{"id":4819,"date":"2010-04-09T06:00:50","date_gmt":"2010-04-09T06:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/?p=4819"},"modified":"2010-04-14T18:16:21","modified_gmt":"2010-04-14T18:16:21","slug":"bluecoats-volume-1-robertsonville-prison","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/2010\/04\/09\/bluecoats-volume-1-robertsonville-prison\/","title":{"rendered":"Bluecoats volume 1: Robertsonville Prison"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nBy Lambil<\/strong> & Raoul Cauvin<\/strong>, translated by Erica Jeffrey (Cinebook)
\nISBN: 978-905460-71-7<\/p>\n

The mythology of the American West has never been better loved or more honourably treated than by Europeans. <\/strong>Herg\u00c3\u00a9 (see Tintin in America<\/a> <\/strong>among so many other early works) was a passionate devotee, and the range of incredible comics material from Tex Willer <\/strong>to Blueberry <\/strong>to Lucky Luke<\/a> <\/strong>displays over and over again our fascination with all aspects of that legendary time and place.<\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

‘Les Tuniques Bleues’ or <\/em>Bluecoats<\/strong> began at the end of the 1960s,<\/em><\/strong> visually created by Louis \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Salv\u00c3\u00a9\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Salv\u00c3\u00a9rius and scripted by Raoul Colvin – who has also written the succeeding 52 volumes of this much-loved Belgian comedy western series. The strip was created on the fly to replace Lucky Luke<\/strong> when he defected from prominent weekly anthology Spirou<\/em><\/strong> to rival comic Pilote<\/em><\/strong>, and is one of the most popular series on the Continent. After its initial run Bluecoats<\/strong> graduated to the collected album format (published by French publishing powerhouse Dupuis<\/strong>) that we’re all so familiar with in Un chariot dans l’Ouest<\/em> (‘A Wagon in the West<\/em>‘ 1972).<\/p>\n

Salv\u00c3\u00a9 was an artist proficient in the Gallic style of big-foot\/big-nose humour cartooning, and when he died suddenly in 1972 his replacement Willy \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Lambil\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Lambillotte gradually leavened the previous broad style with a more realistic – but still comedic – illustrative manner. Lambil is Belgian, born in 1936, and after studying Fine Art, joined Dupuis as a letterer in 1952. In 1959 he created Sandy<\/em> about an Australian teen and a kangaroo, and self parodied it and himself with Hobby and Koala<\/em> and the later Panty et son<\/em> kangaroo <\/em>and the comics industry satire ‘Pauvre Lampil’.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em><\/p>\n

Belgian writer Raoul Cauvin was born in 1938 and after studying Lithography joined Dupuis’ animation department in 1960 before beginning his glittering and prolific writing career. Almost exclusively a humorist and always for Spirou<\/em><\/strong>, as well as Bluecoats<\/strong> he has written at least 22 other long-running and award winning series – more than 240 separate albums. Bluecoats<\/strong> alone has sold more than 15 million copies.<\/p>\n

The protagonists are Sergeant Cornelius Chesterfied and Corporal Blutch, a hopeless double act of buffoons in the manner of Laurel and Hardy, or 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 the second volume Du Nord au Sud<\/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 r\u00c3\u00a9tro’<\/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 eprit-de-corp<\/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

Robertsonville Prison<\/strong>, the first release in the series from that wonderful purveyor of translated European gems Cinebooks, is actually the sixth French volume, and is loosely based on the actual Confederate-run Andersonville Prison compound in Georgia. It finds the irascible, inseparable pair captured after a calamitous battle and interned with many other Union soldiers. However these two aren’t prepared to stay put – albeit for vastly differing reasons – and a series of increasingly bold and bonkers escape ploys eventually result in a crazy if appropriate reversal of fortunes\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

The secret to the unbelievable success of ‘Les Tuniques Bleues’ <\/em>is that it is an anti-war comedy like M.A.S.H.<\/strong> or Catch 22<\/strong> cleverly pitched at a young and less cynical audience. Historically authentic, uncompromising in terms of portrayed violence but always in good taste, the attitudes expressed by our oafish, down-to-earth anti-heroes never make glorious war 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 tellingly worthy, Bluecoats<\/strong> is the kind of battle book that any parent would be happy to let their children read – if they can bear to let go of it themselves\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n