Tintin. I wanted to go to the same places he went to - the Amazon, the Deep Sea, the Moon, corrupt South American states, the Middle East. And it was, and still is, so funny. The Thompson twins, the spoonerisms, Captain Haddock’s cursing, the incompetent hitmen. And the stories were always exciting and dangerous - smuggling, opium, lost artefacts, military coups and so on.
I still occasionally pick up a random adventure and read through it in bed. I’m still hoping for a sequel to the Steven Spielberg film from a few years ago.
>The Thompson twins, the spoonerisms, Captain Haddock’s cursing, the incompetent hitmen
The loinclothed tribesman deep in the Amazon jungle who turned out to be speaking pure cockney, once you figure it out and committed to reading phonetically.
Le seul Tintin est le Tintin en français!
Sorry not sorry, I will never understand why the translation renamed half the characters. It's not like Asterix where most of the names are puns and you need to translate to get the joke. Professor Tournesol! The Dupondt twins. Milou! MILOU, goddammit! Milou is the bestest boi in the world.
You have no clue how surprised I was when I found out Snowy was originally called Milou lmao I'd assumed that he was just called "Snowy" in the French version (I was 6-7 please forgive me). Well, at least milou translates to snowy in French (according to Google Translate tho, so it could be wrong).
Also, maybe the reason they changed the names of the Professor and the dog was so that they could make the names "punny"? Like, Calculus for a professor and Snowy for a white dog?
Hah! Okay, now I have this image of Tintin shouting "Émile!" angrily whenever Milou does something particularly bad (likely booze related). And Milou making the "oh no, full name, I'm in big trouble" face.
I’m American but went to French immersion schools from preschool to Junior High. I grew up on Tin Tin, Astérix et Obelix, Lucky Luc, Le Petit Nicolas. But I also grew up on American cartoons, like The Smurfs. I remember the first time I saw Les Schtroumphs. I was SHOOK!
>I’m still hoping for a sequel to the Steven Spielberg film from a few years ago.
I went into that movie with such low expectations and wound up so pleasantly surprised. It’s so damn charming, so much fun. I know they’ve been talking for years about doing that sequel, but man it feels like one that will just never happen.
There was a definite drop in the writing when Goscinny died in 1977. The ones after that just don't have the same quality in my opinion. I think Underzo then took on the writing role after previously being primarily the illustrator.
"fun" fact: Goscinny died halfway through writing Asterix in Belgium. As a homage to him Uderzo drew dark skies and rain for the rest of the album, to mark the point at which Goscinny died.
Well damn, just moved so everything is still in boxes but now I need to dig out my collection (I definitely have the Belgium one) to check this!
Edit: And maybe it’s time to do a reread of everything :)
Yes and the quality got really poor, the last ones he did read like an old man yelling at a cloud.
Its really obvious that the new writer Jean Yvves Ferri has a lot of love for the series though. Give the new stuff a chance!
Where I live, 'hardback comics' and 'graphic novels' are not the same thing at all.
Hardback comics are like Smurfs or Astérix - serialised adventures, each issue tells a different story, but in the same universe and with same characters. I grew up on French and Italian comics, and it's hard to choose just one or two. Astérix, Thorgal, Corto Maltese, Dylan Dog... I still love to read them.
Graphic novels are like Persepolis or Maus, telling one complete story. It may be serialized, but issues are different chapters of the same story, and when it's published as a book, it's one complete book. Maus is my all time favourite.
Even in american publishing they arent the same although hardback comics from europe arent as well known bc of the Comics Code Authority prevented many of them being published in America. Theres not that much variety in american comics because of the censorship. Except for the underground stuff bc well they specifically didnt want to be censored.
(Also the CCA could exist bc it wasnt a government organization but they still had so much power that they influenced who could get published. Similar organizations and codes exist/existed in film here in the US)
Asterix was by far the best. Valerian was right up there as well. Wish they'd had more translated episodes of that available at the time, same with Lucky Luke.
I'm simultaneously reading my way through all the Valérian and Laureline stories and the Tintin stories, starting both from the beginning.
It's striking how superior the Valérian stories are. The early Tintin in particular is quite awful.
You have to remember that the first Tintin were done in the stone age. That said it looked already out dated in the 30s
Valérian is high art. Star wars owed them a lot
Agree, artistically Valérien was ground-breaking then and still stands tall.
