Classic European comics

[Jonathan Bogart]

I'm not sure, but I believe Pratt and Manara's Indian Summer was translated.

Oh, sure, anything by Manara gets issued here, or did before the internet started killing off print porn.

[Roquefort Raider]

I have to correct you on Goscinny's arrival being the return of humor in the series, Morris by himself already decided that the more serious issues (like Phil Defer and Pat Poker) weren't really doing it for him. By himself he introduced the Dalton Cousins (who by now have become far more famous than the original, more serious Dalton Brothers, who were killed off in their first appearance.) and had several more comical stories. The issue with Judge Roy Bean is one of the funniest in the series and this was before Goscinny started co-writing the series.

I stand corrected, but if Wikipedia isn't all wrong both the "new" Daltons and The Judge are part of the Morris & Goscinny period. (I really thought the "Not wanted" poster for Averell Dalton was a typical Goscinny touch!)

The quality did turn down a bit when Goscinny left and his short return for Daisy Town was a joy to behold (and had one of the best covers ever IMHO) though the series by no means became bad at that point: I enjoyed Lo Hartog van Banda's Fingers, but a few issues later the quality did start to drop rapidly.

Correct me if I'm wrong but I think Daisy Town is the adaptation of the Lucky Luke animated movie of the same title. Goscinny was dead by the time the book was made. (And what a loss that was. The man had years of greatness left in him, I'm sure).

I'm looking forward to your bit about Franquin, probably my favourite writer/artist of all time. And I hope to see some other names in the future. Maybe add some myself?

By all means!!! Anything you wish to share will be appreciated. Franquin deserves to be known by all comics fans, and the more we talk about him the better!

I live pretty close to Belgium, so if you have any specific wishes, you can give me a PM.

You're a good man, Dizzy D. And Sir Tim, the same offer holds for me up here in Canada. You can also browse what Canadian online services offer (which is a lot): on top of the French-poor Amazon.ca, you can try Archambault or Renaud-Bray; I've had good dealings with both.

[Dizzy D]

I stand corrected, but if Wikipedia isn't all wrong both the "new" Daltons and The Judge are part of the Morris & Goscinny period. (I really thought the "Not wanted" poster for Averell Dalton was a typical Goscinny touch!)

I might be wrong there (It is known that Goscinny did cooperate on some of the first books between issues 8 and 18, but his name wasn't listed in the credits until issue 19).

Correct me if I'm wrong but I think Daisy Town is the adaptation of the Lucky Luke animated movie of the same title. Goscinny was dead by the time the book was made. (And what a loss that was. The man had years of greatness left in him, I'm sure).

Both the ballad of the Daltons and Daisy Town were animation first indeed. But Daisy Town was written and directed by Goscinny. Both comic and cartoon were made in 1971, Goscinny died in 1977.

By all means!!! Anything you wish to share will be appreciated. Franquin deserves to be known by all comics fans, and the more we talk about him the better!

I'll see what I can do and find.

[Roquefort Raider]

Both the ballad of the Daltons and Daisy Town were animation first indeed. But Daisy Town was written and directed by Goscinny. Both comic and cartoon were made in 1971, Goscinny died in 1977.

Wasn't Daisy town published in 1983? 1971 would have been during my heavy interest in Lucky Luke, and yet my addled brain has it filed under "post greatness era". (I can't check the indicia on my copy, since... I don't have one! I stopped collecting after Le bandit manchot, using the public library for the rest).

Cheers!

- Ben

[Aaron Kashtan]

I live pretty close to Belgium, so if you have any specific wishes, you can give me a PM.

Thanks for the generous offer. I'll keep it in mind.

And RR, thanks for mentioning those Quebecois websites. Their prices look a lot more reasonable than amazon.ca's.

