Hergé

André Franquin: a Centenary in Ten Images

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« 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)

Building a Simpler Tintin: Meet Martin le Malin

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Cards on the table time: I never did much like Tintin. While there’s no denying the technical virtuosity and high imagination on display in Hergé’s work*, as a child, his overly-meticulous line and storytelling struck me as flat, sterile and remote. I thought I was just about alone in this view.

There was a Tintin-esque series I did delight in, and that was Martin le Malin, a translation of the Dutch « De Avonturen van Pinkie Pienter ». While much derided and nearly forgotten today, Pinkie remains, in my view, a misunderstood and under-appreciated work.

I was to learn, decades later, that the series was in fact created in response to the very aspects of Tintin that left me cold. In 1951, Dutch painter J.H. Koeleman (born October 30, 1926), while visiting his brother, learned from his young nephews that they were somewhat frustrated with and repelled by Tintin, finding the stories too complicated and the artwork too fastidious. From this incident, Uncle J.H. hit upon the idea of creating a series using a deliberately naïve and relatively primitive style, something closer in tone and essence to what a talented and imaginative child would craft for himself.

Koeleman produced and self-published a pair of albums, which were met with critical praise but disappointing sales. However, in early 1953, established publisher Mulder & Zoon came knocking and offered the man a deal: they would, using the greater resources at their disposal, republish and distribute his early efforts. The joint venture worked splendidly… at least for a time. In total, Koeleman wrote and drew twelve Pinkie Pienter albums between 1953 and 1958. These were also published in softcover 16-page colour instalments, which is the format I encountered them in. In my youth, they were everywhere: (long gone) supermarkets, department stores… and at 39 cents apiece, they offered a fine deal.

However, during Expo 58 (aka the Brussels World’s Fair), long-simmering tensions came to a head between the author and his publisher. Koeleman walked out, and the less said about his successors, the better. For it is in the later Martin le Malin albums that we can plainly witness the difference between intentional simplicity and economy… and sheer incompetence.

Today, I’ll focus on my favourite saga, « Les Martiens atterrissent » (Number 6 in the series, and serialized in « La soucoupe volante », « D’étranges visiteurs de l’espace » and « L’attaque des Martiens »).

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In the actual story, Martin’s bumbling sidekick, Floris Fidel (Floris Fiedel in the original) has been shrunk by Martian leader Plasticos (isn’t he just adorable?), but on the cover, while their size ratio remains constant, it’s Plastico who’s grown gigantic.

 

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You go to bed quietly, and the next thing you know, Martians are trampling your hedgerows and peeking in your window. Next time, draw the curtains. Love the way the cat runs for it in panel 5.

 

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Martin finds that piloting unfamiliar spacecraft is not something you pick up on the fly.

 

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Having captured Martian Aluminicus’ spacesuit, Martin tries, and fails, to infiltrate the invaders’ ranks.

 

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Oops. Another one of Floris’ screwups lands Martin in hot water.

I only learned today, while researching this post, that Pinkie/Martin was also published in English! Is anyone familiar with this edition?

RonnyRoberts
The copies I’ve seen for sale are listed in far-flung Australia. Curiouser and curiouser…

 

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The Martin cameo, as it appeared on the back of the first edition albums.
And here’s a custom-made Plastico (with Florisse in tow) needle-felted by WOT’s own multitalented ds.

*I am, however, quite fond of Hergé’s early series (that he considered minor works) « Les exploits de Quick et Flupke » (1930-40) and « Les aventures de Jo, Zette et Jocko » (1936-40).

-RG