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29-435: Spirou may refer to: In comics [ edit ] Spirou (character) , the eponymous main character of the comics series Spirou et Fantasio and Le Petit Spirou Spirou (magazine) , originally Le Journal de Spirou , Belgian weekly serial comics magazine Spirou (video game) , a video game based on the comics series Spirou et Fantasio , comics series published in

58-473: A comics character is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This Bandes dessinées –related article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Andr%C3%A9 Franquin André Franquin ( French: [fʁɑ̃kɛ̃] ; 3 January 1924 – 5 January 1997) was an influential Belgian comics artist , whose best-known creations are Gaston and Marsupilami . He also produced

87-432: A gag series which included contributions from René Goscinny (of Astérix fame) and Peyo. Franquin later returned to Spirou , but his contractual commitment to Tintin meant that he had to contribute to both magazines, an unusual arrangement in the comic industry. The series was later passed on to authors such as Dino Attanasio and Mittéï (Jean Mariette). In 1957, Spirou chief editor Yvan Delporte gave Franquin

116-403: A poor draftsman". Franquin was a prominent member of the first generation of the “ Marcinelle School ” (École de Marcinelle), also formed by Morris and Will, who would be joined during the 50s by the second generation including, among others, Peyo, Tillieux , and two subsequent generations joining during the 60s and 70-80s. Within this group, Franquin's influence was uncontested, especially among

145-543: A short-lived animation studio in Brussels . It is there he met some of his future colleagues: Maurice de Bevere ( Morris , creator of Lucky Luke ), Pierre Culliford ( Peyo , creator of the Smurfs ), and Eddy Paape . Three of them (minus Peyo) were hired by Dupuis in 1945, following CBA's demise. Peyo, still too young, would only follow them seven years later. Franquin started drawing covers and cartoons for Le Moustique ,

174-463: A time. This happened between 1961 and 1963, in the middle of QRN sur Bretzelburg . During this time, he continued to draw Gaston despite his ill health, most likely because of the lighter nature of the series. (In one story, Bravo Les Brothers , Gaston's antics drive his boss Fantasio to yet another nervous breakdown. In desperation he takes some anti-depressants which "Franquin left behind".) In 1967, Franquin passed Spirou et Fantasio on to

203-600: A weekly magazine about radio and culture. He also worked for Plein Jeu , a monthly scouting magazine. During this time, Morris and Franquin were coached by Joseph Gillain ( Jijé ), who had transformed a section of his house into a workspace for the two young comics artists and Will . Jijé was then producing many of the comics that were published in the Franco-Belgian comics magazine Spirou , including its flagship series Spirou et Fantasio . The team he had assembled at

232-545: A younger artist, Jean-Claude Fournier , and began to work full-time on his own creations. Gaston gradually evolved from pure slapstick humor to feature themes important to Franquin, such as pacifism and environmentalism . Franquin also used its characters in paid ad strips he drew and worked with the strip on and off until his death. The 1960s saw a clear evolution in Franquin's style, which grew more loose and intricate. This graphical evolution would continue throughout

261-586: Is concerned with his tribulations at school and the anatomy of girls. This later series and its star are generally acknowledged to have little in common with the old one. In 2018 a theme park in Monteux , Parc Spirou  [ fr ] , inspired by this character, was opened. Spirou is part of the Comic Book Route and can be found at Place Sainctelette in Brussels. This article about

290-409: Is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Spirou (character) The character was originally created by Robert Velter (Rob-Vel) for the launch of Le journal de Spirou ( Spirou magazine) in 1938. Spirou was originally an elevator operator and bell-boy at the fictional Moustique Hotel. At some point he became a reporter for

319-440: Is much more adult-oriented than Franquin's other works, focusing on themes such as death, war, pollution, and capital punishment with a devastatingly sarcastic sense of humour. From 1978 to 1986, he was part of the team that developed the concept of Isabelle , the adventures of a little girl in a world of witches and monsters. The character was named after Franquin's daughter. Proof of his popular and critical appeal, Franquin

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348-528: The Spirou et Fantasio comic strip from 1946 to 1968, a period seen by many as the series' golden age. Franquin was born in Etterbeek in 1924. Although he started drawing at an early age, Franquin got his first actual drawing lessons at École Saint-Luc in 1943. A year later, however, the school was forced to close down because of the war and Franquin was then hired by Compagnie belge d'actualités (CBA),

377-599: The Spirou supplement, Le Trombone Illustré (with other cartoonists like René Follet ) and later for Fluide Glacial . With Idées Noires , Franquin showed the darker, pessimistic side of his nature. In one strip, a pair of flies are seen wandering through a strange landscape, discussing the mistakes of their predecessors. In the final panel, we see the landscape is a city made from human skulls, and one fly responds: "Don't be too hard on them, they did leave us such splendid cities". Drawn entirely in black and white, Idées Noires

406-525: The eponymous magazine, though he remained dressed in his trademark red uniform. Spirou's design was changed through the years by the various writers and artists who created his adventures but he has kept his spiky red-hair and clothes of the same colour even after ditching his hotel uniform. In contrast to Tintin , Spirou is more frequently shown doing some reporting in several of his adventures. While he and reporter colleague Fantasio occasionally pursue stories, in most cases they simply find themselves in

435-466: The "18th greatest Belgian ever". Franquin's style rests in opposite corners of the aesthetic spectrum from Hergé: If the pictures of Tintin's creator were characterized by the use of ligne claire , flat colors, and certain statics, Franquin's graphic approach progressively evolved towards a multi-color aesthetics, chiaroscuro and a vigorous sense of movement. Hergé expressed on several occasions his admiration for Franquin's work: "Compared to him, I’m but

