{"id":21611,"date":"2020-02-05T08:00:49","date_gmt":"2020-02-05T08:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/?p=21611"},"modified":"2020-02-03T18:03:03","modified_gmt":"2020-02-03T18:03:03","slug":"the-bluecoats-volume-2-the-navy-blues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/2020\/02\/05\/the-bluecoats-volume-2-the-navy-blues\/","title":{"rendered":"The Bluecoats volume 2: The Navy Blues"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"
\nBy Willy<\/strong> Lambil<\/strong> & Raoul Cauvin<\/strong>, translated by Erica Jeffrey<\/strong> (Cinebook)
\nISBN: 978-905460-82-3 (Album PB)<\/p>\n

The mythology of the American West has never been better loved or more honourably treated than by Europeans. Herg\u00c3\u00a9 was a passionate devotee, and the range of incredible comics material from Tex Willer <\/strong>to Blueberry<\/strong>, Yakari <\/strong>to Lucky Luke <\/strong>to <\/strong>Camanche <\/strong>display over and over again our fascination with all aspects of that legendary time and place.<\/p>\n

Les Tuniques Bleues<\/strong><\/em> or Bluecoats<\/strong> began at the end of the 1960s, visually devised by Louis \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Salv\u00c3\u00a9\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Salv\u00c3\u00a9rius with scripts by Raoul Colvin – who has also written the succeeding 63 volumes of this much-loved Belgian comedy western series. The strip was created on the fly to replace the aforementioned Lucky Luke<\/strong> when the great gunslinger defected from prominent weekly anthology Le Journal de Spirou<\/strong><\/em> to rival comic Pilote<\/strong><\/em>,<\/strong> and became another one of the most popular series on the Continent.<\/p>\n

After its initial run, Bluecoats<\/strong> graduated to the collected album format (published by French publishing powerhouse Dupuis) that we’re all so familiar with in Un chariot dans l’Ouest<\/strong><\/em> – A Wagon in the West<\/em> – in 1972.<\/p>\n

Salv\u00c3\u00a9 was proficient in the Gallic style of big-foot\/big-nose humour cartooning, and when he died suddenly in 1972 his artistic replacement Willy \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Lambil\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Lambillotte gradually leavened the previous broad style with a more realistic – but still crucially comedic – illustrative manner. Lambil is Belgian, born in 1936, and after studying Fine Art, joined Dupuis as a letterer in 1952.<\/p>\n

In 1959 he created Sandy –<\/em> about an Australian teen and a kangaroo – later self-parodying it and himself with Hobby and Koala<\/em> and Panty et son<\/em> kangaroo <\/em>as well as creating the comics industry satire ‘Pauvre Lampil’.<\/em><\/p>\n

Belgian writer Raoul Cauvin was born in 1938 and, after studying Lithography, joined Dupuis’ animation department in 1960. His glittering and prolific writing career began soon after. Almost exclusively a humourist and always for Le Journal de Spirou<\/strong><\/em>, other than Bluecoats <\/strong>he has written more than 20 long-running and award-winning series – more than 240 separate albums. Bluecoats<\/strong> alone has sold in the region of 23 million copies.<\/p>\n

The protagonists are Sergeant Cornelius Chesterfield<\/em> and Corporal Blutch<\/em>, a hopeless double act of buffoons in the manner of Laurel and Hardy, perhaps Abbot & Costello or our own Morecambe & Wise: two hapless and ill-starred cavalrymen posted to the wilds of the arid frontier.<\/p>\n

The first strips were single-page gags based around an Indian-plagued Wild West fort but with second volume Du Nord au Sud<\/strong><\/em> (North and South<\/em>) the sorry soldiers went back East to fight in the American Civil War (this scenario was retconned in the 18th<\/sup> album Blue retro<\/strong><\/em> which described how the everyman chumps were first drafted into the military). All subsequent adventures, although ranging all over the planet and taking in a lot of genuine and thoroughly researched history, are set within that tragic conflict.<\/p>\n

Blutch is your average little man in the street: work-shy, reluctant and ever-critical of the army – especially his inept commanders. Ducking, diving, deserting when he can, he’s you or me – except sometimes he’s quite smart and heroic if no other easier option is available. Chesterfield is a big man, a career soldier, who has bought into all the patriotism and esprit de corps<\/em>. He is brave, never shirks his duty and wants to be a hero. He also loves his cynical little pal. They quarrel like a married couple, fight like brothers and simply cannot agree on the point and purpose of the horrendous war they are trapped in\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

The Navy Blues<\/strong>, second book in this translated series, is actually the 7th<\/sup> French volume ‘Les Bleus de la marine’<\/em>, and finds the lads as usual in the midst of a terrible battle. However, when Blutch is wounded, his cavalry commanders prefer to save his horse rather than aid a fallen soldier, and Chesterfield finds all his cherished dreams of camaraderie and loyalty ebbing away.<\/p>\n

Disillusioned, he demands a transfer to the infantry and with the never-happy Blutch beside him tries to adapt to his lowered status. Sadly, Chesterfield discovers officers are the same everywhere and stupidity and cupidity are rife throughout the armed forces. A progression of calamitous transfers eventually lands the pair in the Union Navy at a time of intriguing technological advancement, playing an unfortunately ill-omened part in the development of both Submarines and armoured battleships. As always, their misadventures result in pain, humiliation and not a few explosions\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

The secret of Les Tuniques Bleues <\/strong><\/em>success\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6? This is a hugely amusing anti-war saga targeting younger less cynical audiences. Historically authentic, always in good taste despite its uncompromising portrayal of violence, the attitudes expressed by the down-to-earth pair never make battle anything but arrant folly and, like the hilarious yet insanely tragic war-memoirs of Spike Milligan, these are comedic tales whose very humour makes the occasional moments of shocking verity doubly powerful and hard-hitting.<\/p>\n

Fun, informative, beautifully realised and eminently readable, Bluecoats<\/strong> is the sort of war-story that appeals to the best, not worst, of the human spirit.
\n\u00c2\u00a9 Dupuis 1975 by Lambil & Cauvin. English edition \u00c2\u00a9 2008 Cinebook Ltd. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Willy Lambil & Raoul Cauvin, translated by Erica Jeffrey (Cinebook) ISBN: 978-905460-82-3 (Album PB) The mythology of the American West has never been better loved or more honourably treated than by Europeans. Herg\u00c3\u00a9 was a passionate devotee, and the range of incredible comics material from Tex Willer to Blueberry, Yakari to Lucky Luke to … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “The Bluecoats volume 2: The Navy Blues”<\/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":[63,122,125,93],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21611","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-european-classics","category-historical","category-humour","category-war-stories"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4AFj-5Cz","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21611","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=21611"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21611\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}