[Dizzy D]

Roquefort Raider already mentioned this series and its main writer/artist Andre Franquin, so I'll do a bit about it,

Spirou (pictures shamelessley stolen from all over the internet. I have a scanner but no Spirou comics here. Dates and real names shamelessly copied from lambiek.net).

In 1938, Spirou was created by artist Rob Velter (aka Rob-Vel) and his wife Blanche Dumoulin (aka Davine) as a mascot for a magazine for young children, published by the publisher Dupuis (headlined by Charles Dupuis), who would become the owner of the character . Davine took over the series for a short while, when Rob-Vel was mobilized during WWII. Spirou is a young boy, always dressed in the costume of a bellboy.

The magazine Spirou was an anthology series, featuring reprints of American comics like Superman as well as original french stories. Due to the war making import of American comics impossible, at first local writers made continuations of American comics but soon the magazine started to focus on original creations. Between the Spirou magazine and the Tin-Tin magazine, you have almost all famous french-belgian comic artists and writers collected.

I personally haven't read any of the original stories and I know of no reprints that I can get. (A hint for the people working at Dupuis?) So I have little personal insights to share on that front. From what I saw, the stories are mostly short gag-strips and comical stories. Spirou himself is still a boy and the only recurring character is his pet squirrel Spip.


Around 1940, Spirou was handed over to Joseph Gillain (aka Jije), whose work I'm far more familiar with... except for his work on Spirou itself. More work I would really like to see on my shelf (Dupuis? Make it so!). Jije's main contribution to the series was the character of Fantasio, Spirou's best friend, who was a little older and more mature in some stories, so he could act as the straight man. Later on Fantasio would become either straight man or comic relief as the story required, being posh to Spirou's more peasant ways in one story, while enrolled in some scheme to get rich to Spirou's more sober attitude the next.

Jije would become a teacher and mentor to many artists, like the aforementioned Morris, Peyo (creator of the Smurfs), Jean Giraud (aka Moebius) and many more, including Andre Franquin, who took over Spirou in 1946. Jije and many of his students would develop an art-style later known as the school of Marcinelle (named after the place where publisher Dupuis was located) and the primary example of this style would be Franquin's later work on Spirou. This style was opposed to Herge's clear line style, with characters looking more like charicatures with big hands and feet and big noses and ears, but the artstyle also being more dynamic.

Franquin's work on Spirou would become the definiting work for the character; he took over from Jije halfway through a story and if I remember correctly it's somewhere on this page that the two artists switch:



Franquin would continue for a bit with the short, humorous stories but then the stories became longer and more adventerous. His first attempt L'Heritage (The Inheritance, not to be confused with a later issue mentioned below) starts out as an adventure but its ending goes a bit of the rails. Spirou became a little older and more mature and he and Fantasio would soon join the legions of comic book heroes who work as a reporter. In this case, Spirou usually works as a reporter for Spirou Magazine, a bit of fourth-wall breaking that is played rather odd: he is usually portrayed as just another employee for the magazine who just happens to have the exact same name and nobody ever mentions this. He keeps his bellhop-costume though.

I'm not sure when Spip started talking or if he always talked. Like with many talking animals (Jolly Jomper in Lucky Luke for instance), it never is made 100% clear if the human characters can actually understand what their pets are saying or if the pets comments are just translated for the benefit of the reader.

In "Il y a un sorcier à Champignac" ("There is a sorcerer in Champignac.", 1951), we're introduced to many recurring characters, including the village of Champignac itself, which would become the setting of many future stories. The sorcerer in the title is the Count of Champignac. He is, after Spirou, Fantasio and Spip, probably the character to appear the most of all supporting characters in the series. Introduced as somewhat of a mad scientist (but not actually malevolent), he would become more friendly and wise and less mad...



...

well, at least most of the time.

