Dupuis 1990 by Lambil & Cauvin. All rights reserved. English translation © 2025 Cinebook Ltd.

Today in 1912 Mexican cartoonist German Butze (The Supersabios) was born, with Bringing up Father follow-up artist Zeke Zekley arriving three years later, and Danish multi-talented Peter Snejbjerg not joining us until 1963.

In 1977 Us cartoonist Ben Batsford (Billy’s Uncle; Doings of the Duffs; Little Annie Rooney; Frankie Doodle; Mortimer and Charlie) died, as did gekiga mangaka Jiro Taniguchi (Icaro; A Distant Neighorhood; The Summit of the Gods; A Journal of My Father) in 2017.

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Papyrus volume 2: Imhotep’s Transformation


By Lucien De Gieter, coloured by Colette De Gieter: translated by Luke Spear (Cinebooks)
ISBN: 978-1- 905460-50-2 (Album PB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

British and European comics have always been happier with historical strips than our cousins across the pond (a pugnacious part of me wants to say that’s because we have so much more past to play with – and yes, I know they can claim Prince Valiant, but it’s an exception, not a rule), and our Franco-Belgian brethren in particular have made an astonishing art form out of days gone by.

The happy combination of past lives and world-changing events blended with drama, action and especially broad humour has generated a genre uniquely suited to beguiling readers of all ages and tastes. Don’t take my word for it – just check out Asterix, Adele Blanc-Sec, The Towers of Bois-Maury, Empress Charlotte, Iznogoud or Thorgal to name the merest few which have made it into English, or even our own much missed classics such as Olac the Gladiator, Dick Turpin, Heros the Spartan or Wrath of the Gods – all long overdue for collection in mass market album form and on the interweb-tubes…

Papyrus is the spectacular magnum opus of Belgian cartoonist Lucien de Gieter. It began in 1974 in the legendary weekly Le Journal de Spirou, running to 36 albums, plus a wealth of merchandise, a television cartoon show and a video game.

The plucky “fellah” (go look it up) was blessed by the gods and gifted with a magic sword courtesy of the daughter of crocodile-headed Sobek. His original brief was to free supreme Horus from imprisonment in the Black Pyramid of Ombos and thereby restore peace to the Two Kingdoms. More immediately however the lad was also charged with protecting Pharaoh’s wilful and high-handed daughter Theti-Cheri – a princess with an unmatchable talent for finding trouble…

De Gieter was born in 1932 and studied at Saint-Luc Art Institute in Brussels before going into industrial design and interior decorating. He made the logical jump into sequential narrative in 1961, first through ‘mini-récits’ inserts (fold-in, half-sized-booklets) for Le Journal de Spirou of his jovial little cowboy Pony, and later by writing for established regular art stars as Kiko, Jem, Eddy Ryssack and Francis.

He then joined Peyo’s studio as inker on Les Schtroumpfs – AKA The Smurfs – and took over the long-running newspaper strip Poussy. In the mid-1960s he created South Seas mermaid fantasy Tôôôt et Puit’, even as Pony was promoted to the full-sized pages of Spirou, so De Gieter deep-sixed his Smurfs gig to expand his horizons, producing work for Le Journal de Tintin and Le Journal de Mickey. From 1972-1974 he assisted cartooning legend Berck on Mischa for Germany’s Primo, whilst putting finishing touches to his new project. This creation would occupy his full attention – and delight millions of fervent fans – for the next 40 years.

The annals of Papyrus encompass a huge range of themes and milieus: blending boys-own adventure with historical fiction and interventionist mythology, gradually evolving from traditionally appealing Bigfoot cartoon content towards a more realistic, dramatic and authentic iteration. Throughout, these light fantasy romps depict a fearless, forthright boy fisherman favoured by the gods as a hero of Egypt and friend to Pharaohs.

Imhotep’s Transformation was the second Cinebook translation (and 8th yarn, originally released in 1985 as La Métamorphose d’Imhotep): opening with our hero and his one-legged friend Imhotep (no relation) paddling a canoe through the marshes of the Nile. The peaceful idyll is wrecked when Theti-Cheri and her handmaidens hurtle by in their flashy boat, but the boys don’t mind as they have a message for the princess and were looking for her…

The new sacred statue of her father has arrived from the Priests of Memphis and the daughter of Heaven is required at the ceremony to install it at the pyramid of Saqqara before the annual Heb Sed King’s Jubilee. As girls and boys race back, an old peasant is attacked by a crocodile and diving after him; Papyrus wrestles the reptile away. He is about to kill it when Sobek appears, beseeching him to spare it.