464-458: The 1950s. Starting in the 1970s, Ibáñez made extensive use of ideas and designs from Franquin's works, adapting them to his own universe, but also importing many graphic and narrative solutions. Even one of his characters, "El Botones Sacarino", can be easily identified as a hybrid of Spirou (he is a bellboy) and Gaston Lagaffe (he works in a publishing company and is the source of never-ending disasters), whom he resembles physically. Franquin's shadow

493-467: The age of 73 from a heart attack . He was previously married to Liliane Servais. In 2004 took place the first major museum retrospective of his work, an exhibit called "Le monde de Franquin"', in Paris' Cité des Sciences et de l'Industrie . This exhibition was continued in 2006 in the city where he was born, Brussels , the latter was fully bilingual (French/Dutch). In 2005, a Walloon survey elected him as

522-411: The authors that continued the series Spirou et Fantasio after he left. Jean-Claude Fournier, Nic Broca , and especially Janry (Jean-Richard Geurts) showed in this series graphic styles that tried to mimic with varying degrees of success the features of Franquin's style. Other Franco-Belgian authors that show Franquin's influence were Dino Attanasio and Mittéï ( Jean Mariette ), both responsible for

551-403: The busy tramway conductors Franquin and his colleagues often encountered on their way to work. This animal has become part of Belgian and French popular culture and has spawned cartoons, merchandise, and since 1989 a comic book series of its own. The cartoons have broadened their appeal to English-speaking countries. By 1951, Franquin had found his style. His strip, that appeared every week on

580-467: The centre of adventures. An honest and brave young man of indeterminate age, he tries to fight injustice around him and help people. He is usually more level-headed than Fantasio, who always accompanies him, along with the pet squirrel Spip , and during the period of Franquin authorship, the Marsupilami . A six-year-old version of Spirou is the star of the spin-off series Le Petit Spirou , which

609-559: The end of the war is often referred to as La bande des quatre (lit. "The Gang of Four"), and the graphical style they would develop together was later called the Marcinelle school , Marcinelle being an outskirt of the industrial city of Charleroi south of Brussels where Spirou's publisher Dupuis was then situated. Jijé passed the Spirou et Fantasio strip to Franquin, five pages into the making of Spirou et la maison préfabriquée , and from Spirou issue #427 released 20 June 1946,

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638-416: The first page of Spirou , was a hit. Following Jijé's lead in the 1940s, Franquin coached a younger generation of comics artists in the 1950s, notably Jean Roba and Jidéhem , who both worked with him on Spirou et Fantasio . In 1955, following a contractual dispute with his publisher Dupuis, Franquin went for a short stint at rival Tintin magazine. This led to the creation of Modeste et Pompon ,

667-517: The idea for a new figure, Gaston Lagaffe (from the French la gaffe , meaning "the blunder"). Initially, a joke designed to fill up blank space in the magazine, the weekly strip, detailing the mishaps and madcap ideas and inventions of a terminally idle office boy working at the Spirou offices, took off and became one of Franquin's best-known creations. However, Franquin soon suffered a period of depression , which forced him to stop drawing Spirou for

696-587: The next decade. Soon, Franquin was considered an undisputed master of the art form, on par with the likes of Hergé and his influence can be seen in the work of nearly every cartoonist hired by Spirou up until the end of the 1990s. Early comic fanzines from around 1970 featured Franquin's Monsters , individual drawings of imaginary beasts highlighting his graphical craftmanship. The last, and most radical, shift in Franquin's production happened in 1977, when he went through another nervous breakdown and began his Idées Noires strip (lit. "Dark Thoughts" ), first for

725-408: The same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title Spirou . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Spirou&oldid=911076454 " Category : Disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description

754-618: The serial journal and in hardcover book format Spirou et Fantasio (comic book) , a 1948 comic book that precedes the official Spirou et Fantasio series Spirou et Fantasio (1993 TV series) , 1993 animated series Spirou et Fantasio (2006 TV series) , 2006 animated series Other [ edit ] Spirou Charleroi , Belgian professional basketball club Spiroudome , indoor arena in Charleroi, Belgium See also [ edit ] Spira (disambiguation) Spiro (disambiguation) Spiro (name) Topics referred to by

783-480: The series Modeste et Pompon after he left, Jidéhem (Jean De Mesmaeker), a usual collaborator of Franquin for Spirou et Fantasio and Gaston Lagaffe, Batem (Luc Collin), artist of the Marsupilami series, or Pierre Seron , who cloned Franquin's style in his series Les Petits Hommes . A most remarkable case is Franquin's influence on Francisco Ibáñez , possibly the most widely published Spanish author since

812-409: The young Franquin held creative responsibility of the series. For the next twenty years, Franquin largely reinvented the strip, creating longer, more elaborate storylines and a large gallery of burlesque characters. Most notable among these is the Marsupilami , a fictional monkey-like creature. The inspiration for the Marsupilami's extremely long, prehensile tail came from imagining an appendage for

841-510: Was awarded the very first Grand Prix de la ville d'Angoulême in 1974. Many books by Franquin have been published, many of which are considered classics of the genre. They have been translated into many languages. Several books have been written about Franquin , such as Numa Sadoul 's Et Franquin créa la gaffe , an exhaustive interview with the artist covering his entire career. Franquin died in 1997 in Saint-Laurent-du-Var at

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