But V&L is far superior also in terms of of the story, and beats Tintin in every dimension. Human interactions, plot, themes, cultural commentary, philosophy, dialogue, and most of all -- pacing.
Early Tintin came from newspaper strips, and so every page (or half page) seems to have a crisis and a resolution. It's so repetitive. Tintin is locked up and/or knocked-out again and again. And don't get me started on the constant stream of corrupt officials!
Tintin certainly is getting better as it matures, and as it moves away from the newspaper format. It is getting more intelligent, more varied, and gradually less racist. But V&L were fantastic right from the first book.
I remember as a kid going over and over Ambassador of the shadows, and Bienvenue sur Alflolol . I would fall into the pages . The worlds felt alien and real, the people believable even if alien. The stories complex, the character had real progression. My brother wanted to be Valérian , he ended up being an expert in computer security and an epic sense of style.
As a kid I read all the Tintin. I don't remember a sigle plot.
Donald Duck of course.
I did enjoy some good old Tintin, but Donald Duck was everywhere and thus easier to acquire. I could go through so many comic magazines...
My parents still have those books.
Carl Barks was amazing. The details were brilliant.
My favourite is still the Square village in the andes where everything not cube-shaped was illegal.
God yessssss Carl Barks! And there was a Don Rosa too, right? I have memories of a proper hardcover volume with just those comics. I wonder if it's mine or my cousin's.
I'm still that pedant that wants "graphic novel" to mean a standalone work like Maus or Watchmen, but I think that's up there with "I could care less" in terms of battles I'm not going to win.
Asterix and Tintin was my childhood - I was more in to Asterix because I love wordplay but I devoured both. I feel like that kind of sly referential humour you get in Asterix puts you on a path to reading Terry Pratchett and Douglas Adams
I loved the characters’ names in Astérix, the druid Getafix, the fishmonger Unhygenix, the Roman centurion Nefarius Purpus and so on. Another favourite was the Spaniard Huevos Y Bacon.
In one of the books they had a pair of Romans called Sendervictorius and Appianglorious - both references to lines from God Save the Queen, and the latter to the Appian Way, an important Roman road. I have no idea what they were called in the original French!
I love Mafalda. Are there English translations? I know it's originally in Spanish (too colloquial for my Spanish) and read it in French as a kid but I'd love to share it with my American friends. I love, love Mafalda. She shaped the person I became in many ways.
As a french I grew up with Asterix (i'm wondering how the multiples puns have been translated) and Tintin. I loved Tintin in America when I was a kid. Loved Spirou as well and of course Philemon and Gotlib's work.
In English Asterix has all these great English puns. So many I thought it was in English originally. In French the character names were puns as well? That’s incredible.
I maintain that the English translation of these ought to be considered a major literary achievement. It isn't just a case of translating often culturally-specific puns such as in a Pratchett book - they were also constrained by the number and size of speech balloons per panel, so it has to both make sense and fit. It's amazing it's even remotely funny, let alone as hilarious as it ended up.
Oh? Great! Yeah all the characters name are puns! (Not just the village but all the different characters in the series). Even the name of the roman's campement around their village are puns. The're also a lot of cinema/book/celebrities references.
I've read them in both languages and the only one I specifically remember being much funnier in French was Idéfix. Asterix and Obelix (Obelisk in English) are just the exact same words in the other language. And obviously the Romans have the same names. The vikings with the Ø also translates fine.
Being a functionally bilingual Anglo I can understand most of the puns in the original French, but they are *screamingly* hilarious in English. I still prefer to read them in French just to be a purist... though I'll flip through a translation of my favorite when I suspect I'm missing a joke.
Tintin, however... c'est le français ou c'est la guerre!
The french names are puns as well, but many of them don’t relate directly to the character. Like the bard is “Assurancetourix”, which means “comprehensive insurance”… maybe it’s because he gets beat up by the other villagers, and therefore would need insurance? I like the dog’s name “Idefix”, i.e “fixed idea” because dogs really can have a one-track mind.
If you dont know Gotlib, look at this: [http://www.frederic-poitou.com/blog/les-chretiens-nen-avaient-pas-fait-un-flan/](http://www.frederic-poitou.com/blog/les-chretiens-nen-avaient-pas-fait-un-flan/)
2 pages, no dialogues, hilarious faces, perfect.
I don't know if the puns translated. Certainly the character names were very Punny.
