'Little Spirou' gets animated.

Animation software producer Toon Boom has announced that LuxAnimation is creating a new animated TV-series based on 'Le Petit Spirou', the popular Belgian comic book series by Tome (Philippe vandevelde) and Janry (Jean-Richard Geurts).78 Episodes will be produced of 7 minutes length each, using the Toon Boom Harmony pipeline. The French TV channel M6 and RTBF, the public broadcasting organisation of French Belgium, will be the first to air the show in the spring of 2012.

'Le Petit Spirou', or 'Little Spirou' is a comic books series with short stories about the trials and tribulations of childhood, featuring a young adolescent Spirou, a tongue-in-cheeck spin-off of the original adventurous Spirou stories, started by Tome & Janry with a volume of shorter Spirou stories collected in 'La Jeunesse de Spirou' (Spirou's Youth'), the 38th book in the series published in 1987 by Dupuis. Nineteen books have been published so far, including four 'Little Spirou presents' comic books. While Tome and Janry have stopped creating stories for the original series in 1998 after fourteen books, they continued creating 'Little Spirou' short stories.

Above: two covers of the comic books. 'C'est pas de ton age' (That's not something for your age!) and 'Tiens-toi droit' (stand up straight!) published in 2000 and 2010.

For the animated series, LuxAnimation (based in Doncols, Luxembourg) works together with HLC in Paris and Dreamwall in Marcinelle. The series is produced by Léon Perahia (Dupuis) and Eric Anselin (LuxAnimation) and directed by Virginie Jallot. Although the studio has only been founded as early as 2002 by Lilian Eche and Ariane Payen, their list of animation productions is very impressive, including 'Iron Man, The Animated Series' (2007), 'RobotBoy' (2005) and the CGI animated theatrical features 'Dragon Chasers' (2008), Tim Burton's '9' (2009) and 'Luke and Lucy: The Texas Rangers'(2009), based on the longrunning popular Belgian comic book series 'Suske & Wiske' by Willy Vandersteen and his studio.

Above: The creative team at LuxAnimation. In 2006 the company was acquired by the MoonScoop Group, the French company that also owns Mike Young Productions in L.A. ('Voltron: the third dimension', 'He-Man and the Masters of the Universe', 'Bratz' and 'Clifford, the big red dog').

Above: Animation on '9' started with LuxAnimation and Attitude Studio in Luxembourg and ended with Arc Productions (then known as 'Starz Animation') in Toronto, Canada. It was produced by Tim Burton and Russian director Timur Bekmambetov. Directed by Shane Acker, it is based on his animated short by the same name, a student project at the UCLA Animation Workshop which was nominated for an Academy Award in 2005. Bekmambetov himself became very succesful in 2008 when he turned the Top Cow comic book 'Wanted' (written by Mark Millar's with art by J.G. Jones) into a hit action movie starring Angelina Jolie and James McAvoy.

Spirou: past and present.

In 1984, French publisher Dupuis chose Tome & Janry to succeed the team of Nic Broca and Raoul Cauvin, who had created three books in the Spirou comic book series. Popularised by Belgian authors Jijé (Joseph Gillain) and André Franquin between 1943 and 1968, the original character was conceived in 1938 by Rob-vel (Robert Velter) for Dupuis' famous comic magazine 'Spirou' (Which is still published today). Velter himself had worked operating the elevator at the London Ritz Charlton as a young man and thus created his character working as a bellhop too. Up to today, Spirou remains dressed that way throughout the series. When Jijé started working on the series in 1943, after Dupuis had aqcuired the rights, he added the character Fantasio, Spirou's best friend and fellow adventurer. Another important character, the Marsupilami, was introduced after Jijé handed the series to André Franquin, who was then his assistent.

Above: cover for the first comic book published in 1950 and the fourth book, which introduced Franquin's longtailed yellow Marsupilami in 1952 (right).

Franquin, who like Tintin creator Hergé has a god-like status in Europe, created a total of 20 books in the series, cooperating on several titles with fellow artists Will (Willy Maltaite), Greg (Michel Regnier) and Jidéhim, Jean Roba, Gos and smurfs creator Peyo (Pierre Culliford).
Jean-Claude Fournier took the series upon him after Franquin retired and created nine more books between 1970 and 1980. After Tome & Janry, the comic was again created by several other creators, including the teams of Morvan & Munuera and Yoann & Vehlman. Below: All three covers of 'La Face cachée Du Z' ('The shadow side of Z'), the 51st and lastest book by Yoann and Vehlmann, released on October 21.