Category: Spirou & Fantasio

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A Spirou and Fantasio Adventure: In the Clutches of the Viper (volume 22)


By Yoann & Fabien Vehlmann, designed by Fred Blanchard & coloured by Hubert: translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-80044-162-0 (Album PB/Digital edition)

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

Boyish hero Spirou (which translates as both “squirrel” and “mischievous” in the Walloon language) was created by French cartoonist Françoise Robert Velter AKA Rob-Vel. This was before World War II for Belgian publisher Éditions Dupuis, in response to the phenomenal success of Hergé’s Tintin at rival outfit Casterman. Soon-to-be legendary weekly comic Le Journal de Spirou launched on April 21st 1938 with a rival red-headed lad as lead feature in an anthology which bears his name to this day. The eponymous hero was a plucky bellboy/lift operator employed in the Moustique Hotel – in reference to the publisher’s premier periodical Le Moustique. The bellboy’s improbable adventures with pet squirrel Spip gradually evolved into far-reaching, surreal comedy dramas.

Spirou and his chums helmed the magazine for most of its life, with a cohort of truly impressive creators carrying on Velter’s work, beginning with his wife Blanche “Davine” Dumoulin who took over the strip when her husband enlisted in 1939. She was assisted by Belgian artist Luc Lafnet until 1943, when Dupuis purchased all rights to the property, after which comic-strip prodigy Joseph Gillain (Jijé) took the helm. In 1946, his assistant André Franquin assumed the creative reins: gradually ditching the well-seasoned short gag format in favour of epic adventure serials. He also expanded the cast, introducing a broad band of engaging regulars such as reporter Fantasio, phenomenally popular magic animal Marsupilami, master of mushroom Pacôme Hégésippe Adélard Ladislas de Champignac (the Count of Champignac) and one of the first strong female characters in European comics. Renamed Cellophine for Cinebook’s English translations, rival journalist Seccotine – of the tabloid The Moustic – became a regular foil and plays a key role in this very modern thriller…

Franquin was followed by Jean-Claude Fournier who updated the feature over nine stirring sagas tapping into the rebellious, relevant zeitgeist of the times: tales of environmental concern, nuclear energy, drug cartels and repressive regimes. By the 1980s, however, the series seemed outdated and lacking direction, so three separate creative teams alternated on it. Eventually overhauled and revitalised by Philippe Vandevelde (writing as Tome) and artist Jean-Richard Geurts AKA Janry. Adapting, referencing and in many ways returned to the beloved Franquin era and ethos, the strip found its second wind.

Their sterling efforts revived the floundering feature’s fortunes, generating 14 wonderful albums between 1984 and 1998. When the strip diversified into parallel strands (Spirou’s Childhood/Little Spirou and Guest-Creator Specials A Spirou Story By…), the team on the core feature were succeeded by Jean-David Morvan & José-Luis Munuera. Then Yoann & Vehlmann took over the never-ending procession of amazing adventures…

Multi-award-winning French comics author Fabien Vehlman was born in 1972, began his comics career in 1996 and has been favourably likened to René Goscinny. He’s probably still best known for Green Manor (illustrated by Denis Bodart), Seven Psychopaths with Sean Phillips, Seuls (drawn by Bruno Gazzotti and available in English as Alone), Wondertown with Benoit Feroumont and Isle of 1,000,000 Graves with Jason.

Yoann Chivard was born in October 1971 and drawing non-stop by age five. With qualifications in Plastic Arts and a degree in Communication from the Academy of Fine Arts in Angers, he became a poster/advertising artist whilst just dabbling in comics. His creations include Phil Kaos and Dark Boris for British Indie publications Deadline and Inkling, Toto l’Ornithorynque, Nini Rezergoude, La Voleuse de Pere-Fauteuil, Ether Glister and Bob Marone and he has contributed to Trondheim & Sfar’s Donjon. In 2006, Yoann was the first artist to produce a Spirou et Fantasio one shot Special. It was scripted by Vehlmann…

As globe-trotting journalists, Spirou and Fantasio regularly voyage to dangerously exotic places, uncover crimes, explore the fantastic and clash with exotic archenemies like Fantasio’s deranged and wicked cousin Zantafio and maddest of Mad Scientists, Zorglub. In 2011 one adventure (vol. 20 The Dark Side of the Z) saw Zorglub abduct them to the Moon where Spirou became a werewolf in a resort playground for the ultra-super-rich. It’s also – as we see here – where they first met their most insidious, pitiless and realistic supervillain…

As Spirou & Fantasio – dans les griffes de la vipère this cautionary tale from 2013 was the 53rd collected album in a series collectively approaching a landmark 100 volumes…

As Spirou chills out at a collectors market he meets excitable fan Annie: an adventure-hungry child determined to a roving reporter one day. The shy hero’s ego boost soon takes a hard knock however, as news comes that their magazine is being sued for inciting violence in children. The day in court is a disaster as seductive, bellicose lawyer Miss Jones, hired by affronted parents, makes the troubleshooters look like monsters, runs rings around Fantasio’s counsel and wins a million Euros in compensation from the deflated defendants. With ruin staring them in the face, the shocked wanderers wonder what they can do next. Miraculously, Spirou gets a visitation from his greatest hero…

Based on LJdS co-star Jean Valhardi, “Detective-Explorer” Gil Braveheart was downcast Spirou’s inspiration when he was growing up, and has again come to the rescue, offering to find a new investor to save the magazine…

He soon puts S&F in touch with an investment fund that will pay the parents off and fund continued publication, but as the heroes foolishly breeze past all the pages of a vast contract, Spirou sees old frenemy Cellophine being threatened by two very burly men-in-suits. All her efforts though cannot stop the lads signing on with the Viper Corporation…

Now paid incomprehensible amounts of money every month, Spirou and Fantasio initially flounder before simply giving it away to charities and good causes, but soon become bored as exploits and adventures apparently dry up. Soon after, Braveheart invites Spirou to visit Viper’s higher ups in their paradisical Marmalade Islands super resort and at last the canny crusader wises up. He’s blindly strolled into the most devious trap ever devised…

Again confronting one of the idle, petty super-rich magnates he’d met and disrespected on the Moon, Spirou realises all the power of money has been utilised to neutralise his friends and allies, obtrusively surveille his entire life and manipulate him into contractually and legally surrendering all aspects of his own life. He’s a brand of the corporation now and will do what he’s told when he’s told to, just like all the other heroes the top plutocrat has spitefully obtained in his constant search for meaning and validation and to counter his overwhelming boredom…

Trapped in a gilded cage and denied nothing except liberty, autonomy, fresh thrills and fun, Spirou refuses to bow to the admittedly heavenly, sybaritic life. Even sad broken Gil Braveheart’s admonishments can’t stop him making a bid for freedom, evading all the bugging tech and brutal heavies money can buy by recruiting brave Annie to act as his long-distance agent…

And then, after much preparation Spirou makes his break and the chase is on all over the Earth, but as the reporter seeks sanctuary, his flight across the globe and the way Viper treats ordinary people begins to inspire long-corrupted heroes and a way is found to reverse the intolerable situation. It’s not legal but it is unassailable and unstoppable…

Rocket-paced, action-packed, compellingly convoluted and with just the right blend of absurdity and helter-skelter excitement, In the Clutches of the Viper is a wry romp that is also genuinely terrifying, capturing the zeitgeist of modern concerns about the power of unchecked wealth and influence – and lawyers! This is pure cartoon gold, truly deserving of reaching the widest audience possible.
© Dupuis 2013, by Vehlmann, Yoann. All rights reserved. English translation © 2025 Cinebook Ltd.

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Spirou in Berlin


By Flix, coloured by Marvin Clifford with Ralf Marczinczik, & translated by Michael Waaler (Europe Comics)
No ISBN: digital only

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced for dramatic and humorous effect.

Although I’ve never for a moment considered history dry or dull, I can readily appreciate the constant urge to personalise characters or humanise events and movements, especially when that job is undertaken with care, respect, diligence and a healthy amount of bravado. An excellent case in point is this superb, digital-only (still!) romp from 2018, compellingly riffing on major geopolitical events that still feel relevant right now, through the somewhat suborned antics of two of Europe’s – if not the world’s – biggest comics stars.

