Category: Marsupilami

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Spirou and Fantasio: The Marsupilami Thieves


By André Franquin, translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-167-9 (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 handled 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 brave lad Spirou headlined the magazine he was named for from the first issue (dated April 21st 1938). He was devised and realised 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 over at 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 but steadily evolved into highflying, 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 over.

When Jijé handed his own trainee/assistant total responsibility for the flagship feature part-way through serial Spirou et la maison préfabriqué (Le Journal de Spirou #427, June 20th 1946), André Franquin ran with it for the next 20 years, enlarging the scope and expanding its horizons until the feature was 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 globetrotting 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.

Gradually sidelining short, done-in-one gag vignettes in favour of longer epic adventure serials, Franquin’s growing cast of engaging regulars soon included one of the first strong female characters in European comics (rival journalist Seccotine, renamed Cellophine in the current English translation) and ultimately led to the debut of a scene-stealing, phenomenally popular apparently-magic animal. Marsupilami arrived during 1952’s serial Spirou et les héritiers and never left…

Franquin, plagued in later life by bouts of depression, died in 1997 but his legacy remains and still grows; a vast body of work which reshaped the landscape of European comics inspiring many others to carry on in his name and manner.

The Marsupilami Thieves was originally serialised in LJdS #729-761 (collected into an album in 1954); a direct sequel to Spirou et les héritiers, in which the valiant inseparable companions encountered an incredible elastic-tailed anthropoid in the rain forests of Palombia before bringing the fabulous, affable creature back to civilisation. Franquin’s follow-up, fleshed out from an idea by fellow cartoonist Jo Almo (Geo Salmon), sees the triumphant journalists visit the vast City Zoo where their latest headline ended up, only to be stricken with guilt and remorse at the poor creature’s sorry state of incarceration.

Resolved to free the poor thing and return him to his jungle home, their plan is foiled when the critter suddenly dies in its cage. Distraught and suspicious, they muscle their way in to see the vet and discover the corpse has gone missing…

Acting quickly, Spirou & Fantasio rouse the authorities. The commotion prevents the body thief escaping and all through the night Keepers and our heroes scour the institution. Thus, in the deadly dark they finally spook the mystery malefactor from his cosy hiding place…

There follows a spectacular and hilarious midnight chase through the zoo, with the lads harrying a dark figure – who must be some kind of athlete – past a panoply of angry animals, hindered more than helped by inept animal custodians. Nevertheless, they almost catch the intruder, but a last burst of furious energy propels the bandit over a back wall, although not before Spirou snatches a paper clue from him…

The precious scrap takes our resolute investigators to the flat of Victor Shanks, where his wife Clementine provides further information. Her man is flying off to the city of Magnana for his new job… and to deliver a package! The lads’ frantic chase to the airport is plagued by manic misfortune and they miss Victor by moments. Undeterred, they borrow a neighbour’s car and attempt to follow overland, leading to a fractious episode of fisticuffs with striking Customs Officers (they’re withholding their labour, not exceptionally attractive…). After a night in jail, the undeterred duo and kvetching Spip eventually fetch up in Magnana and the search begins…

One month later, they are fully frustrated and ready to throw in the towel when Spirou literally runs into Clementine Shanks and trails her to a football stadium where formerly unemployed, desperate Victor is now a star of the local soccer team. Confronting the essentially good-hearted rogue, Fantasio & Spirou force the truth from him. In return for his new job, Victor drugged and swiped the Marsupilami for ruthless showman The Great Zabaglione who sees an irresistible star attraction for his circus and travelling menagerie…

Determined to see the little creature free, the boys try to infiltrate the show but are quickly discovered and forcefully expelled. Then, following a chance meeting with weird science savant the Count of Champignac, they try once more, perfectly disguised as miraculous magic act Cam and Leon…

This time the ruse succeeds, but after a phenomenally outrageous opening performance, brutal but sharp Zabaglione rumbles the reporters. Things look bleak for the lads and the Marsupilami until guilt-wracked Victor steps in to save the day. Once the dust settles, the wondrous beast is freed, but gleefully opts to stay with the lads and share their fun-filled, exciting exploits…

Soaked in superb slapstick comedy and with gallons of gags throughout, this exuberant yarn is packed with angst-free action, thrills and spills and also offers an early ecological message and an always-timely moral regarding the humane treatment of animals. There’s even a fascinating history and creative overview of the timeless wandering heroes in back-up text feature ‘Spirou & Fantasio’s Stories Last Through Generations’.