On the surface Theti-Cheri and her attendants are ministering to the aged victim and the princess can’t help noticing how he bears an uncanny resemblance to her dad…

By the time they all reach the pyramid, the monumental task of hauling the statue into place is well under way, but suddenly blood begins pouring out of the monolith’s eyes. Terrified workers panic and the colossal effigy slips, crashing to destruction. The populace are aghast and murmurs of curses and ill omens abound. Rather than running away, Imhotep heads for the rubble and discovers the statue’s head is hollow. Moreover, inside there is a dead dwarf and a smashed flask which had held blood…

Papyrus is in the royal compound where recent events have blighted the anticipation of the court. During Heb Sed, the Pharaoh has to run around the sacred pyramid three times and fire his bow at the four corners of the kingdoms to prove his fitness to rule, but now it appears the gods have turned against their chosen emissary on Earth…

Papyrus is not so sure and when he tries to speak to a royal server the man bolts. Giving chase, the lad is in time to prevent the attendant’s murder, but not his escape. Then a cry goes up: Pharaoh has been poisoned…

Knowing there is no love lost between the Memphis Priests of Ptah and loyal Theban clerics doctoring the fallen king, Papyrus warns of a possible plot, but can offer no proof. What is worse, Chepseska, leader of the Memphis faction, is of royal blood too and will inherit the kingdom if Pharaoh is unable to complete the Heb Sed ritual. As loyal physicians and priests struggle to save their overlord’s life, Theti-Cheri remembers the old man in the swamp. If only the crocodile bite has not left him too weak to run…

The doughty dotard is willing to try and also knows of a wise woman whose knowledge of herbs can cure Pharaoh. However, ruthless Chepseska is on to the kids’ ploy and dispatches a band of killers to stop Papyrus and Imhotep.

The gods, however, are behind the brave kids and after the assassins fall to the ghastly judgement of Sobek, the boys rush an antidote back to Saqqara, only to fall into the lost tomb of Great Imhotep, first Pharaoh, builder-god and divine lord of the Ibis.

With time running out for his distant descendent, the resurrected ruler rouses himself to administer justice for Egypt and inflict the punishment of the gods upon the usurpers…

This is an amazing exploit to thrill and astound fans of fantastic fantasy and bombastic adventure. Papyrus is a brilliant addition to the family-friendly pantheon of continental champions who marry heroism and humour with wit and charm. Anybody who has worn out those Tintin, Lucky Luke or Asterix tomes would be wise beyond their years in acquiring these classic chronicles tales.

… And Cinebook would be smart to resume translating these magical yarns, too…
© Dupuis, 1985 by De Gieter. All rights reserved. English translation © 2008 Cinebook Ltd.

Born today in 1920 was pioneering woman mangaka Machiko Hasegawa (Sazae-san) as was Belgian auteur Jef Nys (Jommeke) in 1927. Writer Dann Thomas (Conan, All-Star Squadron, Young All-Stars, Arak, Son of Thunder, Crimson Avenger, Avengers West Coast) turned up in 1952 with comics cartoonist and satirist Fred Hembeck arriving a year later. It’s also Denys Cowan’s birthday (1961), Rhoda (Pakkin’s Land) Shipman (1968) and Michael Avon-Oeming (1973); and in 1971 we saw the last episode of Abbie an’ Slats.

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Chimera


By Lorenzo Mattotti (Fantagraphics Books and Coconino Press)
ISBN-13: 978-1-56097-763-6 (TPB)

The sixth release – I hesitate to call it a volume, as the format, though bold and wonderful, is far more than a magazine but not quite a book – from the eclectic European publications imprint designated The Ignatz Collection, this fabulous item features an uncharacteristic and unforgettable look at the monochrome work of one of the world’s most talented colour artists.

Today in 1954, Lorenzo Mattotti was born in Brescia, Italy. He grew up and studied at the Faculty for Architecture in Venice before beginning a career as a comics storyteller in 1975 in French magazine Circus. Whether alone or with long-time collaborator Fabrizio Ostani (AKA Jerry Kramsky – they often used the single pen-name “Kleidebistro”) Mattotti’s incredible, nigh-abstract designs and pictorial narratives rapidly won him a huge following, with work appearing in Métal Hurlant, L’Écho des Savanes (France), Rumbo Sur (Spain), Frigidaire, Secondamano and Alter Alter (Italy), Raw (USA) and The Face (UK) among many others.