Two other important character would be introduced in Spirou et les Héritiers (1952): Fantasio's evil cousin Zantafio, who would become their main nemesis in the following years and more importantly the Marsupilami. The Marsupilami is an odd case: unlike all other characters Franquin created for Dupuis, he (or rather his heirs) owns the Marsupilami himself and he took it with him when he left Spirou (much later (in the 90s) creating a solo-series starring the creature and ... shudder... a Disney cartoon which had apart from the Marsupilami's appearance little to do with the original). Many fans are still hoping for a reappearance of the Marsupilami within the main Spirou series, but so far no luck.

The Marsupilami is a rare creature, part ape, part marsupial with a tremendously long tail which it can use in various ways. Unlike the talkative Spip, the Marsupilami can't talk (... eh... it can repeat words in a parrot-like way, but apart from body language it has no way to communicate) and it acts as an animal. A rather intelligent animal, which is capable of actually laughing but still: playful and friendly most of the time, but dangerous and frightening when angered. The Marsupilami's odd biology would even become the focus of one issue Le Nid des Marsupilamis (1960), which is told as a parody of a nature documentary, following the path of another Marsupilami and its family (it's this second Marsupilami which would be featured in Franquin's solo-series as far as I understood).



Another important character would be introduced in La corne de rhinocéros (1955) (though not in the main story, but in a second story in this issue): Seccotine, a female reporter who would be a rival to especially Fantasio. Often outsmarting Fantasio when it comes to getting the scope on any story. She is more deceptive than either Fantasio and Spirou, but still remains sympathetic and eventually would develop under some writers into Spirou's main love interest... but that is still far far in the future (I believe 1998 is the first time that they try to couple the two).

Franquin's art-style was also improving as was his storytelling. The stories became longer and more complicated with, for me, as highlight the two-parter Z comme Zorglub and L'Ombre du Z (both 1962). But more about that next post.

Next post: Zorglub, Gaston, Fournier, Nic & Cauvin and perhaps Tome & Janry.

[End of Time]

Robbedoes!

Spirou is AWESOME!

[Jonathan Bogart]

To all that I would add that Z for Zorglub is the only Spirou album which has been translated into English. (Out of print, of course, and rocketing up in value. Glad I snagged one ten years ago!) For English-speakers unfamiliar with the series, think Tintin with more slapstick and a more cartoony, vibrant art style.

Lucky Luke is much easier to find in English, with a good many albums on Amazon for about ten bucks a pop.

(In case it wasn't clear, "album" = "book" in mainstream Eurocomics. They're traditionally 64 pages long, although that's changed some in the last ten to twenty years with the rise of indie and alt Euro publishers.)

[Aaron King]

This is a great thread. I don't really have anything to contribute as far as historical or artistic knowledge goes, but have any of you checked out Cinebook? I only ask because they've been publishing Lucky Luke translations and a whole lot more. I've read volumes of Valerian, Pandora's Box, and Thorgal they've published and really enjoyed the experience. They're nice books, they're reasonably priced, and the prose is good (as far as I can tell; I haven't ever read the originals).

Anyway, you can look at their catalogue at their website: http://www.cinebook.co.uk/.

[Libaax]

Lucky Luke was my biggest childhood hero. I read so much as a kid. Same with Atserix & Obelix. Tintin not as much.


Thanks Roq for mentioning Alix, after Prince Valiant comic like that is very interesting to me.

Many european comics are translated to swedish so hopefully i can try the comics mentioned here. Classic European comics are special to me. Their tone,different types are very different from American ones.

[Aaron Kashtan]

This is a great thread. I don't really have anything to contribute as far as historical or artistic knowledge goes, but have any of you checked out Cinebook? I only ask because they've been publishing Lucky Luke translations and a whole lot more. I've read volumes of Valerian, Pandora's Box, and Thorgal they've published and really enjoyed the experience. They're nice books, they're reasonably priced, and the prose is good (as far as I can tell; I haven't ever read the originals).

Anyway, you can look at their catalogue at their website: http://www.cinebook.co.uk/.