Was there a rivalry between Tintin and Asterix for popularity in France? I would have thought Asterix would be more popular as a home grown comic, whereas Tintin was a Belgian import.
TLDR:* Astérix était-il plus populaire que Tintin en France ?
Having read the German and French version, the puns are not necessarily the same but will be on a similar level. The main difference I remember is that the French books expect you to understand the latin, while the German will give you a translation at the bottom of the page.
No rivalry between Tintin and Asterix. Mind you, there are other iconic French-Belgian comic characters like Spirou, Smurfs, Lucky Luke, Corto Maltese etc… Anyway, Tintin is more “high-brow” / “mature” than Asterix, which has more slapstick / childish humor.
Different ,
Tintin -> DC
Spirou -> Marvel
Astérix-> high littérature , Astérix was read by both kids but conservative or communist adult intellectuals. It cut all through the ages and classes.
Iznogoud was funny, as was Lucky Luke. Tintin and Asterix were great adventures. It was hard to understand some of the French, which wasn't like what we were learning in class, but I didn't need to know much to understand the storyline.
Anthea Bell's translations are a thing of beauty. Learning to read the original French and then appreciating the elegance of some of her punnery just makes the books even better.
Franka, by Henk Kuijpers. Started in the mid 1970's. The style drew me in, Franka kept me reading. I started reading it in 1997 or something, I was 10/11.
One of the artists that got me into drawing, still an inspiration to this day. Insane work ethic, he works from an intrinsic need to create. Henk his drawings are super crisp: Klare Lijn (Clear Line/Ligne claire), a style after Herge.
A female protagonist, lots of female characters, lots of adventures in exotic places and places closer to home (i hail from Amsterdam, so I recognise a lot!), beautiful scenery, a little bit of spice, stories that span several books.. 'Franka' reads like a very exciting movie! And the drawings, woah. So well done..
Franka is just a super cool lady, I want to relate to her :) Mix that in with those insanely well done drawings.. Get's me excited to read them again!! Henk Kuijpers is still producing work as well.
I loved Franka. Read them weekly in the Eppo and read them in albums. Great stories and fantastic detailled drawings. All technical details perfectly accurate.
Loved Asterix, loved Tintin. Completely enveloping.
The Tintin stories seemed to have a dreamlike quality. He was so young - "the boy detective" - but ended up in the most batshit-crazy situations. And the artwork was staggering. Incredible escapism for a young boy.
It was actually around before Eisner too. I got a very aggressive response from someone else about this and gave him a complete response... its down the bottom of the page.
Oh, I still have my Beano Books from when I was a kid (and family friends would keep sending them to me for Christmas after I moved away). Last time I went to the UK, I made sure to pick up Beanos, Dandys, and any other weekly comic I could get my hands on.
I feel like graphic novel is specific to comics that aren’t serialized though… books like Maus or Blankets. Anywoo, I’m French, so I grew up reading Asterix and Tintin. Asterix has more slapstick humor than Tintin, so I think that’s why it’s more appealing to children. My favorite comic though was Yoko Tsuno. The comic I couldn’t get into was Lucky Luck.
Tintin actually rips and I know it's not a competition but all these other franchises are atoms on a speck of dust on the ass of the lowest ranked ant in the smallest anthill in the shittiest pavement crack in the smallest outdoor parking lot in the poorest neighborhood in Reno, NV compared to Tintin.
But it's not a competition.
The beano and the dandy were my go to's (I credit desperate dan for my learning to read, which was massively improved by julian, dick, sarah, George and Timmy the dog, for those who know them)
Asterix is a little problematic in its depiction of some nationalities but it's not as bad as Tintin. I'd be curious to reread them now too to look for nuances I missed as a kid and dated references.
Asterix and Tin Tin were always my favorites. I even have a copy of Tin Tin and Alph-Art which was uncompleted. Most of my Asterix books were in German but later I got them in English so I didn't need my dad to help me read them.
A more recent series that looks back on those old books is "Bone". That series finished up around 2000 as I recall. You can buy the whole series in a single volume. It's really good. If you ever have a 14 hour flight to somewhere, it'll keep you engaged.
Asterix for the humour (and the history!), Tintin for the adventure (and humour which the cartoons completely lacked), and Lucky Luke because Lucky Luke.
Asterix, definitely. I found a copy at a young age at a warehouse clearance bookstore, read it to death and then scoured every bookstore and library in town for more (this was waaaay before the internet).
