Classic European comics

[Dizzy D]

I was going to continue my piece on Franka, but real life and so intervened.

In the beginning of this year, Tibet passed away, so instead of continuing Franka (though I do want to write a bit about that series at one point or another again), I do a bit on one of his series. Tibet was the writer/artist of Chick Bill, a series I enjoyed a lot over the years, though it had its' ups and downs.

Tibet was born as Gilbert Gascard in France in 1931, but moved to Belgium, where he lived for most of his life. Most of his work appeared in TinTin Magazine and Herge's style is a clear influence on him (moreso on Chick Bill than on Ric Hochet, his other series, where he went for a slightly more realistic style. My experience with Ric Hochet is close to nill though, so I don't have a lot to tell about that.) Look at the pictures below to see the way his art changed over the year.

Tibet's first issue of Chick Bill was published in 1954, the last issue (#70) in 2010. From issue 11 onwards, writing was usually handled by Greg (I mentioned him in the bit on Spirou, right?) or André-Paul Duchâteau, though Tibet still wrote an issue himself from time to time and Goscinny wrote a single issue.

OK, enough stats, time for some pictures and story:

In the first issue, Chick Bill Contre Invisible, all the characters are drawn as animal. Chick Bill, the titular hero is represented as a chipmunk, while the rest of the main cast all were different animals: young Native American Little Poodle (take a guess), sheriff Dog Bull (take another guess) and his deputy Kid Ordinn (a pig)


The title basically sums up the plot: the story is a lighthearted "battle" between the young, but heroic Chick Bill and an invisible criminal. The animals and fantastic elements like invisibility would be quickly forgotten, the characters became human (no plot wasted on that change thankfully), Chick Bill became a bit older, now clearly an adult, and the story became more serious (though it still is a LOT closer to Lucky Luke than Blueberry):



From issue 11 onwards Greg would take over the writing on most issues and it would move back towards comedy (though not always) and the focus of the series moved from Chick Bill to the relationship between Dog Bull and Kid Ordinn. (The backup stories were even clearly labelled as stories starring Kid Ordinn).

As a character Chick Bill was not that interesting: he is a amazing marksman, he's honest, loyal, brave etc. So basically your standard hero. Little Poodle, portrayed as still a kid, but also basically perfect, was also not that interesting as a hero. So the duo of Chick Bill and Little Poodle bascially became the straight guys in the stories.

Dog Bull, sheriff of Wood City (a small town in Arizona), has a whole string of bad character habits: he's domineering, greedy, occassionally jealous, often a bully, always has a temper and is not above manipulating others to further his own glory. The one thing that keeps him from being an actual villain is a sentence in the short character descriptions at the begin of most of the stories: Chick Bill has "brave and honest", Little Poodle "alert and cunning", Kid Ordinn has "incredibly gluttonous", but Dog Bull has a simple, but short line that sums up the character perfectly: "ignorant rather than evil". These bad traits are toned down considerably when the story is more serious by the way.



Kid Ordinn is a perfect counterpart to him: infantile, lazy, not very clever and as said, very gluttonous. Also completely loyal to the sheriff who is the closest thing to a father he has (and in turn Dog Bull from time to time shows that he cares deeply for Kid, who he is like a son to him). There are several stories that hint at hidden depths though, probably the best among them is Montana Kid (no relation to the Charlton Comic of the same name), though at least that time there was an obvious cause for his very different behaviour: brain damage.

The rest of the recurring characters are the people of Wood City, where most stories are set. There is a short period where the main cast moves to a small town in Montana though (Dog Bull asks for a transfer when Wood City is hit by an extreme heatwave). These issues are probably my favourite in the whole series; Dog Bull is less a charicature and Chick Bill has a bit more to do in the actual plot.



Around issue 55 or so, Tibet returns as a writer (perhaps something to do with Greg's health at that time, but I'm not sure). I don't think these final stories are very good (a few try to tackle some serious subjects like racism and it's not really working).

[Fesch_]

Nice piece on Chick Bill. I have never read this series, but I'm familiar with Tibet thanks to Ric Hochet (I've read every single album of the series, and his work is always consistently good and effective), and was sad to see that his death didn't have much impact in the blogosphere.

[Roquefort Raider]

Good piece on Chick Bill, DizzyD!

Tibet was a real trooper at Tintin... he'd turn in his Chick Bill and his Ric Hochet pages very regularly, and they'd always look good. I suspect he must have had admirable work ethics. He must have been quite a friendly chap too, since his collaborators Greg and Duchâteau had partnerships with him for decades!

I agree with you Fesch : it's a pity that Tibet's passing didn't elicit more of a response... (Jacques Martin's didn't either)... Maybe these guys were there for so long that they were taken for granted.

In any case, thanks for reminding us of the man's great talent!

[Dizzy D]

Good piece on Chick Bill, DizzyD!