In 2002 Mattotti and Kramsky produced Docteur Jekyll & Mister Hyde (based on the Robert Louis Stevenson classic) for Casterman, and the English translation won Mattotti an Eisner Award the following year. As an illustrator, Mattotti has worked for Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, Cosmopolitan, Vogue and Le Monde, and has produced a number of startling and beautiful children’s books. His absolute masterpiece thus far is – to my mind at least – Fires.

Behind a deeply unsettling gate-fold wraparound cover, but printed throughout on reassuringly solid cream-coloured card-stock, lurks a startling journey from idyllic cloud-gazing through vaguely erotic musings on gods and giants to the depths of a terrifying and oppressive forested hell. Rendered in bravura line-and-dry-brush style that ranges from seductive and cajoling, through airy tumult to raw, fierce, bestial rage and horror, Mattotti uses the reader’s eyes to pull the viewer on a chaotic descent reminiscent of Mussorgsky’s “A Night on Bald Mountain” (in the manner of Disney’s Fantasia version, with just a shade of Watership Down thrown in).

Comics aficionados might also recognize a touch of the panning-in technique used by the great André Barbe where small pictorial changes lead to a total transformation, not only to the graphic representations but also to the mental or spiritual state of the object and observer. But where Barbe wanted to languidly surprise and seduce you, Mattotti is here to make you squirm…

Even if the “how” isn’t your major concern, the whole pictorial experience of Chimera is one headlong rush, and a supreme lesson in the power and virtuosity of dark lines against the light. This is probably the only white-knuckle ride you can put on a bookshelf… so why don’t you?

Story and art © 2005 Lorenzo Mattotti. Book edition © 2005 Fantagraphics Books and Coconino Press.

Also Today but in 1910, Noel (Scorchy Smith) Sickles was born. He shares the day with Mattotti, inker Bruce D, Berry (1924), and John Romita Senior in 1930.

In 1943 morale-boosting Miss Lace debuted in Milt Caniff’s Male Call strip, and in Britain once the shooting stopped in 1948, The Beano unleashed Biffo the Bear for the first time.

In 1977 we lost the wonderful John Rosenberger (The Fly, The Jaguar, Young Dr Masters, Lady Cop, Supergirl, Lois Lane) and in 2002, sublime Kurt Schaffenberger (Captain Marvel, Shazam, Lois Lane, Superboy, Supergirl, Superman, Super Friends). All of these stars are worth your time and attention whether here or best yet in their actual collected works, so go do that.

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The Adventures of Jo, Zette & Jocko: The Valley of the Cobras


By Hergé, translated by Leslie Lonsdale-Cooper & Michael Turner (Egmont UK/ Mammoth)
ISBN: 978-1-4052-1244-1 (HB) 978-0-74970-385-1 (Album PB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

George Remi, world famous as Hergé, had a long creative connection to Catholicism. At the behest of Abbot Norbert Wallez, editor of Belgian Catholic newspaper Le XXe Siècle, he had created Tintin before moving on to such strips as the mischievous Quick and Flupke, Tim the Squirrel in the Far West’, ‘The Amiable Mr. Mops’, ‘Tom and Millie’ and ‘Popol Out West’ – all while expanding the globe-trotting adventures of the dauntless boy reporter and his faithful little dog.

In 1935, between working on serialised Tintin epics The Blue Lotus and The Broken Ear, Remi was approached by Father Courtois, director of French weekly newspaper Coeurs Vaillants (Valiant Hearts). The paper already carried the daily exploits of the kid and his dog, but Courtois also wanted a strip depicting solid family values and situations that the seemingly-orphaned and independent boy reporter was never exposed to. He also presumably wanted something less subversive than the trouble-making working-class boy rascals Quick and Flupke…

The proposed feature needed a set of characters typifying a decent, normal family: A working father, a housewife and mother, young boy, a sister, even a pet. Apparently inspired by a toy monkey called Jocko, Hergé devised the family Legrand.

Jacques was an engineer, and son Jo and daughter Zette were “normal” kids; bright, brave, honest, smart and yet still playful. Mother stayed home, cooking and being rather concerned rather a lot. They had a small, feisty monkey for a pet – although I suspect as Jocko was tailless, he might have been a baby chimpanzee, which “As Enny Fule Kno” is actually a species of ape.