In case you were one of those who were asleep, surreptitiously ogling a classmate who wouldn’t even acknowledge your existence, or just carving your name into a desk or body part: on November 9th 1989, a very physical symbol of ideological separation and political gamesmanship was torn down by the “inconsequential” prisoners stuck on either side of it. Now you can be told just how that might have happened, all comfortingly translated into a compelling, lively and lovely digital edition thanks to the benevolence of collective imprint Europe Comics…

For most English-speaking comic fans and collectors, Spirou is probably Europe’s biggest secret. The character is a rough contemporary of – and crassly calculated commercial response to – Hergé’s iconic Tintin, whilst the comic he has headlined for decades is only beaten in sheer longevity and manic creativity by our own Beano and the USA’s Detective Comics.

Conceived at Belgian Printing House by Jean Dupuis in 1936, an anthological magazine targeting a juvenile audience debuted on April 21st 1938; neatly bracketed by DC Thomson’s The Dandy which launched on 4th December 1937 and The Beano on July 30th 1938. Edited by Charles Dupuis (a mere tadpole, only 19 years old, himself) it took its name from the lead feature, recounting improbable adventures of the plucky Bellboy/lift operator employed by the Moustique Hotel – a sly reference to the publisher’s premier periodical Le Moustique.

Joined from June 8th 1939 by pet squirrel, Spip (the longest running character in the strip after Spirou himself), the series was realised by French artist Robert Velter (who signed himself Rob-Vel). Dutch language edition Robbedoes debuted some weeks later, running more-or-less in tandem with the French parent comic until its cancellation in 2005.

The bulk of the periodical was taken up with cheap US imports (but no tariffs!) like Fred Harman’s Red Ryder, William Ritt & Clarence Gray’s Brick Bradford and Siegel & Shuster’s landmark Superman – although home-grown product crept in too. Most prominent were Tif et Tondu by Fernand Dineur (which ran under assorted creators until the1990s) and L’Epervier Blue by Sirius (Max Mayeu), latterly accompanied by work from comic strip wunderkind Joseph Gillain – AKA Jijé. Legendarily, during World War II Jijé singlehandedly drew the entire comic, including home grown versions of banned US imports, simultaneously assuming production of the Spirou strip and creating current co-star and partner Fantasio.

Except for a brief period when the Nazis closed the comic down (September 1943 – October 1944) Le Journal de Spirou and its boyish star – now a globe-trotting journalist – have continued their exploits in unbroken four-colour glory. Among other major features that began within those hallowed pages are Jean Valhardi (by Jean Doisy & Jije), Blondin et Cirage (Victor Hubinon), Buck Danny, Jerry Spring, Les Schtroumpfs (The Smurfs to you and me), Gaston Lagaffe/Gomer Goof and Lucky Luke.

Spirou the character (whose name translates as both “squirrel” and “mischievous”) has helmed the magazine in perpetuity, evolving under numerous creators into an urbane yet raucous fantasy/adventure hero heavily wedded to light humour. With comrade/rival Fantasio and crackpot inventor the Count of Champignac (created by Andre Franquin) Spirou voyages to exotic locales, foiling crimes, revealing the fantastic and garnering a coterie of exotic arch-enemies.

When Velter went off to fight in WWII, his wife Blanche Dumoulin took over the strip. As “Davine” and assisted by Luc Lafnet she handled everything until publisher Dupuis assumed control of and all rights to the strip in 1943, assigning it to Jijé who handed it to his assistant Franquin in 1946. It was the start of a golden age. Among Franquin’s innovations were archvillains Zorglub and Zantafio, the aforementioned Champignac and one of the first strong female characters in European comics, rival journalist Seccotine (renamed Cellophine for Cinebook’s English translations. However, his greatest creation – and one he retained on his final departure in 1969 – was incredible magic animal Marsupilami. The miracle beast had debuted in Spirou et les héritiers (1952), and is now a star of screen, plush toy store, console and albums.

From 1959, writer Greg and background artist Jidéhem assisted Franquin, but by 1969 the artist had reached his Spirou limit and resigned, taking his mystic yellow monkey with him. He was succeeded by Jean-Claude Fournier, who updated the feature over the course of 9 rousing yarns tapping into the rebellious, relevant zeitgeist of the times, telling tales of environmental concern, nuclear energy, drug cartels and repressive regimes. By the 1980s, the series seemed stalled: three different creative teams alternated on the serial: Raoul Cauvin & Nic Broca, Yves Chaland and Philippe Vandevelde (writing as Tome) and illustrator Jean-Richard Geurts AKA Janry. These last adapted and referenced the still-beloved Franquin era and revived the feature’s fortunes, producing 14 wonderful albums between 1984-1998. Since their departure, Lewis Trondheim and the teams of Jean-Davide Morvan & Jose-Luis Munuera and Fabien Vehlmann & Yoann brought the official album count to 55. In 2022, scripters Sophie Guerrive & Benjamin Abitan united with artist and Olivier Schwartz on La Mort de Spirou). There have also been dozens of specials, spin-offs series and one-shots, official and otherwise. This review concerns one of those…

As heroic Everymen, Spirou & Fantasio inhabit a broad swathe of recent history in tales ranging from wild comedic fantasy to edgy, trenchant satires. In 2018, German publisher Carlsen Verlag sought to celebrate 80 years of Spirou in a new tale by a German creator: one that would be inaugurally released in German before Dupuis published French and Dutch editions. Their choice was beloved and much-admired comics creator/children’s book author Flix (Faust, Don Quijote, Münchhausen – Die Wahrheit übers Lügen, held, Schöne Töchter, Glückskind, Der Swimmingpool des kleinen Mannes, Verflixt!).

As Felix Görmann, he was born in Münster – about 45 miles from the German-Dutch border – on 16th October 1976. He grew up with the Berlin Wall very much a part of life and reading loads of comics, particularly Franquin, Peyo, Morris and the best of Le Journal de Spirou. Drawn to humour by inclination, he experienced a major system reset at age 16 after seeing Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns.

Görmann resolved to be a comics creator and to that end studied Communication Design at Saarbrücken’s Saar College of Fine Arts before attending the Escola Massana in Barcelona. His rise was meteoric and his output prolific. Citing influences as diverse as Bill Watterson (Calvin & Hobbes), Will Eisner (The Spirit, A Contract With God) and Craig Thompson (Blankets, Ginseng Roots) as well as Euro-stars from Christophe Blain (Socrate le Demi-Chien, Isaac Le Pirate) and Guy Delisle (Inspecteur Moroni, Shenzen, Pyongyang – A journey in North Korea) to countrymen Ralf König (Bullenklöten, The Killer Condom, Down to the Bone) and “Mawil”/Markus Witzel (Teufel & Pistolen, Hitman, Supa-Hasi, Lucky Luke), Flix was ultimately the first German to create new adventures for Spirou & Fantasio. It was such a well-received affair that in 2019 Spirou in Berlin won the Peng! Münchner Comicpreis. In 2022, Flix created a similarly Spirou-inspired notional follow-up. Set in 1930s Berlin, the Das Humboldt-tier sees a little girl befriend a Marsupilami kept at the Museum of Natural History. Hopefully we’ll see that someday soon…

Here however, is a glorious edgy, gleefully barbed take on past events as, at the most precarious and tumultuous moment of the 44-years-long Cold War, East German apparatchiks and master manipulators starved of all resources but putting on a deceptive public show of affluence, activate a desperate last-ditch plan. They have a bizarre scheme to shatter the global economy and gain economic dominance, and one of the West’s craziest villains to build the kit necessary to expedite it, but still need the unique expertise of the Count de Champignac to make it work.

