Art For Art’s Sake # 280: ‘Spirou And Fantasio’ – Those Other European Journalists

by Richard Bruton

Oh hello, you’d be wanting all that lovely comic art stuff from off that Internet thing I suppose? Well, okay then, I gues it’s time to fire up the engines on Art For Art’s Sake for another week…

Well, this one was going to end with a little bit of Spirou & Fantasio artwork I’d found online, a couple of homages. And then that thing happened that happens a little too often and I’m off down a rabbit hole of artwork that eventually morphed into a whole A4AS about the dream team of the boyhop turned journo Spirou and his pal in journalism, Fantasio…

Spirou (the bellhop turned journo) on the left, Fantasio (his journalist pal and co-adventurer) on the right, along with the Marsupilami

If you didn’t already know, the history of Spirou goes a long, long way back – it was 1938 when Dupuis published Rob-Vel‘s adventures of an elevator boy and his pet squirrel, Spip. That iteration didn’t last too long as Dupuis bought the character after WWII and since then we’ve had some of Europe’s finest comic makers spinning new tales, beginning with Jije, who introduced Fantasio to what would become one of the longest running partnerships in comics.

But it was Andre Franquin who really was responsible for taking the strip to new heights, transforming the previous template of short serials and gag strips to longer, more complex adventures. His tenure on the album series ran from 1947-1969). He also introduced the Marsupillami, a character he would later spin-off into its own volumes.

The Spirou & Fantasio torch passed from author to author, all of them continuing the series in fine style – Jean-Claude Fournier; Nic & Cauvin; Tome & Janry; Morvan & Munuera; Yoann & Vehlmann; Guerrive, Abitan & Schawartz; as well as several adventures of S&F featuring art by Yoann, Frank Le Gall, Fabrice Tarrin, Emile Bravo, Fabrice Parme, Tehem, Frank Pe, Benoit Feroumont, Fabrice Lebeault, Flix, Christian Durieux.

One of Europe’s classic comic series, Spirou & Fantasio is available in English from Cinebook and it’s really recommended reading.

Now, a little bit of Spirou & Fantasio for you…

Andre Franquin