The Marsupilami Thieves is the kind of lightly-barbed, comedy romp to delight readers fed up with a marketplace far too full of adults-only carnage, testosterone-fuelled breast-beating, teen-romance monsters or sickly-sweet fantasy. Easily accessible to readers of all ages and drawn with all the beguiling style and seductive yet wholesome verve and panache which make Asterix, Lucky Luke, and Yakari so compelling, this is a truly enduring landmark tale from a long line of superb exploits, and deserves to be a household name as much as those series… and even that other kid with the white dog…
Original edition © Dupuis, 1954 by Franquin. All rights reserved. English translation 2013 © Cinebook Ltd.

Born today in 1934, Mexican artist, cartoonist and political thinker Eduardo Humberto del Río García AKA Ruis (the …for Beginners series) shared the occasion with master of all comics trades John E. Workman (Thor, Star*Reach, Heavy Metal, Eros Comics, Sonic the Hedgehog) from 1950 onwards. So do writer Marc Andreyko (Jinx: Torso, Manhunter) from 1970 and, in 1974, Canadian art ace Karl Kerschl (Adventures of Superman, Majestic, All-Flash, Teen Titans: Year One, Gotham Academy).

The date also saw André Franquin debut as Spirou’s new controlling creator in 1946 (halfway through ongoing serial Spirou et la maison préfabriquée) and, in 1964 the launch of pivotal UK weekly Wham!, as well as the death of Belgian superstar Jijé in 1980.

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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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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).

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Spirou & Fantasio volume 21: The Prisoner of the Buddha


By André Franquin, Jidéhem & Greg, translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-80044-135-4 (Album PB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced during less enlightened times.

Spirou (whose name translates as “squirrel”, “mischievous” and “lively kid” in the language of Walloons) was created by French cartoonist François Robert Velter – AKA Rob-Vel – for Belgian publisher Éditions Dupuis. The evergreen youngster in red was a response to the success of Hergé’s Tintin at rival outfit Casterman. In the beginning, the character Spirou was a plucky bellboy/lift operator employed by the Moustique Hotel (an in-joke reference to Dupuis’ premier periodical Le Moustique) whose improbable adventures with pet squirrel Spip evolved into astounding and often surreal comedy dramas.

The other red-headed boy adventurer debuted on April 21st 1938 in an 8-page tabloid magazine that bears his name to this day. Fronting a roster of new and licensed foreign strips – Fernand Dineur’s Les Aventures de Tif (latterly Tif et Tondu) and US newspaper imports Red Ryder, Brick Bradford and Superman – the now-legendary anthology Le Journal de Spirou expanded exponentially: adding Flemish-language edition Robbedoes on October 27th 1938, boosting page counts and adding action, fantasy and comedy features until it was an unassailable, unmissable necessity for continental kids.

Spirou and chums helmed the magazine for most of its life, with many notable creators building on Velter’s work, beginning with his wife Blanche “Davine” Dumoulin. She took over the strip when her husband enlisted in 1939, aided by Belgian artist Luc Lafnet until 1943, when Dupuis purchased all rights to the feature. Thereafter comic strip prodigy Joseph Gillain (“Jijé”) took over, until 1946 when his assistant André Franquin inherited the entire affair. Gradually, the new auteur retired traditional short gag vignettes in favour of longer adventure serials, introducing a wide returning cast. Ultimately, Franquin created his own milestone character. Phenomenally popular animal Marsupilami debuted in 1952’s Spirou et les héritiers and became a scene-stealing regular and eventually one of the most significant stars of European comics.

Jean-Claude Fournier succeeded Franquin: overhauling the feature over nine stirring serial adventures between 1969-1979 by tapping into a rebellious, relevant zeitgeist in tales of drug cartels, environmental concerns, nuclear energy and repressive regimes. By the 1980s, the series seemed stalled: three different creative teams alternated on the serial: Yves Chaland, Raoul Cauvin & Nic Broca and significantly Philippe Vandevelde writing as “Tome” & artist Jean-Richard Geurts – AKA Janry.