Sadly, their supposedly seamless abduction of the mushroom mage is rumbled by regular house guests Spirou, Fantasio and Spip, who go after their friend and break/sneak/are allowed to enter into the German Democratic Republic (GDR), utterly unaware that their interference is not only anticipated but actively required…

Of course, the machinations of the Stasi – officially the Ministry for State Security (MfS) – are constantly but quietly scotched by decent East Germans like Paul & Paula, Rainier and Momo (and her army of liberated zoo animals), all working to be free from fear, liberated from lies and out from beneath crushingly brutal oppression. The ordinary East Berliners have a crucial need for their truth to be published on the other side of the Wall, but Spirou refuses to go anywhere until Fantasio and the Count are safe (PDQ)…

Wry, thrilling and sublimely whacky, this cartoon romp is a perfect, canny codicil to the comic canon, embracing the best of all Spirou sagas by wrapping the timeless tale up in a fast-paced, rollercoaster ride of subversive messaging. Total fun with verities that have never been more worth reviewing, Spirou in Berlin is a book all grown up kids need to see.
© 2018, 2019 – CARLSSEN/DUPUIS – Flix. All rights reserved.

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Spirou & Fantasio volumes 14 & 16 – The Comet and the Clockmaker and The Z Rises Again


By Tome & Janry with Carlos Rocque and Stuf, translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-404-5 (Album PB/Digital edition Clockmaker)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-441-0 (Album PB/Digital edition Z Rises Again)

These books include Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Apparently, there’s no time like the present!

Spirou (whose name translates as “squirrel”, “mischievous” and “lively kid” in the language of the Flemish 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 premiered on April 21st 1938 in an 8-page tabloid (in (French and/or Dutch) magazine bearing 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 – Le Journal de Spirou expanded exponentially, adding Flemish-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. His likeness and exploits fuelled mountains of merch, public acclaim, statues and civic art and in 2018 he got his own theme park.

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, who took over the strip when her husband enlisted in 1939. She was aided by Belgian artist Luc Lafnet until 1943, when Dupuis purchased all rights to the feature. Thereafter comic strip prodigy Joseph Gillain (“Jijé”) carried it 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 landmark yarn Spirou et les héritiers, swiftly evolving into 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 Philippe Vandevelde writing as “Tome” & illustrator Jean-Richard Geurts – AKA Janry. These last reverently referenced the revered and adored 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 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 latterly adding tales by some of the bunch listed above.

On January 3rd 1924, (belated bon anniversaire!) Belgian 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, he found work as an animator at Compagnie Belge d’Animation in Brussels. 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 and mentored 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 were 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 (Cellophine in current English translations).

In an admirable 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. 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. The payout for all that good practise can be enjoyed here as we review hopefully happier if undoubtedly weirder days as,via the vagaries of publishing (almost as byzantine as time travel in its own way) we encounter a continued story annoyingly broken up for English readers due to an adventure published out of sequence…

Spirou & Fantasio volume 14 – The Comet and the Clockmaker

Serialised in 1984, Tome & Janry’s L’Horloger de la comète was their 4th tale together, running in Le Journal de Spirou  #2427-2448 before becoming the 36th S&F album in February 1986). In it, the valiant lad and his inseparable pal are foolishly left housesitting the wonder-packed chateau of their inspirational boffin buddy: mushroom-mutating magician Pacôme Hégésippe Adélard Ladislas, comte de Champignac AKA Count Champignac… and someone else who turns 75 this year…

In the course of the evening, the lads use the installed telescope to track a comet across the sky but are distracted by a ship crashing into the lawn. Inside it is a time traveller who is also the Count’s descendant Aurélian de Champignac. Accompanied by his faithful pet Snuffeller Timothy, Aurélian has come on a mission of extreme importance, one crucially linked throughout history by the comet’s regularly returning appearances. Sadly, his task – to gather plants and reseed the barren world of tomorrow – is made more dangerous by unsuspected and extremely sinister seeming pursuers from beyond his own lifeless era, intent on keeping the future’s status quo intact…

And then the new allies are off, triggering alarms and military responses all over the world as they head for deepest, greenest Palombia, land of lunacy and the Marsupilami. Of course, everything goes wrong and before long our dauntless saviours are not only lost in the green hell but also in time. Fetching up in Portuguese-colonised climes circa 1531 anno Domini, the regreening of Earth seems destined to fail when they crash smack in the middle of a native resistance to European expansion and an internal power-grabbing insurrection amongst the invaders. But then…

If you’re fussy, the Zordolt story which breaks up the narrative flow (volume 15: Shadow of the Z) was reviewed here, so if it makes you more comfortable stop now, go read that and return here once that affirms your particular or preferred take on reality.

Spirou & Fantasio volume 16 – The Z Rises Again

In Europe, L’Horloger de la comète was promptly followed in Le Journal de Spirou #2487-2508 by Le réveil du Z which in September 1986 became the 37th collection. A wry, satirically-charged notional sequel to Franquin’s 1960 yarn Z is For Zorglub, it sees a kind of return for the pompous, conflicted Bond-style supervillain…

Back in their present, Spirou & Fantasio strive to return to their regular lives only to discover that although they have had enough of time travel, it has not had enough of them. Scorned, derided and disbelieved at home and the editorial office, our unruly investigators are suddenly kidnapped to 2062 by Aurélian de Champignac’s assistant So-Yah, where Zorglub Junior is using his ancestor’s mind-bending technologies and mastery of Champignac’s time travel techniques to become ruler of the world…

Happily, the Count has a plan to foil the ascendant tyrant, so all Spirou & Fantasio – with Timothy the Snuffeller – have to do is liberate Aurélian from the forbidding timeless citadel where the villain’s army of ruthless Zorglmen are holding him captive until their war of chronal conquest is won…

… Oh and probably destroying the giant Zorglock device enslaving every mind and directing every life on Earth might be beneficial too…

Fast-paced, wry, edgily-barbed, compellingly convoluted and perfectly blending helter-skelter excitement with keen suspense and outrageous slapstick humour, The Z Rises Again is a terrific romp to delight devotees of easy-going adventure and a perfect counter to the riotous eco-adventure that precedes it. Read together, they comprise a superbly wild sci-fi ride any fan of the genre or just good storytelling will adore. Easily accessible to readers of all ages and drawn with the beguiling style and seductively wholesome élan that make Asterix, Lucky Luke and Tintin so compelling, these are enduring tales from a long line of superb exploits, as deserving to be a household name as much as those series.
Original editions © Dupuis, 1986 by Tome & Janry. All rights reserved. English translations 2018, 2019 © Cinebook Ltd.

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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.

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Marsupilami volumes 7 & 8: The Gold of Boavista & The Temple of Boavista


By Yann & Batem, coloured by Cerise and translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-80044-069-2 (Album PB/Digital edition Gold)
ISBN: 978-1 80044-099-9 (Album PB/Digital edition Temple)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Mad Monkeyshines with Gallic Aplomb… 9/10

One of Europe’s most popular comic stars is an eccentrically irascible, loyally unpredictable, super-strong, rubber-limbed ball of explosive energy with a seemingly infinite elastic tail. The frantic, frenetic Marsupilami is a wonder of nature and icon of European entertainment originally spun-off from another immortal comedy adventure strip…

When Andre Franquin began crafting eponymous keystone strip Spirou for eponymous flagship publication Le Journal de Spirou, he quickly abandoned the previous format of short complete gags to pioneer longer adventure serials, and began introducing a wide and engaging cast of new characters.

For 1952’s Spirou et les heritiers, he then devised a beguilingly boisterous South American critter and tossed him like an elastic-arsed grenade into the mix. Thereafter – until resigning in 1969 – Franquin constantly added the bombastic little beast to Spirou’s increasingly incredible escapades…

Marsupilami popped up constantly: a phenomenally popular wonder animal who inevitably grew into a solo star of screen, toy store, console games and albums all his own. In 1955 a contractual spat with Dupuis saw Franquin sign up with publishing rivals Casterman for Le Journal de Tintin: collaborating with René Goscinny and old pal Peyo whilst creating raucous gag strip Modeste et Pompon.

Franquin and Dupuis patched things up within days, and he went back to Le Journal de Spirou. In 1957, he co-created Gaston Lagaffe, but was still legally obliged to carry on his Tintin work too. From 1959, writer Greg and background artist Jidéhem assisted, but over the next decade Franquin reached his Spirou limit. In 1969 he quit for good, taking his mystic yellow monkey with him…

Plagued by bouts of depression, Franquin passed away on January 5th 1997, but his legacy remains: a vast body of work that reshaped European comics. Moreover, having learned his lessons about publishers, Franquin retained all rights to Marsupilami and in the late 1980’s began publishing his own adventures of the rambunctious miracle-worker.

