« The first hundred years are the hardest. » — Wilson Mizner
Having just learned this morning that today marks a century since the birth of André Franquin (1924-1997), I again pushed my planned post to the back burner. So, instead of writing about a celebrated Belgian genius, I’ll write about *another* celebrated Belgian genius.
Spirou’s ‘Albums’ were a handy way to dispose of unsold copies of the weekly magazine by collecting a trimester’s worth of issues in an attractive hardcover format. This one’s from March 1948, just to give you an idea of Franquin’s early style.A panel from Le dictateur et le champignon (1953). The ripe banana-coloured critter with the long tail, if you don’t already know, is Le marsupilami, Franquin’s homage to Elzie Segar‘s Eugene the Jeep (introduced in 1935 and known as ‘Pilou-Pilou’ in French Europe).This panel took my breath away as a kid when I first saw it, and it still does. It’s from Spirou et Fantasio no. 8, La mauvaise tête (1954). How many contemporary artists could pull off such a scene — let alone the entire sequence, wherein Fantasio ends up winning the race cycling backwards — at all convincingly? I’ve been reading, for the first time, Franquin’s collected Modeste et Pompon (1955-59). After Franquin was tricked into surrendering his creation to Tintin magazine publisher Les Éditions du Lombard, M&P became just another long-running mediocre domestic strip in many successive pairs of (necessarily) lesser hands… but seeing Franquin bring it to life is a most refreshing pleasure.A dynamic Modeste et Pompon sample from near the end of Franquin’s run. During Franquin’s relatively brief passage at Tintin magazine, he set a new standard of graphic freedom, opening a breach for his successors that Georges “Hergé” Rémi himself did *not* welcome. Tintin’s papa, in fact, deemed Franquin’s supple and organic line ‘vulgar’. Album Spirou no. 70 (March 1959, Dupuis), gathering issues 1081 to 1091 and depicting a scene from Le Prisonnier du Bouddha.Album Spirou no. 96 (April 1965, Dupuis), collecting issues 1395 to 1407. Gaston Lagaffe*, like Le Marsupilami before him, was a minor character introduced by Franquin to relieve the tedium of setting down the adventures of Spirou et Fantasio. The popularity of both these would-be background creations wound up dwarfing that of the intended protagonists. Franquin’s original painted artwork for the cover of Album Spirou no. 100 — well, duh — (March 1966, Dupuis), containing issues 1447 to 1459.
In 1977, a depressed yet inspired Franquin, suffocating within the confines of his much-imitated (at his publisher’s clueless insistence) style, created — with kindred confederate Yvan Delporte — Idées noires (Black, or perhaps more fittingly Bleak notions) as an outlet. It first appeared in the short-lived* Spirou mag supplement Trombone illustré, then moved to the more welcoming pages of Fluide glacial. An English-language edition, entitled Die Laughing, was published by Fantagraphics in 2018. Check it out here.
Here are a couple of Idées noires punchlines, which should give you an idea of their tone.
Marcel Gotlib wittily hijacked/paraphrased Sacha Guitry‘s bon mot about Beethoven : « After reading a page of Idées noires by Franquin, we close our eyes, and the darkness that ensues is still Franquin’s. »In countless instances, Franquin even used his signature to expressive comic effect.
-RG
*These days, thinking about Gaston Lagaffe puts me in an ugly mood, I’m afraid. Franquin had expressly, and all along, requested that his creation be put to rest with him. But did his publisher – having built an empire upon Franquin’s creations — honour his wishes? No more than usual. Another arrogant slap — post-mortem this time — in the face of a genius exploited and mistreated his entire adult life. In this world, the interest of the characters… oops, pardon my French, ‘properties’ obviously trumps that of the flesh-and-blood creators. Every time. For there’s always some scab hack or other backstabber (and they *always* claim to be huuuge fans, as Miller said to Eisner, betraying him with a kiss) to aid and abet venal publishers. That’s how we got a pointless Sugar and Spike revival and all those Watchmen prequels. Hopefully, Monsieur Franquin’s daughter will prevail in her lawsuit against Dupuis to settle the matter in a just and fitting manner. [ Update: it didn’t end well. The suits won. ]
**« It is upon the publication of a Franquin article that the supplement is cancelled. In his piece, the fervently antimilitarist Franquin takes to task Thierry Martens, Spirou’s then editor-in-chief, for running articles about Nazi war plane models. » (translated quote from L’histoire de la bande dessinée pour les débutants by Frédéric Duprat, p. 131, Jan. 2011)
Drawing bikes is really, really difficult to begin with, but Franquin does mind-boggling things in that sequence. He’s stated that he was a realist at heart, but he was always pushed to draw goofy things. But really, he was the complete package.
And the Miller-Eisner thing is just me saying, in a convoluted way, that Miller’s ‘The Spirit’ is not something one does to a presumed friend. But it is a perfect example of claiming to be a huge fan and demonstrating zero understanding of the œuvre in question.
I would have ignored artwork like Franquin’s back in my collecting heyday but would love to sit down with a few dozen albums today—especially if they were translated into English.
Hi Neal! You wrote: “I would have ignored artwork like Franquin’s back in my collecting heyday”
I got really sick of the whole style (as did Franquin — long before!) because his publisher systematically gave their own series to every one of Franquin’s assistants (including Smurfs creator Peyo) — and of course encouraged them to make it as close to the prototype as possible, which inevitably unleashed a glut of stale, derivative mediocrity. But when you go back and dig up the original model, it’s still fresh as a daisy. A pox on house styles and copycats, be they based on Franquin, Kirby, Adams or Frazetta.
There have been some English translations of Franquin, but it’s pretty patchy, as his work caught on pretty much all over the world save the USA. For the best of the genre (for my money), however, I recommend Fantagraphics’ loving collections of Maurice Tillieux’s Gil Jourdan albums, which I wrote about here: https://whosoutthere.ca/2018/10/24/halloween-countdown-ii-day-25/
Who's Out There? 
Yes, that cycling panel’s fantastic.
I should probably know this, but can you explain the reference to Miller (presumably Frank) and Eisner?
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Hi Caspar!
Drawing bikes is really, really difficult to begin with, but Franquin does mind-boggling things in that sequence. He’s stated that he was a realist at heart, but he was always pushed to draw goofy things. But really, he was the complete package.
And the Miller-Eisner thing is just me saying, in a convoluted way, that Miller’s ‘The Spirit’ is not something one does to a presumed friend. But it is a perfect example of claiming to be a huge fan and demonstrating zero understanding of the œuvre in question.
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I would have ignored artwork like Franquin’s back in my collecting heyday but would love to sit down with a few dozen albums today—especially if they were translated into English.
Thanks for the introduction!
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Hi Neal! You wrote: “I would have ignored artwork like Franquin’s back in my collecting heyday”
I got really sick of the whole style (as did Franquin — long before!) because his publisher systematically gave their own series to every one of Franquin’s assistants (including Smurfs creator Peyo) — and of course encouraged them to make it as close to the prototype as possible, which inevitably unleashed a glut of stale, derivative mediocrity. But when you go back and dig up the original model, it’s still fresh as a daisy. A pox on house styles and copycats, be they based on Franquin, Kirby, Adams or Frazetta.
There have been some English translations of Franquin, but it’s pretty patchy, as his work caught on pretty much all over the world save the USA. For the best of the genre (for my money), however, I recommend Fantagraphics’ loving collections of Maurice Tillieux’s Gil Jourdan albums, which I wrote about here: https://whosoutthere.ca/2018/10/24/halloween-countdown-ii-day-25/
As for the introduction, you’re most welcome!
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