CHALAND - Lot 104

CHALAND YVES CHALAND ◊ FREDDY LOMBARD Le Testament de Godefroid de Bouillon (T.1), Magic Strip 1981 Original plate no. 29, end page. Signed. India ink and white gouache on paper 23.5 × 33.8 cm (9.25 × 13.31 in.) When they launched the Atomium collection for Magic Strip, Serge Clerc and Luc Cornillon understood the principle: to create a strange mix between the comic-book format and the Franco-Belgian comic strip, symbolized by the cardboard and cloth-backed covers made famous by the Lombard collection. With this first Freddy Lombard adventure, which is in itself a tribute to Belgian comics (Jijé's Freddy Fred + Les éditions du Lombard + Tintin's mèche), Chaland immediately shifted from a density of four squares to six per page, and produced the entire album, with its characteristically impeccable brushwork - 30 plates and the cover - in... a month! To draw it, Chaland made the trip from Bouillon, drawing the castle seen on this page exactly but in reverse: it's actually on the other bank.