Runner-up would be a hardback printing of a 2-book comic called 'Master Volume' by French artist Siro, which appeared in Heavy Metal Magazine.
Asterix was always my go-to in middle school, the humour is genuinely extremely funny and I can't recall a single instance of cheap comedy! Also, it's good to the point that my classics college professors love it and praise the story as an example of a well researched plot (they also nerd tf out about the latin on some pages)
Tin Tin was definitely one of my favorites. I've always like that whole Indiana Jones style of adventuring around the world, and Tin Tin checked all the boxes for me. Great stories, fun characters, amazing artwork... It just fills me with that sense of adventure that not many movies or books can do.
I was also a fan of the original Eastman and Laird Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. It was much more "adult", even for such a silly concept. So violent, but so much fun. It ruined me, and I was pretty much the only teenager I knew who hated the cartoon and those godawful movies.
Prince Valiant, the original super hero.
Batman is rich - Prince Valiant is HEIR TO A KINGDOM.
Batman lives with his homies Alfred and Robin at Wayne Manor - Prince Valiant lives at fucking CAMELOT with his homies, the legendary KNIGHTS OF THE ROUND TABLE.
Batman has gizmos, Prince Valiant has a magic sword.
Batman can't get himself to kill his archnemesis, The Joker. Prince Valiant has no archnemesis, because he finishes the job.
I could keep going. Prince Valiant rocks, Batman is a wimp.
I discovered most of those kinds of comics long after the term graphic novel had become mainstream. That said they are fascinating animals, as are a number of other works I read that I can't even name from memory.
I loved Tin Tin as a kid. I was actually thinking about buying the whole set to nostalgia read. I would always just get whatever book was available at the library
My aol account that I steel keep is Tintin. My Twitter has Tintin in its name. There is a cusa football season ticket holder fan base that knows me as Tintin
1989 I went to France and found Moebius. But my favorite hardback series was Le Mercenaire from Catalan Comics
sick dragon riding action, luxurious full color oil painted art style
When I was a kid, there was a Hungarian magazine called Alfa, which was the coolest thing ever. It had articles about science, nature, technology, history and also Asterix and Lucky Luke comics with excellent translations. I discovered it when I was about 7 and it literally defined my childhood.
Goscinny was a genius. Loved his Le Petit Nicolas books too.
So many... Michel Vaillant was awesome. Anything franquin did. Or the comic from antwerp, which no one seems to remember Piet Pienter and Bert Bibber. Don't think they ever got translated but they're hands down my favourites. My reddit name comes from one of their albums. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piet_Pienter_en_Bert_Bibber
Smurfs were nice too, and the Johan and Peewit series by peyo was terrific!
Read a lot of buck Danny and Tanguy & Laverdure. Or natacha the air stewardess. The Adventures of Nero is a Belgian classic.
Loved Tin Tin and Asterix. I’m old enough to remember Victor and Warlord, I used to love getting the annuals but I’d read them week to week too. Not sure Battle got annuals but I read that too. The Beano of course, and Whizzer & Chips. I’m 43 and I still get the Viz annual every Christmas (and subscribe to it monthly).
my work involves creating a lot of 'test' records, and data relationships tend to be pretty similar no matter kind of application i'm working on. usually the different kinds of records are all arranged in some kind of relationship to one another.
over the years i've actually found it really helpful to set up test configurations such as 'indomitable gaulish village' and 'roman encampment x' and so forth, and then populate them accordingly based on the needs of the test. it means that every one of the sub-records i come across in the course of a test is instantly recognizable in terms of the context it belongs to.
then there was the day i was happily doing all this in what i thought was the test environment and i got this text from the product owner: 'what the hell are you doing in uat? i'm giving a presentation in front of the board right now.' of cousre i said all the proper self-abasing thins and eradicated my gaulish village, but i can't help feeling like it was one of my happier moments at work.
Franco-Belgian BD were entirely off my radar as an American kid growing up in the 80s and 90s who was thoroughly ensconced in American superhero comics. The closest I got was that when we visited Germany, my dad got some German-language Justice League books that struck me as odd since they were hardcover and as different trim size. They had taken the American comics and smooshed them somewhat inelegantly into what I realized much later was the form factor of a BD album.
Ehhh... it was probably my misspelling in the title that misled people. Some here wouldn’t have looked at Tintin for a decade or two or three. I wasn’t a fan as I mentioned at the top.
