Franquin and 'The Black Hats'.

Several rare sketches by Franquin from 1950, studies which he created for his short western story 'Spirou and the Black Hats' ('Les Chapeaux Noirs'). The story he created after his stay in the US with Morris and Jijé, in which Spirou and Fantasio visit the Wild West. It was serialised in Spirou magazine 617-635 and published in comic book form in 1952, together with two earlier short stories by Jijé and another by Franquin ('Mystère à la frontière', published in Spirou 636-652).

For comparison, I've put some images from the story below (Dutch version). I think at least two of the sketches above were created for the bottom half of page four:

In the story, Spirou and Fantasio are journalists for the magazine 'Le Moustique' (for which Franquin and Morris also worked as cartoonists). They visit Tombstone to write a story about the 'Old West' and get into a gunfight with some severe outlaws, at least that's how it seems at first. Only later they discover the town is actually used as a movie set. The sketches of Spirou from the back, shooting at the outlaws seem to have been made for the bottom half of page eight:

Morris, Goscinny and 'Shane'.

On June 12th 1947, the French comic magazine 'Spirou' published it's first pages of Morris' funny western comic Lucky Luke. The story, titled 'Dick Digger's Goldmine' ('La Mine D'or de Dick Digger') ran from issue 478 to 502. Before that, Dupuis had already published 'Arizona 1880' in their Spirou Almanach 1947, Morris first real western story, that introduced Lucky Luke as a true western hero, complete with a white horse and a white Stetson cowboy hat (published on December 7, 1946).

Readers loved Morris' take on the western genre and his funny drawings, that were clearly still very much inspired by Disney and other American cartoons. His next short stories 'Lucky Luke and his horse Jolly Jumper' ('Lucky Luke et son cheval Jolly Jumper') and 'The Look-Alike of Lucky Luke' ('La sosie de Lucky Luke') were published in issue 503-527 in 1947 and collected in his first hardcover album, published two years later in 1949 (today, the short stories with Jolly Jumper are collected together with Morris' first story in the second book titled 'Arizona').

Working together with Franquin and Jijé, comic artists that made Spirou magazine such a great succes, they traveled overseas to the US in 1948, where they continued to draw their comics for Dupuis. Morris was the only one that stayed until 1955. It wasn' t in Belgium, nor France but in the US that he and René Goscinny met for the first time and talked about him taking over the scriptwriting for Lucky Luke. Goscinny, who would become world famous for his creation of 'Asterix' with Albert Uderzo in 1969, agreed and started writing for Lucky Luke with the story 'Rails on the Prairie' ('Des Rails sur la Prairie'), first published in Spirou magazine on August 25, 1955. It wasn't until their tenth collaboration on 'The Rivals of Painful Gaulch' ('Les Rivaux de Painful Gulch') in 1962 that Goscinny stepped into the light and received credit as the writer. Until then, every book had only mentioned Morris as the author, crediting him 'story and drawings by Morris'.

Below: the cover of the Dutch version of Spirou magazine titled 'Robbedoes' from August 25, 1955. As was the habit in those days, the first page of the most prominent comic that week would fill the cover of the weekly magazine to draw people in. Normally it was Franquin's Spirou, but that week the new Lucky Luke premiered, so the first page of 'Rails on the Prairie', Goscinny's first story, was published on the cover.

Below: Watchful eyes surely have seen Morris' signature in the last image of the page posted above, this time secretly mentioning a certain 'R.G' beside Morris, which of course was René Goscinny. Morris did it on every page of this story, but following stories don't mention Goscinny until his official first credit on 'The Rivals of Painful Gaulch' in 1962.

Below: Cover of the French first edition of 'The Rivals of Painful Gulch', clearly crediting Goscinny (click to enlarge). Right, Morris' signature on the first page of the story, clearly mentioning Goscinny as co-author, as it would be from then on (Dutch version). 

'Phil Wire'

While most of Goscinny's stories for Lucky Luke were comedy driven, the stories that Morris himself wrote before 1955 were all typical westerns, resembling western movies and TV series that were so popular back then in the US.

One of the best examples of this can be found in the the last story Morris did himself, 'Phil Wire' ('Lucky Luke et Phil Defer'), which was the first story not published in Spirou. Instead, it appeared in 'Le Moustique' magazine issues 303 to 337 in 1954 (followed by the short story 'Lucky Luke et Pilule' in issues 338-346). The story, about two saloons in a very small town that compete with each other until one of them hires a gunfighter to end the fued, was taken directly from the succesful western 'Shane'. Produced by Paramount pictures in 1953, it starred Alan Ladd as Shane but most importantly, Jack palance, as the gunfighter who is hired to get rid of some farmers that come into conflict with local livestock owners. Not only did Morris take most of the plot, but also the likeness of the antagonist for his comic book. The movie, based on the 1949 book by Jack Schaefer, received six Oscar nominations, one of which was for Jack Palance. So it was definitely a movie that made a huge impression at that time.

Above: Cover of the Dutch edition of the comic book 'Lucky Luke and Phil Wire' with the scene where Phil enters the town and everybody, even the dogs, make for their escape. In the movie there are several situations where Palance enters a scene and scares the guard dogs away. Below: Jack Palance as the ruthless gunslinger hired to kill all settlers opposite actor Elisha Cook Jr.

