{"id":17126,"date":"2017-08-06T10:30:40","date_gmt":"2017-08-06T10:30:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/?p=17126"},"modified":"2017-08-06T10:30:40","modified_gmt":"2017-08-06T10:30:40","slug":"quick-flupke-under-full-sail-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/2017\/08\/06\/quick-flupke-under-full-sail-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Quick & Flupke: Under Full Sail"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"
\nBy Herg\u00c3\u00a9,<\/strong> translated by David Radzinowicz<\/strong> (Egmont UK)
\nISBN: 978-1-4052-4743-6<\/p>\n

Once upon a time in Belgium and many other places, the adventures of two mischievous young scallywags rivalled the utterly irresistible adventurer Tintin<\/strong> in popularity. It wasn’t that big a deal for Herg\u00c3\u00a9 and his publishers as Quick & Flupke<\/strong> was being produced by the young master and his studio team in conjunction with the dashing boy reporter.<\/p>\n

In fact the strip probably acted as a test lab for the humorous graphic elements so much a part of the future world classic and the little terrors even cameoed frequently in the star vehicle…<\/p>\n

Georges Prosper Remi, known all over the world as Herg\u00c3\u00a9, created a genuine masterpiece of graphic literature with his tales of a plucky Tintin and his entourage of iconic associates, but the hero was by no means his only creation. Among the best of the rest are Jo, Zette and Jocko<\/strong><\/a> and the episodic all-ages – and in the majority criminally unavailable – comedy gems highlighted here today.<\/p>\n

On leaving school in 1925 Herg\u00c3\u00a9 worked for Catholic newspaper Le XXe Si\u00c3\u00a9cle<\/strong> where he seems to have fallen under the influence of its Svengali-like editor Abbot Norbert Wallez. A dedicated boy scout himself, Georges produced his first strip series – The Adventures of Totor <\/em>– for Boy Scouts of Belgium<\/strong> monthly magazine the following year, and by 1928 the artist was in charge of producing the contents of Le XXe Si\u00c3\u00a9cle<\/strong>‘s children’s weekly supplement Le Petit Vingti\u00c3\u00a9me<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Herg\u00c3\u00a9 was unhappily illustrating L’Extraordinaire Aventure de Flup, N\u00c3\u00a9nesse, Poussette et Cochonnet <\/em>(The Extraordinary Adventures of Flup, N\u00c3\u00a9nesse, Poussette and Cochonnet) – scripted by the staff sports reporter – when Abbot Wallez tasked him with creating a new adventure series. Perhaps a young reporter who would travel the world, doing good whilst displaying solid Catholic values and virtues and rubbishing contradictory philosophies and ideologies?<\/p>\n

Having recently discovered the word balloon in imported newspaper strips, Remi wanted to incorporate the innovation into his own work. He would create a strip that was modern and action-packed. Beginning on January 10th<\/sup> 1929, Tintin in the Land of the Soviets<\/strong><\/a> appeared in weekly instalments in Le Petit Vingti\u00c3\u00a9me<\/strong>, running until May 8th<\/sup> 1930.<\/p>\n

The strip generated a huge spike in sales and Wallez allowed Herg\u00c3\u00a9 to hire Eug\u00c3\u00a8ne Van Nyverseel and Paul \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Jam\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Jamin as art assistants. Naturally the Editor wanted to see a return in terms of more product, and – according to Remi’s later recollections – he returned from a brief well-earned vacation to find his staff had played an office prank by announcing that he was about to launch a second weekly strip\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

Briefly flummoxed, he rapidly concocted a strip starring a little rascal over a few days, based largely on his own childhood and French film Les Deux Gosses<\/strong> (The Two Kids), and the impertinent pair (or at least one of them) premiered in the Le Petit Vingti\u00c3\u00a9me <\/strong>for January 23rd<\/sup> 1930. The strip would become Quick & Flupke<\/strong> when, three weeks later, a pint-sized partner in peril debuted, initially answering to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Suske\u00e2\u20ac\u009d before soon evolving into Flupke (which is Flemish for \u00e2\u20ac\u0153little Phillip\u00e2\u20ac\u009d)\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

Unleashed in weekly 2-page monochrome exploits, two working class rapscallions in Brussels played pranks, got into mischief and even ventured into the heady realms of slapstick and surrealism in the kind of yarns that any reader of Dennis the Menace<\/strong> (ours, not the Americans’) would find fascinatingly familiar. Readers everywhere loved them\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

The strip was immensely successful, although Herg\u00c3\u00a9 paid it little heed and frequently only began each week’s episode a day or even mere hours before press-time. The fare was rapid-fire, pun-packed, stand-alone and often fourth-wall breaking which – as eny fule kno – never gets old\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

Despite being increasingly sidelined after Herg\u00c3\u00a9 began The Adventures of<\/strong> Jo, Zette and Jocko<\/strong><\/a> for C\u00c5\u201curs Vaillants<\/em><\/strong> at the end of 1935, our likely lads larked about for over a decade, becoming more an artefact of the assistants (and latterly artist Johan de Moor) until the war and the pressure of producing Tintin<\/strong> meant they had to go.<\/p>\n

Quick & Flupke were rediscovered in 1985 and their remastered, collected escapades ran for 12 full-colour albums in Europe and India until 1991.<\/p>\n

As English translations, we only ever saw a couple of volumes such as this oversized (221 x 295 mm) hardcover compendium from 2009: delighting us with nearly two dozen sparkling romps for laughter-starved lovers of classic comics comedy.<\/p>\n

Hopefully, now we’ve got a burgeoning digital reading base, they will all be available for folk too lazy to learn French (or Dutch or German or\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6) as digital editions. These lost classics are certainly long-overdue for rediscovery and are perfect light reading for kids of all ages.
\n\u00c2\u00a9 Herg\u00c3\u00a9 – Exclusivity Editions Casterman 1986. All Rights Reserved. English translation \u00c2\u00a9 2009 Egmont UK Limited. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Herg\u00c3\u00a9, translated by David Radzinowicz (Egmont UK) ISBN: 978-1-4052-4743-6 Once upon a time in Belgium and many other places, the adventures of two mischievous young scallywags rivalled the utterly irresistible adventurer Tintin in popularity. It wasn’t that big a deal for Herg\u00c3\u00a9 and his publishers as Quick & Flupke was being produced by the … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Quick & Flupke: Under Full Sail”<\/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":[191,63,125,97],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17126","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adventure","category-european-classics","category-humour","category-kids-all-ages"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4AFj-4se","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17126","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=17126"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17126\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}