Tibet was a real trooper at Tintin... he'd turn in his Chick Bill and his Ric Hochet pages very regularly, and they'd always look good. I suspect he must have had admirable work ethics. He must have been quite a friendly chap too, since his collaborators Greg and Duchâteau had partnerships with him for decades!

Greg himself must have been a great guy to work with as well: he worked for a long time with the likes of Herge (he wrote the plot for the Tin Tin animated movie), Franquin, Morris and many, many others.

Anyway, I have a bit of time again (or more, I have an exam tomorrow and I'm tired of studying, so procastination fuels me again.

Still have Franka to finish. Also wanted to do a bit on Valerian, seeing how that series has come to an end after 40 years. I also saw that Gilles de Geus, a fun dutch comic, had an english translation not that long ago under the name of Bryant the Brigand (will get a few of those to send away overseas) so a bit on Peter de Wit and Hanco Kolk would have been nice.

None of them for today, I'm going with mr. Willy Vandersteen (yeah, like that won't take me like a dozen posts to just scratch the surface of his work).

Willy Vandersteen (1913-1990) is BIG in Belgium and the Netherlands (not as big in other countries, but still enough to sell about 200 million comics in a few dozen countries). He and Marc Sleen are the godfathers of the Flemish comic book, there is a public statue of him in Antwerpen and there are streets named after him. In the Netherlands, his popularity (arguably) may only be rivalled by Herge, Morris, Goscinny&Uderzo and Marten Toonder.

His most famous work is Suske & Wiske (for the english-speaking audience, they might be more familiar with them under the names Willy and Wanda or Spike and Suzy or Bob and Bobette or even Luke and Lucy.) Anyway, the series started in 1946 and is still continuing to this day, though Vandersteen himself handed the series over to his own studio in the mid 70s, and I quit the series a good couple of years later, because the quality of the issues was not nearly as good I'm hoping to also mention a bit of Vandersteen's other work (de Rode Ridder (the Red Knight), Robert&Bertrand, De Geuzen etc.).

Suske & Wiske has been published non-stop in dutch and flemish newspapers for the last 60 years or so. Every day a few panels appear and once the story is finished, they would be collected (though the focus is always on the collection, unlike some newspaper comics that try to have a cliffhanger or punchline every few panels or so.). For the first 67 issues, the collections would be in 3 colours (pages alternating between red&white and blue&white), from issue 67 onwards the issues would be in full colour. All the previous issues were coloured and republished, in a rather random order (so issue #1 was coloured and republished as issue #68, #2 as #87, #3 as #107, #4 as #105 ... wait.. what? Well it only gets worse from there and storywise #3 (which introduces the charcter of Lambik) predates #2 (which has Lambik meeting his brother Arthur) and my head starts to hurt now. Luckily most of the stories are completely standalone, so it never is much of an issue.

(And a short disclaimer: several of the characters' names were a bit different in the original flemish version. I'm using the later, dutch names for all characters).

The first story focuses on Wiske (short for Louise, a young girl) and her big brother Rikki (in the original story, Rikki was named Suske, but the editor changed the character's name), both living with their aunt Sidonia. Rikki is a talented, young boxer who discovers that their neighbour, the inventor Wargaren, is being spied upon. Using his career as a boxing champion as a cover to retrieve the plans for a rocket-powered tank, which were stolen from Warhagen.

In the next issue, Rikki is gone, never to be seen again (though researching this bit, I found out that he did reappear in a later issue (#254). I quit Suske & Wiske some time after the series was fully produced by Studio Vandersteen without input from Willy Vandersteen himself, as it lacked the charm and craftmanship of the issues that were created by Vandersteen himself). Wiske and Sidonia meet the inventor Professor Barabas (nearly the same character as Wargaren, another replaced character), who takes them to the island of Amoras. Amoras' technology is still in its late medieval stages. Wiske meets the boy Suske (short for Francis) here (if you only read later stories, you'd never have guessed that Suske was from a medieval society, as he was completely adapted to the 20th century in the next story) and he is basically adopted by Sidonia and goes back with them to Belgium. Suske and Wiske are of the same age, so the relationship between the two of them is more equal. The two of them would also age a bit later on, going from children to teenagers, which allowed a bit of romantic interest between them.

In the album, het Sprietatoom, the private investigator Lambiek is introduced (the P.I. part ignored for the rest series) and in "The Dolle Musketiers", the superhumanly strong caveman Jerom is added, rounding out the main cast of the series. (At least the main series, on Herge's request a few albums were made for Tintin magazine, where Vandersteen changed his style. These stories had only Lambiek, Suske en Wiske as main characters. More about that later).

Anyway it's getting late, so I hope to continue this tomorrow, focusing a bit more on the characters themselves and the changes in artstyle over the years. This time with some pictures included.

[Ivan Isaacs]

(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).

The story was created between 1958 and 1960 but not for "Spirou" but for "Le Parisien Libéré". It was reprinted as an anniversary (25 years of Franquin drawing comic books) in 1971 shortly after Fournier wrapped up one if his stories.