In 1967, 'Shane' would again show it's impact on both Morris and Goscinny, as they created the 29th comic book in the series titled 'Barbed wire on the Prairie' ('Des Barbelés sur la prairie'). Like the movie 'Shane', it is about a group of ranchers trying to settle and grow crops, while the livestock owners in the surrounding area need the land to herd and graze their cattle. Just like in the movie, they try to scare off the farmers and trash their land several times. Numerous scenes from the movie made it directly into the book.

Above: cover and some images from 'Barbed wire on the Prairie', showing the cattle people mean business chasing the new settlers away by deliberately destroying their farm land. Below: two scenes from 'Shane' were local wannabe farmers are threatened, their crops trampled by their horses or by the livestock they run over their farm land.

Just like in the movie, the farmers in the comic book don't have any good fences to secure their property. The local saloon, which also serves as hardware store is reluctant to cooperate with them. In the movie, Shane helps the farmers and goes shopping for them, to make sure they get what they need and helps them to build barbed wire fences. In the comic book, it's Lucky Luke who goes to the local shop to make sure the farmers get their 'Barbed wire on the Prairie'.

By the way, later in the movie, Shane (alan Ladd) returns to the store, accompanying the settlers to secure their safety, and visits the saloon while waiting for their supplies. Instead of Whiskey he orders a soda, which is a huge joke to the rest of the cowboys at the bar. Of course it turns into a barfight where Shane gives the gangsters what they deserve. Morris used this as the basis for a second short story in 'Lucky Luke and Phil Wire', about a silly small guy who goes to the saloon and orders water instead of Whiskey. He's ridiculed for it, but then saves the town by accident from a bunch of gangsters and becomes the sheriff.

Above: Three movies based on the western novels by Jack Schaefer. 'Shane' in 1953, and 'Monte Walsh' in 1970. Funny enough, Jack Palance starred in both of them. In 2003, 'Monte Walsh' was remade for TV starring Tom Selleck. All frames from 'Shane' were taken from the recently released Blu-ray from Warner.

'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.

All I want for Christmas is...

 November 13, Artcurial, the auction house that gives you the chance to bid live online on their goodies, is selling another high profile comic art collection and they've got some fine things over there that make your heart go poom-poom.

The comic strips department of Artcurial was launched in 2005 by Francois Tajan and Eric Leroy and their World record still stands with the selling of a small Hergé original ink and Gouache. It’s 32 X 32 cm and yes, it was sold in 2008 for
€ 764.218,- Euro’s. Check it out on the left, now that’s what a million dollars looks like!

ORIGINAL FRANQUIN FOR € 40.000,- .

Well, that’s the estimated price. It’s the original page in inks (below) from Spirou issue 4 ("Spirou and the heirs"). There’s also a Spirou by Franquin for one of the magazine covers. Who said you couldn't getting rich drawing comics? Ehm.. that would be my father.

FIRST EDITION FRANQUIN.

Among all the goodies, there’s not only original art. There are also first prints of every major European comic book. The Tintin’s are going for an estimated € 7000,-.There’s of course also the original first Spirou by Franquin (featuring his story “The Tank” from 1947) in excellent condition if I might say. It’s only € 3000,- Euro’s... Who said there was an economic crisis?

If you’re interested in first print editions and your money’s tight there are still some cheaper interesting pieces though. There are some great issues of “Johan and Peewit” from 1954 by Peyo (known for his popular Smurfs, which actually first appeared in Johan and Peewit’s ninth album “The Flute with Six Holes” from 1958). They start at € 300 euro’s a piece and go on to € 4500,- for the hard covers, but if you would actually like to read any of these then you better start practising your French, ‘cause these are the original editions. Equally great are Peyo’s “Steven Strong” comic books, which go for € 150 - € 1200 Euro’s. (remember these are estimations, if you run into another collector who’s eager to get his hands on specific book prices will run higher).

ORIGINAL COMIC ART HERGÉ.

From Hergé (George Remi) there's also first draft sketched page from “The Castafiore Emerald”, Tintin’s 21st book from 1963. It's going for € 35.000,- and a beautifully finished piece from 1943 for "The Secret of the Unicorn" ,Tintin's 11th comicbook. It's inked and colorised with watercolors personally by Hergé and it's inside the first edition of the comicbook itself! Going once, going twice.... it's € 20.000,- Euros.

A lot less pricy, but still very nice, are Hubinon’s pages from Buck Danny, for merely € 800 euros they can be yours. And there’s also a very small piece of a page by Edgar Pierre Jacobs from his Blake and Mortimer story “The Necklace affair” from 1967 for only € 150 euro, There are also some original colorings from the 1950’s for several books by Jacobs going for € 150 - € 200. Absolutely awesome!

Also some nice original Lucky Luke illustrations by Morris, and again, some work by Peyo (originals for the Smurfs). Several original illustration by Maurice Tillieux for his Gil Jourdan series, which recently inspired Daan Jippes for his new series “Havank”and some great original artwork and comic pages by Uderzo hand lettered in Dutch (Asterix and others stuff).

There are also some original original pages by Greg (Michel Regnier), who also worked for Hergé and was the man who wrote “Le Thermozeró”, a Tintin comicbook that was never made, except for a few pages. If you buy everything, you could start your own comic museum right there! Anyway, check it out here for yourself. If you want the PDF it's this way.