{"id":16409,"date":"2017-01-31T08:00:05","date_gmt":"2017-01-31T08:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/?p=16409"},"modified":"2017-01-23T17:37:06","modified_gmt":"2017-01-23T17:37:06","slug":"cedric-volume-3-what-got-into-him","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/2017\/01\/31\/cedric-volume-3-what-got-into-him\/","title":{"rendered":"Cedric volume 3: What Got Into Him?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"\"\"
\nBy Laudec & Cauvin<\/strong> with colours by Leonardo<\/strong> and translated by Erica Jeffrey<\/strong> (Cinebook)
\nISBN: 978-1-84918-081-8<\/p>\n

Born in Antoing, Belgium in 1938, Raoul Cauvin is one of Europe’s most successful comics scripters. In 1960 he joined the animation department of publishing giant Dupuis after studying the dying – and much-missed – print production technique of Lithography.<\/p>\n

Happily, he quickly discovered his true calling was writing funny stories and began a glittering, prolific career at Spirou<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

While there he devised (with Salv\u00c3\u00a9rius) the astoundingly successful Bluecoats<\/strong> as well as dozens of other long-running, award-winning series such as Sammy<\/em>, Les Femmes en Blanc, Boulouloum et Guiliguili<\/em>, Cupidon<\/em>, Pauvre Lampil<\/em> and Agent 212<\/em>: cumulatively shifting more than 240 separate albums. Bluecoats<\/strong> alone has achieved sales well in excess of 15 million copies thus far\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

His collaborator on sharp, witty, kid-friendly family strip C\u00c3\u00a9dric<\/strong> is Italian born, Belgium-raised Tony de Luca who studied electro-mechanics and toiled as an industrial draughtsman until he could make his own break into bandes dessin\u00c3\u00a9e.<\/p>\n

Following a few fanzine efforts in the late 1970s, Laudec landed soap-style series Les Contes de Cur\u00c3\u00a9-la-Fl’\u00c3\u00bbte<\/em> at Spirou<\/em><\/strong> in 1979. He built that into a brace of extended war-time serials (L’an 40<\/em> in 1983 and March\u00c3\u00a9 Noir et Bottes \u00c3\u00a0 Clous<\/em> in 1985) whilst working his way around many of the comic’s other regular strips.<\/p>\n

In 1987 he united with Cauvin on the first C\u00c3\u00a9dric<\/em><\/strong> shorts and the rest is history\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 and poetry and science and geography and maths and\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

We have Dennis the Menace<\/strong> (the Americans have their own too but he’s not the same) whilst the French-speaking world has C\u00c3\u00a9dric<\/strong>: an adorable, lovesick rapscallion with a heart of gold and an irresistible penchant for mischief. Collected albums of the variable-length strips – ranging from a \u00c2\u00bd page to half a dozen – began appearing in 1989 (with 29 released so far) and are always amongst the most popular and best-selling on the Continent, as is the animated TV show spun off from the strip.<\/p>\n

This third Cinebook translation – from 2011 and first continentally released in 1992 as C\u00c3\u00a9dric 5: Quelle mouche le pique?<\/em><\/strong> – opens with ‘A Pebble in the Shoe\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/em>‘: a moving and uplifting generational collaboration as Grandpa tells his daughter’s son stories of his dearly-departed wife that has the eavesdropping household (and you, too, if you have any shred of heart or soul) in emotional tatters\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

A return to big laughs comes next as a dose of unwelcome homework results in ‘A Big Fat Zero’<\/em> whilst ‘A Lousy Story’<\/em> details the pros and cons of a school nit epidemic before pester power is employed to secure an addition to the household in ‘Man’s Best Friend’<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The crusty elder statesman of the family learns a painful lesson as ‘Grandpa Takes a Turn’<\/em> finds the creaky reactionary suckered into chaperoning at a school dance, after which little Cedric has a beguiling and potentially life-altering experience when his adored Chen marches through town in the uniform of ‘The Majorettes’<\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

Grandpa and Cedric unite to shame Dad into purchasing ‘The Board that Skates’<\/em> but it’s every man for himself when the kid comes cadging for cash in ‘You Wouldn’t Have a 20?’<\/em> whilst ‘Out of Sight, Out of Mind’<\/em> playfully shows that although the boy’s love for Chen is all-abiding and true, it isn’t necessarily reciprocated\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

When Chen’s mother accidentally prangs Dad’s car, Cedric goes violently berserk until the families have demonstrably agreed d\u00c3\u00a9tente and rapprochement and reached ‘An Amicable Arrangement’<\/em>, before the pesky kid accidentally boosts his hard-pressed papa’s earning potential through inadvertent confidence trickery in ‘Business is Business’<\/em>.<\/p>\n

‘Jealousy’<\/em> rears its ugly head when Chen starts ballet and literally jumps into the arms of Cedric’s bitterly despised romantic rival The Right Honourable Alphonse Andre Jones-Tarrington-Dupree<\/em> – with catastrophic repercussions for all concerned – whilst ‘Short of Breath’<\/em> sees the entire family play a mean but hilarious trick involving Dad’s birthday cake\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

‘Solemn Communion’<\/em> wastes a much-need opportunity to salve Cedric’s already-tarnished soul when the lad’s first Catholic sacrament ceremony devolves into a drunken debacle for the attending adults, after which we come full circle as amorous memories are tickled and ‘The Quarrel’<\/em> resumes when Cedric asks how Mum and Dad got together before everything returns to bittersweet tears when the old man is asked for more reminiscences of Grandma Germaine<\/em> in moving finale ‘Remember, Gramps\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6’<\/em><\/p>\n

Rapid-paced, warm and witty, and not afraid to explore sentiment or loss, the exploits of this painfully keen, bemusingly besotted rascal are a charming example of how all little boys are just the same and infinitely unique. Cedric<\/strong> is a superb family strip perfect for youngsters and old folk alike\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6
\n\u00c2\u00a9 Dupuis 1992 by Cauvin & Laudec. All rights reserved. English translation \u00c2\u00a9 2011 Cinebook Ltd.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Laudec & Cauvin with colours by Leonardo and translated by Erica Jeffrey (Cinebook) ISBN: 978-1-84918-081-8 Born in Antoing, Belgium in 1938, Raoul Cauvin is one of Europe’s most successful comics scripters. In 1960 he joined the animation department of publishing giant Dupuis after studying the dying – and much-missed – print production technique of … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Cedric volume 3: What Got Into Him?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[63,125,97],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16409","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-european-classics","category-humour","category-kids-all-ages"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4AFj-4gF","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16409","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16409"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16409\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}