He recruited old comrade Greg as scripter and invited commercial artist/illustrator Luc Collin (AKA Batem) to collaborate on – and later monopolise – art duties for the new adventures. In recent years, the commercial world triumphed again and – since 2016 – the universes of Marsupilami and Spirou have reconnected, allowing the old firm to participate in shared exploits of a world created and populated by Franquin.

Graced with a talent for mischief, the Marsupilami is a deviously ingenious anthropoid inhabiting the rainforests of Palombia. One of the rarest animals on Earth, it speaks a language uniquely its own and has a reputation for making trouble and sparking chaos. The species is rare and is fanatically dedicated to its young. Sometimes that takes the form of “tough love”. This behaviour frequently extends to any humans it encounters and “adopts”…

The first of two books telling one tale, L’or de Boavista was released in October 1992. The seventh of 33 solo albums, it was followed a year later by concluding volume Le Temple de Boavista, combining into an edgily gripping comedy drama with much dark and scary social activism underpinning the usual hairy hijinks.

It opens in Palombian capital Chiquito, where children are going missing. No one cared when it was orphans and homeless urchins, but it’s quite different when Donald Maxwell-Trent plays truant and is abducted off the street. He’s spoiled, rich and the son of the US Ambassador…

Tragically, that means nothing to the ruthless thugs who need a constant supply of kids his size and age to work at an illegal, highly polluting goldmine in the jungle upriver. The toxic mess and mercury-made mire these Garimpeiros are creating has incensed and outraged the Marsupilami who now deems them his worst enemies ever…

After another of the yellow terror’s night attacks, overseer Solaria – a slightly older boy with an agenda of his own – helps Donald, now cruelly called “Gordito” by his malnourished comrades, to escape into the green hell. The older boy is only interested in freedom, wealth and returning to the undiscovered tribe he was stolen from, but from his cough may have waited too long to make his break…

Soon brutal gang boss Ingo is in hot pursuit, but his party’s progress is severely hampered by the stalking Marsu – whenever the golden beast isn’t clandestinely helping the fugitives. The furious furry (called by Polombians “El diablo”, and “La catestrofe amarilla”) is then instrumental in linking up the lads with an acceptable resident human…

Transplanted animal trainer Noah keeps his menagerie of friends on a river boat. Appalled by what Solario tells him, Noah resolves to stop the mining but that confrontation does not work out as planned and soon they are all fleeing for their lives up the dreaded Rio Boavista into lethal, legend-drenched “Spatoolah Territory” with dozens of killers on their collective tails…

To Be Concluded…

 

The dark drama heads into even wilder regions with The Temple of Boavista as relentless pursuit drives our heroes ever deeper into unexplored locales of the mighty tributary. Thankfully the hidden people they meet are mostly friendly, but their heightened state of fear is not ended for long. That night the jungle reverberates with horrific laughter emanating from a gargantuan edifice almost reclaimed by centuries of encroaching trees and vines…

The building is an ancient Zygomaztec temple and in its lee are some very nasty tomb robbers. Zoltan and Zorrino plan on stealing Noah’s floating zoo to carry their latest haul, but haven’t reckoned on the alliance of kids and tribal people, nor whatever is making the dire noises wracking the night with sinister sounds.

… And that’s before Ingo’s Garimpeiros and utterly fed up and furious Marsupilami get involved, or morose millionaire Harold “Buster” Stonelove and his safari guide Rhode Island Smith show up. These “ugly Americans” are looking for the secret of laughter and believe the raucous ruins can supply their answer, when they should be watching the yellow critter with the elastic tail and bad attitude…

As all the competing factions calamitously converge on the temple interior, a remarkable answer to the mirth mystery emerges and in a storm of giggling terror everybody gets jut what they deserve…

These eccentric exploits of the garrulous golden monkey are moodily macabre, furiously funny and pithily pertinent, offering engagingly riotous romps and devastating debacles for wide-eyed kids of every age all over the world. Fancy channelling your inner El Diablo and joining in the fun? It all starts with Hoobee, Hoobah Hoobah…
Marsupilami: The Gold of Boavista Original edition © Dupuis 1992, by Batem & Yann
Marsupilami: Temple of Boavista Original edition © Dupuis, Dargaud-Lombard s.a. 1993, by Batem & Yann, Franquin. All rights reserved. English translations © 2022 Cinebook Ltd.
© Marsu Productions 1992. All rights reserved. English translation © 2022 Cinebook Ltd.

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A Spirou and Fantasio Adventure volume 20: The Dark Side of the Z


By Fabien Vehlmann & Yoann, designed by Fred Blanchard, colored by Hubert & translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-80044-103-3 (Album PB/Digital edition)

Boyish hero Spirou (which translates as both “squirrel” and “mischievous” in the Walloon language) was created by French cartoonist Françoise Robert Velter AKA Rob-Vel. This was before the Second World War for Belgian publisher Éditions Dupuis in response to the phenomenal success of Hergé’s Tintin at rival outfit Casterman.

Soon-to-be legendary weekly comic Le Journal de Spirou launched on April 21st 1938 with a rival red-headed lad as lead feature in an anthology which bears his name to this day. The eponymous hero was a plucky bellboy/lift operator employed in the Moustique Hotel – a sly reference to the publisher’s premier periodical Le Moustique. His improbable adventures with pet squirrel Spip gradually evolved into far-reaching, surreal comedy dramas.

Spirou and his chums have helmed the magazine for most of its life, with a cohort of truly impressive creators carrying on Velter’s work, beginning with his wife Blanche “Davine” Dumoulin who took over the strip when her husband enlisted in 1939. She was assisted by Belgian artist Luc Lafnet until 1943, when Dupuis purchased all rights to the property, after which comic-strip prodigy Joseph Gillain (Jijé) took the helm. In 1946, his assistant André Franquin assumed the creative reins: gradually ditching the well-seasoned short gag vignettes format in favour of epic adventure serials. He also expanded the cast, introducing a broad band of engaging regulars and eventually creating phenomenally popular magic animal Marsupilami.

Franquin was followed by Jean-Claude Fournier who updated the feature over nine stirring adventures tapping into the rebellious, relevant zeitgeist of the times: offering tales of environmental concern, nuclear energy, drug cartels and repressive regimes.

By the 1980s, however, the series seemed outdated and lacking direction, so three separate creative teams alternated on it. Eventually overhauled and revitalised by Philippe Vandevelde (writing as Tome) and artist Jean-Richard Geurts – AKA Janry – adapting, referencing and in many ways returned to the beloved Franquin era, the strip found its second wind.

Their sterling efforts revived the floundering feature’s fortunes, generating 14 wonderful albums between 1984 and 1998. As the strip diversified into parallel strands (Spirou’s Childhood/Little Spirou and Guest-Creator Specials A Spirou Story By…), the team on the core feature were succeeded by Jean-David Morvan & José-Luis Munuera. Then Yoann & Vehlmann took over the never-ending procession of amazing adventures…

Multi-award-winning French comics author Fabien Vehlman was born in 1972, began his comics career in 1996 and has been favourably likened to René Goscinny. He’s probably still best known for Green Manor (illustrated by Denis Bodart), Seven Psychopaths with Sean Phillips, Seuls (drawn by Bruno Gazzotti and available in English as Alone), Wondertown with Benoit Feroumont and Isle of 1000,000 Graves with Jason.

Yoann Chivard was born in October 1971 and was drawing non-stop by age five. With qualifications in Plastic Arts and a degree in Communication from the Academy of Fine Arts in Angers, he became a poster advertising artist whilst just dabbling in comics. His creations include Phil Kaos and Dark Boris for British Indie publications Deadline and Inkling, Toto l’Ornithorynque, Nini Rezergoude, La Voleuse de Pere-Fauteuil, Ether Glister and Bob Marone and he has contributed to Trondheim & Sfar’s Donjon.