I read one of the Cinebook volumes of Blake and Mortimer, and I don't remember having any problems with the translation. I also have one of their volumes of Thorgal, but I haven't read it yet. They made the odd decision to publish Thorgal not in the original order, but in the order of the series' internal chronology.

Their choices of stuff to translate seem a bit odd; I've never heard of 75% of the series they're publishing.

Has Cinebook really started publishing Valerian already? Google tells me that they've got the rights to it, but that the translations won't start to come out until next year.

[Dizzy D]

I read one of the Cinebook volumes of Blake and Mortimer, and I don't remember having any problems with the translation. I also have one of their volumes of Thorgal, but I haven't read it yet. They made the odd decision to publish Thorgal not in the original order, but in the order of the series' internal chronology.

Their choices of stuff to translate seem a bit odd; I've never heard of 75% of the series they're publishing.

Has Cinebook really started publishing Valerian already? Google tells me that they've got the rights to it, but that the translations won't start to come out until next year.

I don't know all of them, but I know most of them. Will do a few them next.

[Dizzy D]

I left of at Z comme Zorglub and its sequel L'Ombre du Z. It's probably important to give credit where credit is due and note that Franquin had various cowriters on a lot of his later issues. In this case, it was Michel Regnier (aka Greg). This two-parter introduced Zorglub, the megalomanic scientist who employs legions of mind-controlled Zorglubmen. Zorglub is proud, angry with the world who never appreciated his genius and his genius is only matched by his ego, but he is also honorable, (usually) keeping his word and a bit sympathetic; despite all his ego and flaws, he seems to crave respect more than wealth or power. He and the Count of Champignac went to the same college where they were friends, but now they have become rivals (and Zorglub even appeared around the same time as Victor von Doom.) Still he regards the Count as his only equal and values his opinion (though he might downplay the Count's achievements at various times).

What I liked most about Zorglub was, that despite his genius, he reveals near the end of the story, that he only really made one invention: his mind-control ray, which he used to steal all of "his" other inventions. Also the mind-control ray turns out to have many different applications, among of which the ability to rapidly implant knowledge into his victims brains. He uses this to create a new language for his army (though Zatanna would be a natural at this language). At the end of the first story his greatest achievement fails because of his own ego (though the failure is mostly in Zorglub's own eyes). He returns again in the next issue, but this time he's brought down by his own vanity in a way.

Zorglub would return a couple of times, but slightly more humble these times, he would be more of an ally, if not exactly a friend.

Franquin would write several issues following this one, but his interest was turning more to Gaston Lagaffe, a character he had created himself and who appeared a few times in Spirou as well (shared universes are also found in European comics, if more modest in size and scope). Gaston also works at Spirou Magazine (with Fantasio in some stories as his direct superior), but he is mostly slacking off. He also considers himself to be quite the inventor. His inventions mostly cause trouble though and the series is mostly a string of short gags on the mayhem caused by his inventions. Franquin left Spirou to focus on his own work and a replacement was sought out by Dupuis.

In 1969, Jean-Claude Fournier, a frenchman (or rather a Breton and proud of it), was asked to take over the series. Fournier would remain with the series for 10 years as its sole writer and artist, though Franquin would return for 1 issue (Tembo Tabou 1974. It's possible that this was a publication Franquin had written and drawn before though, I can't find any source on this).



Fournier was discovered by Franquin and continued the series in the style of Franquin, but added a few elements (like a small bignosed character who would give readers some short info on things that happened in previous comics or some cultural background) and characters of his own. Recurring characters where Itoh Kata, a Japanese stage magician who would become a close friend of Spirou and Fantasio and the Triangle, a criminal organisation, whose members used numbers as their name and rank (with each appearance the Triangle seemed to have new members though and its threat would range from laughable to world-threatening. Some slight political commentary, already present due heavily subdued in some of Franquin's work, krept into the stories, but always remained in the background. The first hint of romance was introduced as well, with Ororea, another report girl, but it also remained very subdued. It never got any further than this:



Fournier left in 1979 (his last issue published in January 1980) and Dupuis experimented with his replacement: three different creative teams got a shot. I never saw Yves Chaland's result, but from what I've read his main inspiration was Jije's work. I hope to find some form of print of this issue, but usually it remains forgotten.