The first adventure was a two-volume treasure: ‘The Secret Ray’; only once published in English and consequently rarer than Hen’s teeth or monkey feathers. However, I believe a soupçon of internet searching can help out the curious here…

A ripping yarn of scientific bandits, gangsters, mad professors, robots and, regrettably, some rather ethnically unsound incidences of cannibal savages, this is very much a product of its time in too many respects. Although Hergé came to deeply regret (and wherever possible amend) his many early uses of that era’s racial stereotyping, these will now always be controversial.

It’s a true pity that such masterful and joyous work must be viewed with caution, read strictly in context and ascribed subtext and values which may never have been intended, merely because the medium is pictorial and its meaning passively acquired rather than textual, and which can therefore only be decoded by the conscious effort of reading.

I also wonder how much was a quiet, sensitive artist led by an aggressively proselytising, missionary Church’s doctrine and policy…

How much Church opposition was there to Mussolini’s invasion of Ethiopia in October 1935 for example? And don’t get me started on Nazi Germany and the Vatican…

Sorry. Rant brakes have been applied now…

The last completed adventure of the boldly capable Legrand family came out in the 1950’s, when Hergé was at the peak of his creative powers. Although he found the concept a difficult one to work with, devoid of the opportunities for satire or social commentary, the wholesome derring-do of this series still provides thrilling and funny entertainment for kids of all ages…

Whilst vacationing in the Alps, Jo & Zette inadvertently fall foul of the whimsically capricious Maharajah of Gopal, who is infuriated that they are better skiers than he. Matters only worsen when Jo accidentally hits the Maharajah with a snowball.

The spoiled, rich bully’s appalling behaviour escalates until eventually their father Jacques administers a long overdue spanking to the middle-aged potentate which completely changes his attitude. A far friendlier Maharajah promptly commissions the engineer to construct a bridge across the fabled Valley of the Cobras that divides his mountainous kingdom.

As the family embark for the sub-continent, all are unaware that the villainous Prime Minister of Gopal has colluded with a greedy Fakir to sabotage the project…

Actually begun in 1939 but shelved for nearly two decades, this is still a light exuberant romp, full of thrills and packed with laughs, executed with the captivating artistry that has made Tintin a global phenomenon. This is a book any child will adore and it baffles me why it and its companion volumes are out of print. Hopefully not for long though…

© 1957, 2007 Editions Casterman, Paris & Tournai. All rights reserved. English text © 1986, 2005 Egmont UK Limited. All rights reserved.

 

Today in 1934 Alex Raymond & Dashiell Hammett’s strip Secret Agent X-9 began, running until 1996. In 1950 artist Marshall Rogers (Batman, Silver Surfer) was born, just like Alex Ross (Marvels, Kingdom Come) in 1970.

In 1966 British weekly Lady Penelope published the first of its amazing 204 issues.

2003 saw the last of magnificent Bill Mauldin, as covered in Willie and Joe: The WWII Years and in 2017 Italian cover painter of British publications Alessandro Biffignandi.

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Iznogoud volume 1: The Wicked Wiles of Iznogoud


By René Goscinny & Jean Tabary, translated by Anthea Bell & Derek Hockridge (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-905460-46-5 (Album TPB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

It’s anniversary time again! Today in 1962 something smart and wildly wicked first appeared, and just hung around. Please read on…

For the greater part of his too-short lifetime (1926-1977) René Goscinny was one of (if not The) most prolific, most-read writers of comic strips the world had ever seen. He still is.

Among his most popular comic collaborations are Lucky Luke, Le Petit Nicolas and, of course, Asterix the Gaul, but there were so many others, such as the dazzling, dark deeds of a dastardly usurper whose dreams of diabolical skulduggery perpetually proved to be ultimately no more than castles in the sand…

Scant years after the Suez crisis, the French returned to those hotly-contested deserts when Goscinny teamed with sublimely gifted Swedish émigré Jean Tabary (1930-2011). He numbered Richard et Charlie, Grabadu et Gabaliouchtou, Totoche, Corinne et Jeannot and Valentin le Vagabond amongst his other hit strips but found a moment to detail the innocuous history of imbecilic Arabian (im)potentate Haroun el-Poussah. However, it was the strip’s villainous foil, power-hungry vizier Iznogoud who stole the show – possibly the conniving little imp’s only successful coup…

The notion of the series apparently came from a throwaway moment in Les Vacances du Petit Nicolas, but – once it was fully formed and independent – Les Aventures du Calife Haroun el Poussah was created to join the roster in Record, with the first episode appearing in the January 15th 1962 issue. An assured if relatively minor hit, the strip jumped ship to Pilote – a picture-packed periodical created and edited by Goscinny – where it was artfully refashioned into a starring vehicle for the devious little ratbag who had increasingly been hogging all the laughs and limelight.