In 2006, Yoann was the first artist to produce a Spirou et Fantasio one shot Special. It was scripted by Vehlmann…

Cinebook have been publishing Spirou & Fantasio’s exploits since 2009, alternating between the various superb reinterpretations of Franquin and earlier efforts from the great man himself.

When Jijé handed Franquin the strip part-way through Spirou et la maison préfabriqué (LJdS #427, June 20th 1946), the new guy ran with it. Over two decades he enlarged the scope and horizons until it became purely his own. Almost every week fans would meet startling new characters like loyal comrade and rival Fantasio or crackpot inventor and Merlin of mushroom mechanics Pacôme Hégésippe Adélard Ladislas de Champignac – The Count of Champignac…

Spirou and Fantasio became globe-trotting journalists, travelling to dangerously exotic places, uncovering crimes, exploring the fantastic and clashing with a coterie of exotic arch-enemies such as Fantasio’s deranged and wicked cousin Zantafio and that maddest of scientists, Zorglub.

This old school chum and implacable rival of Champignac is an outrageous Bond-movie-tinged villain constantly targeting the Count. A brilliant engineer, his incredible machines are far less dangerous than his mind-controlling “Zorglwave” and his apparently unshakable hunger to conquer Earth and dominate the solar system from a base on the Moon…

This tale – originally in 2011 La face cachée du Z – opens with our happily argumentative chums repairing the collaterally damaged Champignac chateau yet again. Exhausted, they go to indoors to sleep… and wake up in a horrific and tawdry casino resort. Compounding the shocks are weird, painfully unpredictable tricks of gravity, as it’s apparently built only for the super-rich and on the moon!

Worst of all, explaining the transition is smugly sanctimonious old enemy Zorglub…

Still agonisingly hungry for his rival’s approval, the evil genius blathers on about his triumphs and his Great Masterwork since last seen (in volume 18’s Attack of the Zordolts): escaping from dirty, dying Earth to the stars with hot Swedish science students Astrid and Lena. Now they’ve gone off together, leaving the science troll to carve out his interplanetary empire alone.

At least, he would be, if certain funding shortfalls hadn’t forced him into bed with One-percenters who think his citadel could be the most exclusive resort off Earth…

Zorglub still needs to be the virtuous Architect of Humanity’s Future, but the people he has are nothing like the ones he wants: bold Fantasio, ingenious Spirou and brilliant ethically pristine Pacôme de Champignac…

That’s why – for the most logical and moral reasons – he drugged and abducted them…

Without question, the lunar outpost is a technological wonder, with advances and advantages even the kidnapped admire, but the beloved holy Science is being increasingly sidelined, for bigger and better gambling rooms, ski slopes, surfing beaches, sports complexes, nature sideshows and glitzy restaurants.

It does not go down well when Spirou points out that Zorglub could have cleaned up and saved Earth for less money and effort…

Further debate is forestalled when a solar flare is announced and Spirou refuses to join everyone else in radiation-shielded shelters until he recovers his wandering wild pal Spip. Locked out, our hero spectacularly finds a way to survive the cosmic storm, but it’s not for a while that we realise it’s come at a severe mutagenic cost…

The pauper lad’s suicide run across the resort’s attractions was televised and has made him a minor celebrity amongst the movie stars like Blythe Prejlowieky (who soon seduces the kid for her own shocking purposes!), overly-competitive sporting gods like Mike Adibox, faceless money-moguls and flagrantly ostentatious oligarchs such as Igor. Not so much impressed as cautious is the investors’ appointed fixer and ultimate mercenary Poppy Bronco. He’s recognized something in the survivor that bodes badly for all…

The sun starts setting on the project after Champignac chides Zorglub for the worthlessness of his achievements and surrendering of his principled dreams. It coincides with a series of potentially lethal sabotage attempts and – defined by true devotion to their precious skins – the one-percenters commandeer the transport back to Earth, with only few such as Blyth and Igor choosing to stay behind with the peons and paid staff…

Finally rid of his annoying paymasters, Zorglub then executes his long-term plans but is completely unprepared for what happens to Spirou when the lunar night begins. Bronco isn’t though and organises a monster-hunt through the abandoned resort and across the moon…

The outcome is tense, gripping unexpected and so very To Be Continued.

Rocket-paced, action-packed, compellingly convoluted and with just the right blend of perfectly blending helter-skelter excitement and sheer daftness, The Dark Side of the Z is a terrific witty romp to delight devotees of easy-going adventure, drawn with beguiling style and seductive energy. This is pure cartoon gold, truly deserving of reaching the widest audience possible.
Original edition © Dupuis, 2011 by Vehlmann & Yoann. All rights reserved. English translation 2023 © Cinebook Ltd.

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A Spirou & Fantasio Adventure: Volume 19 – The Visitor from the Mesozoic


By André Franquin with Greg & Jidéhem, translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-80044-066-1 (Album PB/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Marvellous Monster Madness… 9/10

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. He was a measured response to the success of Hergé’s Tintin at rival outfit Casterman. At first, Spirou (with his pet squirrel Spip) was a plucky bellboy/lift operator employed by the Moustique Hotel (an in-joke reference to Dupuis’ premier periodical Le Moustique) whose improbable adventures gradually evolved into astounding and often surreal comedy dramas.

The other red-headed lad debuted on April 21st 1938 in an 8-page, French-language 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 – Le Journal de Spirou grew exponentially: adding Flemish edition Robbedoes on October 27th 1938, bumping up the page count and adding compelling action, fantasy and comedy features until it was an unassailable, unmissable necessity for Continental kids.

Spirou and chums spearheaded the magazine for most of its life, with many impressive creators building on Velter’s work, beginning with his wife Blanche “Davine” Dumoulin, who took over the strip when her husband enlisted in 1939. She was aided by Belgian artist Luc Lafnet until 1943, when Dupuis purchased the feature, after which comic-strip prodigy Joseph Gillain (“Jijé”) took over.

In 1946, Jijé’s assistant André Franquin inherited the strip. Gradually, he retired traditional short gag-like vignettes in favour of longer adventure serials; introducing a wide and engaging cast of regulars. He ultimately devised a phenomenally popular nigh-magical animal dubbed Marsupilami, who debuted in 1952’s Spirou et les héritiers.

Jean-Claude Fournier succeeded Franquin in 1969 and working for a decade: beginning a succession of reinventions by creator teams that included Raoul Cauvin & Nic Broca; Yves Chaland; and Philippe Vandevelde – writing as “Tome” – & artist Jean-Richard Geurts – AKA Janry.

These last reverently referenced the beloved, revered Franquin era: reviving the feature’s fortunes in 14 albums between 1984-1998. After their departure the strip diversified into parallel strands: Spirou’s Childhood/Little Spirou and guest-creator specials A Spirou Story By… before Lewis Trondheim and the teams of Jean-Davide Morvan/Jose-Luis Munuera and Fabien Vehlmann/Yoann stepped up.

By my count – which includes specials, spin-offs series and one-shots – they cumulatively bring the album count to upwards of 90, but for many of us the Franquin sagas are the epitome and acme of the Spirou experience…

Cinebook have been publishing Spirou & Fantasio’s exploits since October 2009, initially concentrating on translating Tome & Janry’s superb pastiche/homages of Franquin, but for this manic marvel (available in paperback and digitally) they reached back all the way to 1960 for some true Franquin-formulated furore.

Belgian superstar André Franquin was born in Etterbeek on January 3rd 1924. Drawing from an early age, he began formal art training at École Saint-Luc in 1943 but when the war forced the school’s closure a year later, Franquin found animation work at Compagnie Belge d’Animation in Brussels. Here he met Maurice de Bevere (Lucky Luke-creator “Morris”), Pierre Culliford (AKA The Smurfs creator Peyo), and Eddy Paape (Valhardi, Luc Orient).

