FRANQUIN - Lot 100

FRANQUIN ANDRÉ FRANQUIN ◊ Original illustration, top cover of the Journal de Spirou n° 1106, June 25, 1959. The texts (excluding phylacteries) were made on supports affixed to the original. Signed. India ink and blue pencil on paper 38.6 × 21.4 cm (15.2 × 8.43 in.) It was a ruse on Dupuis' part: to keep Franquin from going elsewhere - we remember the Modeste & Pompon episode, in which Franquin spent five years at Lombard between 1955 and 1959 - he allowed him to do his own comic strip in addition to Spirou: Gaston Lagaffe (1957). He also entrusted him with the animation of Le Journal, and Franquin would occasionally draw commentaries on the comics of his colleagues and friends. The result is little masterpieces of derision like this one. Here, it's Sirius's Timour who is honored by the goofball. Not surprisingly, it's about Alicante, a Spanish town on the Costa Brava, where the cartoonist's boat, Le Sirius, dropped anchor. In those days, originals weren't highly regarded: the text for Robbedoes, the Flemish version of the Journal de Spirou, was pasted onto the original before being clichéd. Dupuis typographers had to compose the translated title in a font whose reference we now know: Monotype 373. This should interest a few graphic designers...