In 1983 and 1984 Writer Raoul Cauvin and artist Nic Broca (together known as Nic and Cauvin) were given three issues to prove themselves, but also a serious handicap: they were not allowed to use any of the established characters except for Spirou, Fantasio and Spip. Their three stories all deal with three brilliant scientists who try to escape before their inventions are used for evil. Spirou and Fantasio help them and escape but are left with a black box which contains blueprints for all of their inventions. Fantasio, established in Spirou et les Heritiers, as a bit of a thinkerer himself, would try to recreate the inventions, often with disastrous results. A submarine captain and his second-in-command would act as the main villains, agents of the sinister governments who were after the inventions. Their stories were my least favourite so far in this series, but they had some tough acts to follow and were under some severe restrictions (insane editorial commands also not unique to American comics).



The team with the most success would be the team of Philippe Vandevelde and Jean-Richard Geurts (together known as Tome and Janry (at first both of them did both writing and art, but as the series continued Tome would become the writer with Janry as the artist). More about them next post.

Next post: Tome and Janry, Le Petit Spirou, more romance, Machine Qui Reve, Munuera and Morvan and maybe even Une Aventure de Spirou et Fantasio par... depending on how much pictures I have to use and space I need. Probably be worth a fourth post though.

[Dizzy D]

I read one of the Cinebook volumes of Blake and Mortimer, and I don't remember having any problems with the translation. I also have one of their volumes of Thorgal, but I haven't read it yet. They made the odd decision to publish Thorgal not in the original order, but in the order of the series' internal chronology.

Their choices of stuff to translate seem a bit odd; I've never heard of 75% of the series they're publishing.

Has Cinebook really started publishing Valerian already? Google tells me that they've got the rights to it, but that the translations won't start to come out until next year.

I'm not sure, but it looks like all of their stuff are comics published by Dupuis.

*looks a bit closer*.. Seems I was wrong, but the majority of it is. I know about about 75% of it. A lot of it is pretty good. I'll probably do a bit on some of it pretty soon.

[Roquefort Raider]

I took a look at Cinebook... Nice catalog.

Aldebaran... inspired, mature science-fiction. It's a seriously good series, and the characters are as interesting as the the alien setting. The efforts that creator Leo put into imagining the ecology of other worlds in remarkable. What doesn't hurt, too, is that the main character has to be one of the sexiest women in comics, despite her normal proportions and proper attire. (Kind of like Laureline in Valerian, come to think of it. What is it with intelligent SF series and strong female characters?)

The Bellybuttons I have never read, but it is produced by a young couple who live in my own town of Sherbrooke. I'm glad to see their books are being translated!

Buck Danny is basically Steve Canyon. Honest air war stories. Not my cup of tea.

Thorgal is a fantasy series set in viking times; I have rarely seen Vikings done so well. The series itself is a little unequal; some story arcs are brilliant, others feel phoned in. The art remains exceptional throughout, though.

Yoko Tsuno I liked a lot. Creator Leloup has a very crisp and clean line, an oustanding sense of design, and his stories alternate between mysteries here on Earth and adventures in outer space. It's aimed at the 12-17 crowd. Yoko herself is a pretty original character, eschewing stereotypes as early as 1970.

Largo Winch is an action/intrigue series. The title character, who's had as checkered a past as Wolverine's, inherits a financial empire from a father he didn't know. He will then face a series of hostile takeovers, plots to frame him, murder attempts, all resolved in his maverick way. The series is adapted from novels previously published by the writer, so they're plot-intensive (which is a good thing, in this case).