In 1945 all but Culliford signed on with Dupuis, and Franquin began his career as a jobbing cartoonist/illustrator, crafting covers for Le Moustique and scouting magazine Plein Jeu. Throughout those days, Franquin and Morris were being trained by Jijé – at that time main illustrator at Le Journal de Spirou. He turned the youngsters and fellow neophyte Willy Maltaite – AKA Will (Tif et Tondu, Isabelle, Le jardin des désirs) – into a perfect creative bullpen known as the La bande des quatre or “Gang of Four”. They would revolutionise Belgian comics with their prolific and 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. He 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 like comrade/rival Fantasio and crackpot inventor the Count of Champignac. Along the way Spirou & Fantasio became globe-trotting journalists, endlessly expanding their weekly exploits in unbroken four-colour glory.

The heroes travelled to exotic places, uncovering crimes, finding the fantastic and clashing with a coterie of exotic arch-enemies like Zorglub and Zantafio, as well as one of the first strong female characters in European comics, rival journalist Seccotine (renamed Cellophine in the current English translation).

In a splendid example of good practise, Franquin mentored his own band of apprentice cartoonists during the 1950s. These included Jean Roba (La Ribambelle, Boule et Bill), Jidéhem (Sophie, Ginger, Starter, Uhu-Man, Gaston Lagaffe) and Greg author of Luc Orient, Bruno Brazil, Bernard Prince, Achille Talon, and Zig et Puce who all worked with him on Spirou et Fantasio.

In 1955, a contractual spat with Dupuis saw Franquin sign with rivals Casterman on Le Journal de Tintin, collaborating with René Goscinny and Peyo whilst creating the raucous gag strip Modeste et Pompon. Within weeks Franquin patched things up with Dupuis and returned to Spirou, subsequently co-creating Gaston Lagaffe (known in Britain as Gomer Goof), but was obliged to carry on his Casterman commitments too…

From 1959, writer Greg and background artist Jidéhem assisted Franquin, but by 1969 the artist 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 – is Marsupilami, which, in addition to comics tales, has become a star of screen, plush toy store, console and albums.

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

Originally entitled Le voyageur du Mésozoïque and brought to you here as The Visitor from the Mesozoic this album combines a long tail (sorry couldn’t resist!) plus another, shorter adventure by the master crafted in collaboration with co-writer Greg (alias Michel Régnier) and artist Jidéhem – AKA Jean De Mesmaeker. The lead romp comes from 1957 having originated as a serial in Le Journal de Spirou #992-1018 and clearly and cleverly channelling that time’s penchant for rampaging, city-stomping giant monsters…

It begins in the Antarctic as the mushroom-mad Count de Champignac is rescued – much against his will – from his own experiments and frozen doom and brought back to France. He has with him a dinosaur egg that has been frozen for millions of years…

Getting the fragile, precious miracle back to his lab in bucolic Champignac-on-the-Sticks takes all the ingenuity and determination his pals Spirou and Fantasio can muster, but after much fuss and fluster the primordial ovum is stashed in the genius’ workshop and slowly thawing under the gimlet eyes of a handpicked team of fellow mad scientists including Doctors Nero, Schwartz, atomic pariah Sprtschk and Alexandre Specimen – “the Biologist”…

Their bumbling patience is tested to its limits when the mischievous Marsupilami becomes obsessed with the new ball toy and perhaps it’s his terrifying antics that finally force it to hatch…

Everyone is delighted when the mega-million-year-old herbivore pops out, but science is never patient and the bonkers boffins imprudently goose along its development with a little growth formula and aging extracts. Sadly, so does the Marsupilami and when everybody wakes up in the morning they’re greeted by a genial skyscraper saurian with a huge empty belly and a very bad cold…

Soon the big daft brute is shambling through the hamlet looking for browse and causing quite a commotion. The villagers might be used to weird happenings but the government respond with predictable hostility: sending in a tank column and a flight of warplanes…

They prove inefficient and quite ineffective, but the story also generates a wave of controversy. Stridently vocal, violently different pressure groups form: some wanting to save the poor endangered creature and others seeking to preserve the precious landmarks and monuments the beast is trampling. There’s even one guy who wants to make the dinosaur the latest taste sensation in his canned meat factory…

With chaos rampant Spirou looks for a solution to help the creature and finds one, but it depends on manoeuvring the monster to a certain isolated promontory. Thankfully, the Marsupilami has lost patience with his old toy and is ready to step in and step up…

Manic and wildly slapstick in tone and delivery, the story of the big beast is both charming and wickedly satirical and offers a happy ending films like Godzilla, Konga and Gorgo could never have imagined…

The rampaging silliness is counterbalanced by an equally funny but far more sinister pastiche also set in the wild world of the Merlin of Mushrooms. Back-up yarn ‘Fear on the Line’ stems from 1959, serialised as ‘La Peur au bout du fil’ in LJS #1086-1092. Notable for the first crossover appearance of comedy sluggard Gaston Lagaffe, the story details how Champignac distils the chemical essence of evil and accidentally drinks it instead of his coffee. Warned too late, Spirou and Fantasio must chase the now wicked prankster as he wreaks havoc in the village and plants bombs filled with his chemical concoctions. Happily, The Biologist is on hand to offer advice as the clock counts down to doom and our heroes give chase, but in the end it’s the Marsupilami who solves the crisis in his own bombastic manner…

The Visitor from the Mesozoic is the kind of lightly-barbed comedy-thriller that delights 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 élan which makes Asterix, Lucky Luke, and Iznogoud 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, 1960 by Franquin. All rights reserved. English translation © 2022 Cinebook Ltd.

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Spirou & Fantasio volume 18: Attack of the Zordolts


By Yoann & Vehlmann, designed by Fred Blanchard, colored by Hubert & translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-80044-022-7 (Album PB/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Manic Mirth and Mad Melodrama… 9/10

Spirou (which translates as both “squirrel” and “mischievous” in the Walloon language) was created by French cartoonist Françoise Robert Velter AKA Rob-Vel for Belgian publisher Éditions Dupuis in response to the phenomenal success of Hergé’s Tintin at rival outfit Casterman.

Soon-to-be legendary weekly comic Le Journal de Spirou launched on April 21st 1938 with a rival red-headed lad as lead feature in an anthology which bears his name to this day. The eponymous hero was a plucky bellboy/lift operator employed in the Moustique Hotel – a sly reference to the publisher’s premier periodical Le Moustique. His improbable adventures with pet squirrel Spip gradually evolved into far-reaching, surreal comedy dramas.

Spirou and his chums have spearheaded the magazine for most of its life, with a phalanx of truly impressive creators carrying on Velter’s work, beginning with his wife Blanche “Davine” Dumoulin who took over the strip when her husband enlisted in 1939. She was assisted by Belgian artist Luc Lafnet until 1943, when Dupuis purchased all rights to the property, after which comic-strip prodigy Joseph Gillain (Jijé) took the helm.

In 1946, his assistant André Franquin assumed the creative reins, gradually ditching the well-seasoned short gag vignettes in favour of epic adventure serials. He also expanded the cast, introducing a broad band of engaging regulars and eventually creating phenomenally popular magic animal Marsupilami.

Franquin was followed by Jean-Claude Fournier who updated the feature over nine stirring adventures tapping into the rebellious, relevant zeitgeist of the times: offering tales of environmental concern, nuclear energy, drug cartels and repressive regimes.

By the 1980s the series seemed outdated and lacked direction. Three different creative teams alternated on the feature, until it was overhauled and revitalised by Philippe Vandevelde (writing as Tome) and artist Jean-Richard Geurts AKA Janry. They adapted, referenced and in many ways returned to the beloved Franquin era.

Their sterling efforts revived the floundering feature’s fortunes, generating 14 wonderful albums between 1984 and1998. As the strip diversified into parallel strands (Spirou’s Childhood/Little Spirou and guest-creator specials A Spirou Story By…), the team on the core feature were succeeded by Jean-David Morvan & José-Luis Munuera. Then Yoann & Vehlmann took over the never-ending procession of amazing adventures…

Multi-award-winning French comics author Fabien Vehlman was born in 1972, began his comics career in 1996 and has been favourably likened to René Goscinny. He’s best known for Green Manor (illustrated by Denis Bodart), Seven Psychopaths with Sean Phillips, Seuls (drawn by Bruno Gazzotti and available in English as Alone), Wondertown with Benoit Feroumont and Isle of 1000,000 Graves with Jason.