And BTW: How about doing a feature about Jan, Jans en de Kinderen by Jan Kruis? It had only a brief run in Germany (all of 3 volumes. YAY!) and I'd like to read more about it. :)

Than Auclair work on Simon du Fleuve is grand slam, out of the park material. What exquisite rendering. Thanks for the continuing work at sharing these gems!

Yes, Claude Auclair was a phenomenal artist. I highly recommend his "Bran Ruz" :
http://www.zozolala.com/Top100_BranRuz_ENG.html

[Dizzy D]

The story was created between 1958 and 1960 but not for "Spirou" but for "Le Parisien Libéré". It was reprinted as an anniversary (25 years of Franquin drawing comic books) in 1971 shortly after Fournier wrapped up one if his stories.

And BTW: How about doing a feature about Jan, Jans en de Kinderen by Jan Kruis? It had only a brief run in Germany (all of 3 volumes. YAY!) and I'd like to read more about it. :)

Never been that big of a fan, though his shorts on the Big, Red Cat are great (I don't know how they described him in Germany, but in dutch, he always refers to himself as a You-Know-Tomcat.)

[Dizzy D]

For those still following this thread and interested in Spirou (RR?), I've had a chance to read the (translated) versions of the latest Spirou:

The main series new creative team is Fabien Vehlmann on writing and Yoann Chivard on art (why did American comics always list the writer first and artist second and European comics list artist first and writer second?). They give it a good shot for their first issue. Not on the leven of Franquin or Tome and Janry, but I enjoyed it more than most of the other attempts. Events from the last run are luckily mostly ignored.




The side-series has an adventure by Lewis Trondheim and Fabrice Parme. And I really, really enjoyed this issue. It has the style of those 60s comedies with Peter Sellers and it works for me.

[Roquefort Raider]

Events from the last run are luckily mostly ignored.

Thank God!!!

Since Spirou isn't all that continuity-bound, the last book's reboot was unhelpful, confusing and darn plain silly!

The new direction from "Machine qui rêve" was much better, even though it, too, was promptly discarded.

[cliffhanger]

AZRACH! I find european comics to have more of a fine arts sensibility than american comics maybe european comic artists have more classical training.

[Aaron Kashtan]

AZRACH! I find european comics to have more of a fine arts sensibility than american comics maybe european comic artists have more classical training.

Bart Beaty makes a similar argument in his book Unpopular Culture.

[Roquefort Raider]

Bart Beaty makes a similar argument in his book Unpopular Culture.

It's an appealing hypothesis, but I believe it's more of a general relation to classical culture than formal training per se. Europeans, more than North Americans, have always enjoyed a close link to great works of western art (if for no other reason than most of it was produced over there, is often studied in school, and can be seen in countless museums. That means that even a burgeoning comic-book artist who's had no classical training has still been exposed to old masters for a very long time.

Strangely enough, some of the greatest European comic-book artists have had very little formal training... and many of them were even inspired by American artists. Uderzo, the genius behind the art of Astérix, Tanguy & Laverdure and many others, was essentially self-taught and was at first greatly influenced by Walt Disney. The same held true for Morris, of Lucky Luke fame. Jean (Moebius) Giraud had barely two years of technical training before starting as an assistant to Joseph Gillain.

Today, of course, there is much cross-pollination between both sides of the Atlantic, as well as a heavy Japanese influence. European comics have a stronger tradition of more "artsy" comics, meaning that there is more of a market for experimentation, and so artists there don't have to follow a certain commercial style as much as they do here.

The one thing that had me worried at one time was that many modern comic-book artists learned their art strictly from comic-books; such inbreeding should spell nothing but trouble. However, I'm pleasantly surprised to see that artists remain artists no matter where they first caught the comics bug; many transcend their early influences.

[inferno]

Sadly, I've seen more Alix books in latin than in English.

That sounds awesome! Where can one find Latin comics?

[Roquefort Raider]

That sounds awesome! Where can one find Latin comics?

Here's one, and I believe I've seen some in Greek too.

[Fesch_]

The side-series has an adventure by Lewis Trondheim and Fabrice Parme. And I really, really enjoyed this issue. It has the style of those 60s comedies with Peter Sellers and it works for me.

A wonderful album! Actually, I enjoy much more the Une aventure de Spirou et Fantasio par... albums than the recent regular series. Journal d'un ingénu, for instance, was among the most delightful albums I've read in the past couple of years (though I admit I love anything signed by Bravo, possibly one of the very best creators currently making comics for children and teenagers: a rarity in these times of mostly adult readers).

[Mladen]

Figured you folks might be able to help, I'm looking for a copy of Astérix et ses Amis - Hommage à Albert Uderzo, the tribute album that came out in 2007. I don't expect to ever see an English translation, so if anybody could point me to somewhere I could buy a french edition (or croatian edition will do), or an online scanlation, I would very much appreciate it?

ps, i should point out that I live in Australia, so competitive shipping is an issue :D