Like all great storytelling, Iznogoud works on multiple levels: for youngsters it’s a comedic romp with adorably wicked baddies invariably hoisted on their own petards and coming a-cropper, whilst older, wiser heads revel in pun-filled, witty satires and astoundingly wry yet accessible episodic comic capers. Just like our Parliament today. That latter aspect is investigated in this collection of short episodes…

This same magic formula (no, I’m being figurative, not literal) made its more famous cousin Asterix a monolithic global success and – just like the saga of the indomitable Gaul – our irresistibly addictive Arabian Nit was originally adapted into English by master translators Anthea Bell & Derek Hockridge, who made those Franco-Roman Follies so very palatable to British tastes. Always, deliciously malicious whimsy is heavily dosed with manic absurdity, cleverly contemporary cultural critiques and brilliantly delivered creative anachronisms which serve to keep the assorted escapades bizarrely fresh and hilariously inventive. However, like so many comics inventions, the series grew beyond its boundaries…

The retooled series launched in Pilote in 1968, quickly growing into a massive European hit, with 31 albums to date (carried on by Tabary’s children Stéphane, Muriel & Nicolas after his passing in 2011); his own solo comic; a computer game; animated film, TV cartoon show and a live-action movie.

When Goscinny died in 1977, Tabary started scripting his own sublimely stylish tales (from the 13th album onwards), gradually switching to book-length complete adventures, rather than the compilations of short, punchy vignettes which typified the collaborations.

In October 1974, whilst the shifty shenanigans were unfolding to the delight of kids, its sand-struck star began moonlighting. Pulling double duty as a commentator and critic of real-world politics and social issues in French newspapers the little wart scored a side hustle with a sidebar series that began as a statement and grew into a separate second career for the vindictive viper. Some oiks, like sand, just get everywhere…

So, what’s it all about?

Iznogoud is Grand Vizier to Haroun Al Plassid, Caliph of Ancient Baghdad, but the conniving little shyster has loftier ambitions – or as he is always shouting it – “I want to be Caliph instead of the Caliph!”…

The vile vizier is “aided” – and that’s me being uncharacteristically generous – in his endeavours and schemes by bumbling assistant Wa’at Alahf, and in this first album they begin their campaign with ‘Kissmet’, wherein pandemonium ensues after a talking frog is revealed as an ensorcelled Prince who can only regain human form if smooched by a human being.

Iznogoud sees an opportunity if he can only trick the simple-minded Caliph into puckering up; unfortunately but typically, the little rotter forgets that he’s not the only ambitious upstart in Baghdad…

‘Mesmer-Eyezed’ finds him employing a surly stage hypnotist to remove the Caliph whilst ‘The Occidental Philtre’ sees him employ a flying potion obtained from a lost, jet-lagged western sorcerer, each with hilarious but painfully counter-productive results.

Tabary drew himself into ‘The Time Machine’ wherein a comic artist desperate to meet his deadlines falls foul of a mystical time cabinet. However, when he meets the vizier, that diminutive dastard can clearly see its Caliph-removing potential… to his eternal regret…

Soon after in ‘The Picnic’ Iznogoud takes drastic action, luring Haroun Al Plassid into the desert, but as usual his best-laid plans really aren’t, before we conclude with ‘Chop and Change’ as our indefatigable villain obtains a magic goblet that can switch the minds of any who drink from it, forgetting that Caliphs are important people who employ food-tasters…

Snappy, fast-paced slapstick and painfully delightful word-play abound in these mirthfully infectious tales and the series is a household name in France; said term has even entered French political life as a description for a certain type of politician: over-ambitious, unscrupulous – and usually short in stature…

Eight albums were originally translated into English during the 1970s and 1980s without really making any little impact here, but once Cinebook’s revival the vile Vizier finally caught on in a superb sequence of gloriously readable and wonderfully affordable comedy epics that found an appreciative audience among British kids of all ages. That said, it’s been a while since the last one, but perhaps that’s the setting not the stories…
© 1967 Dargaud Editeur Paris by Goscinny & Tabary. All Rights Reserved.