These last reverently referenced the revered and beloved Franquin era: reviving the feature’s fortunes over 14 wonderful albums between 1984-1998. On their departure the strip diversified into parallel strands: Spirou’s Childhood/Little Spirou and guest-creator specials A Spirou Story By…

Later teams and guests to tackle the wonder boys include Lewis Trondheim, Jean-Davide Morvan & Jose-Luis Munuera, Fabien Vehlmann & Yoann, Benoît Feroumont, Emile Bravo, Jul & Libon, Makyo, Toldac & Tehem, Guerrive, Abitan & Schwartz, Frank le Gall, Flix and so many more. By my count that brings the album count to approximately 92 if you include specials, spin-offs series and one-shots, official and otherwise. Happily, in recent years, even some of the older vintages have been reprinted in French, but there are still dozens that have not made it into English yet. Quelle sodding horreur!

Cinebook have been publishing Spirou & Fantasio’s exploits since October 2009, initially concentrating on bringing Tome & Janry’s superb pastiche/homages of Franquin before dipping into the original Franquin oeuvre and adding later tales by some of the bunch listed above, but for their 21st manic marvel they reached back all the way to 1959 for a purely Franquin-formulated furore. Originally serialised in LJdS #1048-1082 prior to its release as album Le prisonnier du Bouddha in March 1961, this slick tale of Cold War tensions, silly sci fi and outrageous satire sees the master in collaborative mode with Jidéhem (Jean De Mesmaeker) and Greg (Michel Regnier)…

On January 3rd 1924, Belgian comics superstar André Franquin was born in Etterbeek. Drawing from an early age, he began formal art training at École Saint-Luc in 1943. When the war forced the school’s closure a year later, Franquin found work at Brussels’ Compagnie Belge d’Animation as an animator. There he met future bande dessinée superstars Maurice de Bevere (Lucky Luke-creator “Morris”), Pierre Culliford/Peyo (creator of The Smurfs) and Eddy Paape (Valhardi, Luc Orient).

In 1945 everyone but Culliford signed on with Dupuis, and Franquin began his career as a jobbing cartoonist/illustrator. He produced covers for Le Moustique and scouting magazine Plein Jeu and, throughout those early days, was with Morris trained by Jijé. At that time main illustrator at Le Journal de Spirou, Jijé turned the youngsters and fellow neophyte Willy Maltaite – AKA Will (Tif et Tondu, Isabelle, Le jardin des désirs) – into a creative bullpen known as the La bande des quatre. This “Gang of Four” promptly revolutionised Belgian comics with their engaging “Marcinelle school” style of graphic storytelling.

Jijé handed Franquin all responsibilities for the flagship strip part-way through Spirou et la maison préfabriquée, (LJdS #427, June 20th 1946) and the eager beaver ran with it for two decades, enlarging the scope and horizons until it became purely his own. Almost every episode, fans would meet startling new characters like comrade/rival Fantasio or crackpot inventor The Count of Champignac.

Spirou & Fantasio became globe-trotting troubleshooting journalists, endlessly expanding their exploits in unbroken four-colour glory. They travelled to exotic places, uncovering crimes, capturing the fantastic and clashing with a coterie of extraordinary arch-enemies such as Zorglub and Zantafio. Along the way Franquin premiered one of the first strong female characters in European comics – competitor journalist Seccotine who is renamed Cellophine in current English translations.

