FOURNIER - Lot 51

FOURNIER JEAN-CLAUDE FOURNIER SPIROU L'Abbaye truquée (T.22), Dupuis 1972 Original plate no. 46, prepublished in Le Journal de Spirou n° 1763 of January 27, 1972. Signed. India ink on paper 29.5 × 40.8 cm (11.61 × 16.06 in.) Jean-Claude Fournier's revival of Spirou, after the depressed Franquin stopped it in favor of Gaston, gives a poetic twist to the world of Spirou. The nine albums that follow are an enchanted interlude in the world of the bellboy. Japanese magician and mycologist Itoh Kata is pursued by a secret society, Le Triangle, seeking to appropriate his inventions. The result is an amiably buffoonish scenario, which this sequence, with its inventive framing and impeccably inked drawings, brings to a brilliant close.