He assumed the writing reins on Spirou and Fantasio in collaboration with Yoann. beginning with the book on review here – 2010’s Spirou et Fantasio – Alerte aux Zorkons.

Yoann Chivard was born in October 1971 and was drawing non-stop by the age of five. With qualifications in Plastic Arts and a degree in Communication from the Academy of Fine Arts in Angers, he became a poster and advertising artist whilst dabbling in comics. His creations include Phil Kaos and Dark Boris for British Indie publications Deadline and Inkling, Toto l’Ornithorynque, Nini Rezergoude, La Voleuse de Pere-Fauteuil, Ether Glister and Bob Marone and he has contributed to Trondheim & Sfar’s Donjon. In 2006, Yoann was the first artist to produce a Spirou et Fantasio one shot Special. It was scripted by Vehlmann…

Cinebook have been publishing Spirou & Fantasio’s exploits since 2009, alternating between the various superb reinterpretations of Franquin and earlier efforts from the great man himself. When Jijé handed Franquin all responsibilities for the strip part-way through Spirou et la maison préfabriqué (LJdS #427, June 20th 1946), the new guy 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 staunch comrade and rival Fantasio or crackpot inventor and Merlin of mushroom mechanics Pacôme Hégésippe Adélard Ladislas de Champignac – The Count of Champignac…

Spirou and Fantasio became globe-trotting journalists, travelling to dangerously exotic places, uncovering crimes, exploring the fantastic and clashing with a coterie of exotic arch-enemies such as Fantasio’s deranged and wicked cousin Zantafio and that maddest of scientists, Zorglub.

This old school chum and implacable rival of Champignac is an outrageous Bond movie-flavoured villain who constantly targets the Count. A brilliant engineer, his incredible machines are far less dangerous than his mesmerising mind-controlling “Zorglwave” and an apparently unshakable desire to conquer Earth and dominate the solar system from a base on the Moon…

This tale opens with the seemingly reformed plotter stealing some of Champignac’s most incredible mushroom-based miracles and triggering a massive mutational event in and around the bucolic generally placid hamlet of Champignac-in-the-Sticks.

The first Spirou and Fantasio hear of it is a desperate cell phone call from Pacôme, who has just reappeared after weeks amnesiac and missing. Driving back from a promotional tour, our heroes race across country only to find the placid region is now an armed camp, with soldiers in biohazard gear brutally decontaminating villagers.

The little valley has become a monstrous alien jungle dominated and transformed by weird and incredible plant/animal/fungus creatures, but neither they nor the military – who are keen on immediately nuking the geographical atrocity – can stop our dedicated reporters sneaking in to find their friends.

On locating the Count and his two new chums – hot Swedish science students Astrid and Lena – the lads learn that the brave new world is an accident and hideous side effect of Zorglub’s latest scheme, and that he’s sorrier than anyone at the state of the local environment.

He’s certainly keen enough on fixing the problem…

Other than the fact that everything wants to eat everything else, and that many of the human locals seem comfortable and accustomed to the changes, the main problem seems to be a rapidly proliferating and aggressive form of beast man. The jungle is now a superfast evolutionary Petri dish with everything in it part of an arms race to out-compete all rivals. These brutish bipeds have for some reason evolved immunity to Zorglub’s Zorglwave by having oodles of aggression and not enough intellect. They are ravening, unstoppable Zordolts…

Not sure what’s happening, but resolved to stop the Army bombing the village before foiling Zorglub, everybody works frantically together and succeeds in part one of the plan, but when the jests are repelled and the Zordolts stopped by Champignac’s newly-liberated dinosaur they find the villain vanished.

By the time Champignac has worked his mushroom magic in reverse and restored most of the status quo, the Master of the Z ray is long gone. If our heroes could look up high enough, they might see him well on his way to the moon with Astrid in Lena in tow and about to set his Great Masterwork in motion…

To be Continued…

Rocket-paced, action-packed, compellingly convoluted and with just the right blend of perfectly blending helter-skelter excitement and sheer daftness, Attack of the Zordolts is a terrific romp to delight devotees of easy-going adventure.

Stuffed with an astounding array of astonishing hi-tech spoofery, riotous chases and gazillions of sight gags and verbal ripostes, this exultant escapade is a fabulous fiesta of angst-free action and thrills. Readily accessible to readers of all ages and drawn with beguiling style and seductive energy and wit, this is pure cartoon gold, truly deserving of reaching the widest audience possible.

Buy it for you, get another for the kids and give copies to all your friends…
Original edition © Dupuis, 2010 by Vehlmann, Yoann, Blanchard & Hubert. All rights reserved. English translation 2021 © Cinebook Ltd.

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Spirou & Fantasio volume 17 – The Marsupilamis’ Nest


By André Franquin, translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-533-2 (Album PB)

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 star was a response to the success of Hergé’s Tintin at rival outfit Casterman. At first, 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 his pet squirrel Spip evolved into astounding and often surreal comedy dramas.

The other red-headed lad debuted on April 21st 1938 in an 8-page, French-language 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 grew exponentially: adding Flemish edition Robbedoes on October 27th 1938, increasing page count and adding compelling action, fantasy and comedy features until it was an unassailable, unmissable necessity for Franco-Belgian kids.

Spirou and chums spearheaded the magazine for most of its life, with many impressive creators building on Velter’s work, beginning with his wife Blanche “Davine” Dumoulin, who took over the strip when her husband enlisted in 1939. She was aided by Belgian artist Luc Lafnet until 1943, when Dupuis purchased all rights to the feature, after which comic-strip prodigy Joseph Gillain (“Jijé”) took over.

In 1946, Jijé‘s assistant André Franquin inherited the feature. Gradually, he retired traditional short gag-like vignettes in favour of longer adventure serials, introducing a wide and engaging cast of regulars. He ultimately devised a phenomenally popular nigh-magical animal dubbed Marsupilami, who debuted in 1952’s Spirou et les héritiers.

Jean-Claude Fournier succeeded Franquin: overhauling the feature over nine stirring serial adventures between 1969-1979 which tapped into the rebellious, relevant zeitgeist with tales of environmental concern, nuclear energy, drug cartels and repressive regimes.

By the 1980s, the series seemed stalled, with three different creative teams alternating on the serial: Raoul Cauvin & Nic Broca, Yves Chaland, and Philippe Vandevelde – writing as “Tome” – & artist Jean-Richard Geurts AKA Janry.

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

Efforts by Lewis Trondheim and the teams of Jean-Davide Morvan & Jose-Luis Munuera and Fabien Vehlmann & Yoann brought the official album count to nearly 80 (if you include specials, spin-offs series and one-shots, official and otherwise), but there are still plenty of the older vintages uncollected, just waiting for another nostalgia wave to revive them (perhaps in Complete Collections as has been done with Lucky Luke and Valerian and Laureline…?)

Cinebook have been publishing Spirou & Fantasio’s exploits since October 2009, mostly concentrating on translating Tome & Janry’s superb pastiche/homages of Franquin, but for this manic marvel (available in paperback and digitally) we hark all the way back to 1960 for pure Franquin-formulated furore and fiasco.

The contents are actual two separate yarns, originally serialised in LJdS #699-991 (1956-1957) and #1034-1045 (1958) before being collected in 1960 as 12th European album Le nid des Marsupilamis. It’s brought to you as The Marsupilamis’ Nest…

In 1952’s Spirou et les héritiers, intrepid heroes Spirou and Fantasio encountered an incredible elastic-tailed anthropoid in the jungles of Central American nation Palombia: ultimately bringing the fabulous, affable creature back to civilisation and a string of bizarre and absurd adventures.

Franquin had assumed all creative responsibilities for Dupuis’ flagship strip part-way through Spirou et la maison préfabriquée (LJdS #427, June 20th 1946). He ran wild and prospered for two decades, enlarging the scope and horizons of the stories until the feature became purely his own.