In a splendid example of good practise, Franquin mentored his own apprentice cartoonists during the 1950s. These included Jean Roba (La Ribambelle, Boule et Bill), Jidéhem (Sophie, Starter, Gaston Lagaffe) and Greg (Bruno Brazil, Bernard Prince, Zig et Puce, Achille Talon), who all worked with him on Spirou et Fantasio. In 1955, a contractual spat with Dupuis led to Franquin signing up with rivals Casterman on Le Journal de Tintin, where he collaborated with René Goscinny and old pal Peyo whilst also creating raucous gag strip Modeste et Pompon. Franquin quickly patched things up with Dupuis and returned to LJdS, subsequently co-creating Gaston Lagaffe (AKA Gomer Goof) in 1957, but was still obliged to carry on those Casterman commitments too…

From 1959, writer Greg and background artist Jidéhem began regularly assisting Franquin, but by 1969 the master storyteller had reached his Spirou limit. He quit, taking his mystic yellow monkey with him…

His later creations include fantasy series Isabelle, illustration sequence Monsters and bleak adult conceptual series Idées Noires, but his greatest creation – and one he retained all rights to on his departure – was Marsupilami, which – in addition to comics – has become a megastar of screen, plush toy store, console and albums.

Plagued in later life by bouts of depression and cardiac problems, Franquin passed away on January 5th 1997, but his legacy remains: a vast body of work that reshaped the landscape of European comics.

Let’s review happier if undoubtedly scarier days here in a Cold War classic where Spirou and Fantasio revisit rural melting pot Champignac-in-the-Sticks after strangely losing touch with crackpot inventor and Merlin of mushroom mechanics Pacôme Hégésippe Adélard Ladislas de Champignac – the aforementioned Count of Champignac.

The idyllic hamlet is in turmoil with the incipient opening of this year’s Cattle Festival ramping up regular bucolic angst. Its picturesque streets are filled with self-determined cows and short-tempered farmers, meaning the two investigators really have to watch their steps…

Finding the ramshackle chateau turned into a super-secure fortress, the lads and Spip – in truth impatient, impolite Marsupilami – break into the once-familiar estate and discover it has become a wild kingdom of gigantic plants. Eventually rescued by their odd old friend from encroaching green hells, the boys are unaware the Count is concealing another guest – until

after many odd incidents they meet timid nuclear physicist, potential Soviet defector and fellow scientist of conscience Professor Nikolai Nikolayevitch Inovskiev. The hulking gentle giant has invented something that will change the world and doesn’t want its incredible power abused…

He calls his little box of tricks a Gamma Atomic Generator (GAG for short) and it can promote rapid and monstrous plant growth, create severe but localised weather effects and cancel gravity – and it fits into a jacket pocket…

As the boys endure an accidental indoor blizzard, two enemy agents observe from outside before being accidentally but painfully caught in the GAG’s destructive effects. Terrified of the device being misused by the capitalist West, they make plans to steal it back during the cattle show, but Spirou and Fantasio foil the scheme – but only after the GAG makes the farm fest a chaotic, never to be forgotten Fortean event for the entire village…

Thinking job done and world saved, our heroes are horrified to learn from the shellshocked spies that the GAG is not unique. In communist China, Inovskiev’s covert collaborator – American Harold W. Hailmary – is a prisoner of the People’s Republic and surely cannot hold out much longer in delivering them the magic box and all its secrets…

Coincidentally, at that moment in British-controlled Hong Kong, a smuggled message reaches the Chief of Police: an American is imprisoned somewhere in the heart of the Valley of the Seven Buddhas…

When dapper British agents Douglas and Harvey attempt to interview Champignac and the boys, they discover the missing Russian and implore them all to act in a manner Her Majesty’s Government would unofficially look kindly upon even as it turned a blind eye…

Soon, equipped with the GAG, Spirou, Fantasio, Spip and the Marsupilami are sneaking across the Chinese border and heading into one of the most eccentric and spectacular missions of their lives… one replete with deadly peril, fantastic feats, spectacular chases, tank battles and hairsbreadth escapes, all leavened with outrageous surreal slapstick and deviously trenchant satire…

This edgily exuberant yarn is packed with action, thrills and spills and also offers a remarkably even-handed appraisal of Cold War politics messaging and always-timely moral.

Readily accessible to readers of all ages and drawn with all the beguiling style and seductive wholesome élan which makes Asterix, Lucky Luke and Yakari so compelling, this is a truly outstanding – and funny! – tale from a long line of superb exploits, proving our heroes deserve to be English language household names as much as those series – and even that other kid with the white dog…
Original edition © Dupuis, 1960 by Franquin, Jidéhem & Greg. All rights reserved. English translation 2024 © Cinebook Ltd.