Today in 1905, the last episode of Gustave Verbeek’s The Upside Downs ran in the New York Herald and in 1924 writer Stan Kay (Casper the Friendly Ghost, Richie Rich, Sad Sack, Fraggle Rock, The Muppets) was born. Practically yesterday, writer Scott Snyder (American Vampire. Batman. Justice Leafue) was born in 1976 whilst ten years later we lost Alfred Bestall of Rupert Bear fame.

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Tintin and the Picaros


By Hergé and Studios Hergé, translated by Leslie Lonsdale-Cooper & Michael Turner (Egmont)
ISBN: 978-1-40520-823-9 (album HB) 978-1-405206-35-8 (Album PB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Georges Prosper Remi, AKA Hergé created an undying masterpiece of graphic literature with his serialised tales of a plucky boy reporter and entourage of iconically odd associates. Singly, and later with assistants including Edgar P. Jacobs, Bob de Moor, Roger Leloup and other supreme stylists comprising the Hergé Studio, he created 23 timeless yarns (initially episodic instalments for a variety of newspaper periodicals) which have since grown beyond their mass-entertainment roots to attain the status of High Art and international cultural icons.

On leaving school in 1925, Remi began working for conservative Catholic newspaper Le Vingtiéme Siècle where he fell under the influence of its Svengali-esque editor Abbot Norbert Wallez. A devoted Boy Scout, one year later the young artist was producing his first strip series – The Adventures of Totor – for monthly Boy Scouts of Belgium magazine. By 1928 Remi was also in charge of producing the contents of the LVS’s weekly children’s supplement Le Petit Vingtiéme.

While Remi was illustrating The Adventures of Flup, Nénesse, Poussette and Cochonette – written by the staff sports reporter – Wallez required his compliant creative cash-cow to concoct a new and contemporary adventure series. Perhaps a young reporter who roamed the world, doing good whilst displaying solid Catholic values and virtues?

The rest is history…

Some of that history is quite dark: During the Nazi Occupation of Belgium, Le Vingtiéme Siècle was closed down and Hergé was compelled to move his supremely popular strip to daily newspaper Le Soir (Brussels’ most prominent French-language periodical, and thus appropriated and controlled by the Nazis). He diligently toiled on for the duration, and, following Belgium’s liberation, was accused of collaboration and even of being a Nazi sympathiser. It took the intervention of Belgian Resistance war hero Raymond Leblanc to dispel the cloud over Hergé, which he did by simply vouching for the cartoonist through words and deeds.

Leblanc provided cash to create a new magazine – Le Journal de Tintin – which he published and managed. The anthology comic swiftly achieved a huge weekly circulation, allowing Remi and his studio team to remaster past tales: excising material dictated by the Fascist invaders to ideologically shade the wartime adventures. Post-war modernising exercises also improved and updated the great tales, just in time for Tintin to become a global phenomenon, both in books and as an early star of animated TV adventure.

With the war over and his reputation restored, Hergé entered the most successful period of his artistic career. He had mastered his storytelling craft, possessed a dedicated audience eager for his every effort and was finally able to say exactly what he wanted in his work, free from fear or censure, if not his personal demons and declining health…

The greatest sign of this was not substantially in the comics tales – although Hergé continued to tinker with the form of his efforts – but rather in how long the gaps were between new exploits. The previous (22nd) romp had completed serialisation in 1967 and was duly collected as an album in 1968. It was then eight years before Tintin et les Picaros was simultaneously serialised in Belgium and France in Tintin-l’Hebdoptmiste magazine (from 16th September 1975 to April 13th 1976) but at least the inevitable book collection came out almost immediately upon completion.

Tintin and the Picaros is in all ways the concluding adventure, as many old characters and locales from previous tales make one final appearance. A partial sequel to The Broken Ear (please link to September 15, 2018) it finds operatic phenomenon Bianca Castafiore implausibly arrested for spying in Central American republic San Theodoros, with Tintin, Captain Haddock and Professor Calculus eventually lured to her rescue.