As the Bellboy became a globe-trotting journalist, fans continuously met startling new characters such as comrade/rival reporter Fantasio; crackpot inventor Count of Champignac and inept colleague Gaston Lagaffe (known in Britain as Gomer Goof). Travelling to exotic places, they uncovered crimes, challenged the fantastic unknown and clashed with nefarious arch-enemies such as Zorglub and Zantafio. They also competed with one of the first strong female characters in European comics – rival journalist Seccotine (renamed Cellophine in the current English translation).

In this compilation, the eponymous lead story sees the enquiring lads lose out on a prestigious film-&-lecture gig to Cellophine, who has truly scooped them by penetrating the Palombian rain forest to create a compelling documentary of the language, mating habits and daily life of Marsupilamis…

Dramatic, action-packed, romantic, passionate and utterly hilarious, the tale depicts the earliest moments of the manic monkey’s adorable triplets and was apparently crafted by Franquin as his wife Liliane was carrying their first child…

The joys of the wilderness are counterbalanced by an enthralling graphic essay on civilisation and human nature as La foire aux gangsters AKA ‘The Gangster Fair’ sees Spirou and Fantasio – after some spectacular initial resistance – trained in the martial arts by innocuous-seeming Yudai Nao.

The aging oriental gentleman is the dutiful bodyguard of Yankee oil tycoon John P. Nutt, whose upcoming visit to Europe has afforded gangster Lucky Caspiano a chance to extract money and exact vengeance on a despised old enemy. Our heroes’ training is intended to create unsuspected back-up for the sentinel, but when the villains brutally remove Mr Nao and kidnap Nutt’s infant son, the likely lads find themselves on their own and painfully probing a sordid street fair for clues. Eventually their investigations centre on an all-comer’s boxing booth…

Happily, the reporters have unexpected allies – such as hapless office intern Gomer Goof and a thug with a conscience – but as the caper devolves into a manic, violent chase, Spirou deduces that they have been lied to, and that not every player in this game is on the side of the angels…

The Marsupilamis’ Nest offers the kind of lightly-barbed, comedy-thriller that delights 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 rendered with the beguiling style and seductively wholesome élan which makes Asterix, Lucky Luke, and Iznogoud so compelling, this is a delicious tale from a long line of superb exploits that cries out to be a household name as much as those series – and even that other kid with the white dog…
Original edition © Dupuis, 1960 by Franquin. All rights reserved. English translation 2020 © Cinebook Ltd.

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Spirou & Fantasio volume 15 – Shadow of the Z


By André Franquin, with Jidéhem & Greg; translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-419-9 (Album PB)

Spirou (whose name translates as both “squirrel” and “mischievous” in the tongue of the Walloons) was created by French cartoonist François Robert Velter – AKA Rob-Vel – for Belgian publisher Éditions Dupuis in response to the phenomenal success of Hergé’s Tintin at rival outfit Casterman.

The legendary anthology Le Journal de Spirou was launched on April 21st 1938 with this other red-headed lad as lead of the anthology weekly comic which bears his name to this day.

He began life as a plucky bellboy/lift operator employed by the Moustique Hotel (a reference to the publisher’s premier periodical Le Moustique) whose improbable adventures with his pet squirrel Spip eventually evolved into high-flying surreal comedy dramas.

The Spirou cast have been the magazine’s vanguard for most of its life, with a phalanx of truly impressive creators carrying on Velter’s work, beginning with his wife Blanche “Davine” Dumoulin who took over the strip when her husband enlisted in 1939. She was aided by Belgian artist Luc Lafnet until 1943 when Dupuis purchased all rights to the feature, after which comic-strip prodigy Joseph Gillain (“Jijé”) took over.

In 1946, Jijé‘s assistant André Franquin assumed the reins, slowly retiring short, gag-like vignettes in favour of longer epic adventure serials, introducing a wide and engaging cast of regulars. He ultimately devised a phenomenally popular nigh-magical animal dubbed Marsupilami, with the wondrous critter debuting in Spirou et les héritiers in 1952.

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

In 1945 all but Culliford signed on with Dupuis, and Franquin began his career as a jobbing cartoonist and illustrator, producing covers for Le Moustique and scouting magazine Plein Jeu. Throughout those early days, Franquin and Morris were being trained by Jijé, at that time the main illustrator at Le Journal de Spirou. He turned the youngsters and fellow neophyte Willy Maltaite – AKA Will (Tif et Tondu, Isabelle, Le jardin des désirs) – into a perfect creative bullpen known as the La bande des quatre or “Gang of Four”. They promptly revolutionised Belgian comics with their prolific and 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. The eager beaver 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 and rival Fantasio and crackpot inventor the Count of Champignac.

Along the way Spirou & Fantasio became globe-trotting journalists, endlessly expanding their weekly exploits in unbroken four-colour glory. They travelled to exotic climes, exposing crimes, revealing the fantastic and clashing with a coterie of arch-enemies such as Zorglub and Zantafio and one of the first strong female characters in European comics – rival journalist Seccotine (renamed Cellophine in the current English translation).

In a splendid example of good practise, Franquin mentored his own band of 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 saw Franquin sign up with rivals Casterman on Le Journal de Tintin, where he collaborated with René Goscinny and old pal Peyo whilst creating the raucous gag strip Modeste et Pompon. Franquin soon patched things up with Dupuis and returned to Spirou, subsequently co-creating Gaston Lagaffe (now known in Britain as Gomer Goof) in 1957, but was obliged to carry on his Casterman commitments too…

From 1959, writer Greg and background artist Jidéhem assisted Franquin, but by 1969 the artist 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 Id̩es Noires, but his greatest creation Рand one he retained all rights to on his departure Рis Marsupilami, which, in addition to comics tales, has become a star of screen, plush toy store, console and albums.

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

Cinebook have published Spirou and Fantasio’s exploits since 2009, initially concentrating on Tome & Janry’s superb pastiche/homages of Franquin, with infrequent doses of the original article also available in paperback and digitally.

Here, in the sequel to Z is for Zorglub (also by Franquin, Greg & Jidéhem) we head back to 1960 for a return engagement with a super-scientific arrogant buffoon whose believes he is the rightful ruler of Earth and the solar system thanks to his discovery of the mind-bending “Zorglwave”.

Previously, the smug weirdo had used his hypnotic rays to make Fantasio one of his mind-controlled Zorglmen whilst attempting to destroy their inspirational boffin acquaintance: mushroom-mad Count Champignac. Apparently, they were at school together…

After an epic encounter, Zorglub was outwitted by Spirou, Spip and the Marsupilami, and all his grand plans scuttled, but as this volume opens our heroes are cleaning up in the generally placid hamlet of Champignac-in-the-Sticks where one last Zorglman is still prowls, armed with a paralysis ray and causing a catastrophic kerfuffle…

Sadly, no sooner do our heroes solve that problem than Zorglub himself turns up to reclaim the last of his evil machines and advanced aircraft: keen to resume his duel with the kindly Count. An inconclusive clash results in Zorglub heading off for his last hidden base – creating a shocking swathe of chaos and destruction in his wake – unaware that he has left a crucial clue.

Soon the heroic gang are off to Palombia – home of wild Marsupilami – landing just in time to become embroiled in the madman’s latest outrage: dominating the local toiletries market through his hypnotic devices. With all that operating capital, his conquest of Earth is assured…

As economic unrest drags the Palombian populace towards destitution and revolution, the Count perfects his anti-Z wave technology and our heroes’ counterattack, but unknown to all, a malicious old enemy has formed a third faction to exploit Zorglub’s grand scheme for shoddy personal gain. When he’s finally exposed, the monster resorts to the death-ray even Zorglub was too ashamed to use but has underestimated Spirou, the Count and the marvellous Marsupilami. The end is a sudden, shocking, comeuppance but we have not seen the last of Zorglub…

Stuffed with an astounding array of astonishing hi-tech spoofery, riotous chases, sight gags and verbal ripostes, this exultant escapade is a fast and fabulous fiesta of angst-free action and thrills. Readily accessible to readers of all ages and drawn with beguiling style and seductive élan, this is pure cartoon gold, truly deserving of reaching the widest audience possible.

Buy it for you, get another for the kids and give copies to all your friends…
Original edition © Dupuis, 1962 by Franquin, Jidéhem & Greg. All rights reserved. English translation 2018 © Cinebook Ltd.