Insidious Colonel Sponsz – last seen in The Calculus Affair (please link to June 13, 2019) – is Bordurian Military Advisor to the Government of usurper General Tapioca, and has used his position to exact revenge on the intrepid band who humiliated him in his own land. When Tintin & company escape into the jungles during a murder attempt they soon link up with old comrade Alcazar, now leading a band of Picaro guerrillas dedicated to restoring him to power.

Central and South American revolutions were all the rage in the 1970s and Hergé’s cast had been involved with this one on and off since 1935. With the welcome return of anthropologist Doctor Ridgewell and the hysterical Arumbayas, and even an improbable action role (kind of) for obnoxious insurance salesman and comedy foil Jolyon Wagg, the doughty band bring about the final downfall of Tapioca in a thrilling yet bloodless coup during Carnival time, thanks to a hilarious comedy maguffin (initially targeting dipsomaniac Haddock) that turns out to be a brilliant piece of narrative misdirection by the author.

Sly, subtle, thrilling and warmly comforting, this tale was generally slated when first released but with the perspective of intervening decades can be seen as a most fitting place to end The Adventures of Tintin… but only until you pick up another volume and read them again – as you indubitably will.
Tintin and the Picaros: artwork © 1976 by Editions Casterman, Paris & Tournai. Text © 1976 Egmont UK Limited. All rights reserved.

Today in 1887 Betty Boop creator Bud Counihan was born, as was Dixie Dugan creator J.P. McEvoy in 1894. In 1909 DC stalwart Jack Miller (Rip Hunter, Aquaman, Deadman) was born, and as you’ve just seen Tintin debuted today in 1929 in the first episode of Tintin in the Land of the Soviets.

In 1932 the first Sunday Mickey Mouse page appeared as did UK footie mag Scorcher in 1970. Most momentously, Marvel mainstay John Buscema died today in 2002.

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Spirou and Fantasio volume 9: The Dictator and the Mushroom


By André Franquin, translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-267-6 (album PB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Another anniversary I just couldn’t leave unremarked upon. Deal with it. I’m old, morose and accursed with nostalgia.

André Franquin was born in Etterbeek, Belgium on January 3rd 1924 and died on January 5th 1997. In between there were good times and bad, which he offset by creating the most incredible characters and stories, and by making people laugh and think – but mostly laugh. This is one of the very best you can find translated into English.

Adventure-seeking kid Spirou headlined the magazine he was named for from the first issue (dated April 21st 1938). He was created by French cartoonist Françoise Robert Velter using his pen-name Rob-Vel for Belgian publisher Éditions Dupuis in direct response to the success of Hergé’s Tintin for rival outfit Casterman. Originally a plucky bellboy/lift operator employed by the Moustique Hotel (a sly reference to the publisher’s premier periodical Le Moustique), his improbable exploits with pet squirrel Spip gradually grew into high-flying, far-reaching and surreal comedy dramas. That evolution was mainly thanks to Velter’s wife Blanche “Davine” Dumoulin who took over the strip when her husband enlisted in 1939 and Belgian artist assistant Luc Lafnet… at least until 1943 when Dupuis purchased all rights to the property, after which comic-strip prodigy Joseph Gillain (Jijé) took the helm.

Our interest really begins when Jijé handed his own trainee assistant complete responsibility for the flagship strip part-way through Spirou et la maison préfabriqué, (Le Journal de Spirou #427, June 20th 1946). Andre Franquin ran with it for two decades; enlarging the scope and horizons until it became purely his own. Almost every week fans would meet startling new characters such as comrade/rival Fantasio or crackpot inventor and Merlin of mushroom mechanics the Count of Champignac.

Spirou and Fantasio became globe-trotting journalists, travelling to exotic places, uncovering crimes, exploring the fantastic and clashing with a coterie of exotic arch-enemies such as Zorglub and Fantasio’s unsavoury cousin Zantafio. Incidentally, eerily-relevant The Dictator and the Mushroom features the second appearances of Zantafio and strong, capable, female (!) rival journalist Seccotine (renamed Cellophine for these English translations)…

Franquin, plagued in later life by bouts of depression, passed away in 1997 but his legacy remains; a vast body of work which reshaped the landscape of European comics.

Here then as originally serialised in LJdS #801-838, between 1953 and 1954 before subsequently being released on the continent in 1956 as hardcover album Spirou et Fantasio 7 – Le Dictateur et Le Champignon, this epic episode begins as globe-trotting troubleshooter Spirou and his short-tempered reporter pal Fantasio approach the isolated home of eccentric inventor Count Champignac. They are resolved to return the mischievous miracle monkey Marsupilami to its natural habitat in the jungles of Palombia…

Sadly, whilst they discuss their plan with the elderly savant, the mischievous monkey he’s been safeguarding swipes the inventor’s latest mycoprotein marvel and heads for town…

Champignac calls the gaseous form of his newest mushroom extract “metalsoft” and that’s exactly what the stuff does: reduce the solidity of iron, brass, bronze, tin or whatever to the consistency of hot wax. By the time the prankish primate has finished innocently playing with the pump dispenser, locals are in uproar and their village is practically a puddle…

With nobody in Europe objecting, the lads promptly book passage on a South America-bound cruise ship, where once again the elastic-tailed terror causes a cacophony of comedic chaos. Eventually, though, our increasingly irate and exhausted adventurers at last head in-country towards sleepy Palombia where a big surprise is waiting for them…

Thanks to Marsupilami, they are forced to travel the last ten miles to capital city Chiquito on foot and are astonished to observe the sheer number of military vehicles constantly overtaking them. In the city, an altercation with soldiers leads to their arrest and interview with new supreme dictator General Zantas. The meeting is both a huge shock and unhappy reunion…

Fantasio’s cousin Zantafio had been only a little mean and perhaps misguided when they were all first hunting for the Marsupilami, but since then has reinvented himself, graduating into a full-blown murderous megalomaniac. A cheap thug in a flashy uniform, he is determined to carve himself a bloody empire and vast wealth through the conquest of his national neighbours. Moreover, Zantafio/Zantas wants his countrymen and cousin to join him in the campaign of conquest, a horrific demand the reporters initially refuse.

Locked in jail, Spirou & Fantasio ponder how to stop the murderous scheme and realise the perfect counter to Zantas’ burgeoning war machine is Champignac’s Metalsoft. All they have to do is get a message to the inventor and have him send enough of the wonder stuff to destroy the ever-expanding army…

Thus they apparently switch sides and are soon installed as high ranking officers. Of course, Zantafio is no fool and sets his most cunning spy to watch them; just waiting for the moment when they betray themselves.

It’s not our heroes’ first rodeo either and, aware of their shadow, the lads engage in a prolonged and hilarious game of cat-&-mouse with the spook, all the while fretting that D-Day is approaching and they still haven’t been able to smuggle out a message…

A solution presents itself when go-getting journalist Cellophine makes contact. She’s been secretly covering the crisis for ages – without being caught like her mere male rivals – and offers to ferry the request for Metalsoft to Champignac ASAP…

Things aren’t all going Zantafio’s way. Even though weapons dealers are frantically auditioning their death-dealing wares for the General, Colonels Spirou & Fantasio are especially diligent and somehow able to find dangerous faults in everything on offer…

And then one night Cellophine sneaks back into Palombia with the secret weapon which will end Zantas’ dreams of empire…

Following a fantastical fight with the mushroom-gas-wielding trio battling an entire modern military, and a tense yet inconclusive showdown with Zantafio, peace and democracy break out and the boys finally complete their original mission. Having at last safely returned the Marsupilami to his natural wilderness, Spirou & Fantasio wearily head back to civilisation, content in the knowledge that the lovable little perisher is back where he belongs.

Of course, the pestilential primate has his own ideas on the matter…

Stuffed with superb slapstick situations, riotous chases and gallons of gags, but barely concealing a strongly satirical anti-war message, this exuberant yarn is a joyous example of angst-free action, thrills and spills. Easily accessible to readers of all ages and drawn with beguiling style and seductively wholesome élan, this is an enduring comics treat from a long line of superb exploits, deserving to be as much a household name as that other kid reporter and his dog…
Original edition © Dupuis, 1956 by Franquin. All rights reserved. English translation 2015 © Cinebook Ltd.

Today in 1941 mangaka/anime director Hayao Miyazaki (Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind) was born, and two years later so was street level/underground commix crafter Roger (Eerie, Tales of Sex and Death, Yellow Dog) Brand. In 1957 Brick Bradford cartoonist Clarence Gray died, as did André Franquin in 1997, and in 2000, master mangaka Goseki Kojima famed and missed for such wonders as Kozure Okami (Lone Wolf and Cub), Kubikiri Asa (Samurai Executioner) and Hanzo no Mon (Path of the Assassin).