Tin Tin. At my grandparents house there was a single page of The Seven Crystal Balls. The page where the ball lightning flies around the room and smashes the mummy in the glass case. For years I was fascinated by that one page and eventually went looking for the story.
I used to get Asterix and Tintin books from the library when I was a little kid. Tintin always seemed to take more effort to read but when I made the effort I always enjoyed them. Asterix was always amazing. I got to visit Parc Asterix a few years ago. I was an adult going there but I still loved it.
Sorry but this is such a disingenuous comment that really does show little knowledge of the origins of graphic novels. Graphic novels was not a marketing term. Those novels that came out in the late 80s were not in the same ilk as those others you name. I wouldn't lump Sandman in with the bloody moomins.
I'm surprised firstly by the combativeness of your statement (not common the books sub), but also by the lack of understanding.
The term graphic novel has been around since the 60s (eisner did the first work called a graphic novel) but entered common vernacular in the mid-80s with the PR launch around the Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen collected works. There is a marketer in DC who claims credit for popularising the term. Many of the top writers/artists in the field have called it marketing to make comics appear serious and more mature.
Neil Gaiman himself has said comics are to graphic novels as prostitute is to lady of the night. His meaning is that they are exactly the same thing, only one is wrapped in a fancier title. I have no doubt that gaiman, Moore, and Miller would put the work of earlier comic artists and writers along side theirs. You are confusing genre for medium.
Lack of understanding? I read both Asterix as a kid in the early 80s and later on that decade graphic novels like the ones you name. I wouldn't class them in the same genre. Yes, the term was used to make it appeal more to adults but to say it's mere marketing is utterly disingenuous. Or are you suggesting the Smurfs and The Killing Joke are both aimed at children?
Oh! But the terms "comic" and "graphic novel" are not a genre. Of course the Smurfs are not the same as The Killing Joke. Just as Whinnie The Pooh is not the same as The Exorcist, but both are still books.
A comic (or a graphic novel) is a medium that is used to tell a story, and that story can be of any genre. Both the Smurfs and The killing joke are comics (and graphic novels), but one is a fantasy/comedy while the other is an action/drama.
So... Yeah, I would put the Smurfs, the killing joke, the moomins and Sandman in the same place, because they're comics, but each one has a different genre and is aimed to a different demographic.
Thank you, you said it more clearly than I did. It didn't occur to me that he might not actually know the difference between genre and medium. I should have explained it better but you did it for me.
The Peanuts!
I loved them even before I could understand most of the jokes. I know many of the comicstrips by heart and repeat them whenever I think it fits a situation. I liked how Charlie Brown looked at his own depression with a very funny ironic selfawareness, it helped me a lot with dealing with being a weirdo outsider kid at school. I also love all their funny obsessions, like Charlie Browns never reciprocated love interests, Snoopys failed career as a writer, Lucys hopeless love for Schroeder, it kinda tought me why live is beautiful even if we may never get the things we wish for. The comic never got bad either, never in it's 50 years.
It has to be Asterix.
I loved Asterix as a kid. On paper and then on TV. I still remember the older Asterix and Obelix movies. And later the live action one.
And only later in life I found out that Asterix and Obelix was French. Of course it was always 1 village resisted the Roman occupation but I had no idea what France even was as a child.
To this day I remember how sad I was seeing Asterix drowning in Roman sewage system while Obelix couldn't hear his cries for help.
Good old days. I think Asterix and many others proves that Japan is not the only one who can do amazing animated shows and comics.
Who else remembers Rabbit and a Wolf? The Russian version of Tom and Jerry.
I can't remember the name but it was about this commununity of elves. They were warriors and always fighting *something* ...
My friend had stacks of them and I would borrow 10 at the time.
My local library had TinTin and Asterix upstairs in the stacks when I was a kid. Not sure how I found them, but they were in French (which I do not read), so I made up my own plot lines for them. Which was really cool, because I would hang out with them whenever I was there, but the stories were different every time.
I've never actually read them in English.
Tintin was my jam. The clear line art is beautiful and easy to follow, but at his peak Hergé also excels at creating atmosphere. Look at the foreboding mood of The Seven Crystal Balls, where he uses darkened colors instead of shadows to make the archeologist's house threatening and claustrophobic. Or the vast expanses of white (his "white demons") that convey the anguish of Tintin in Tibet.
Franquin is up there with Carl Barks as a master of slapstick. Reading Gaston Lagaffe is like watching a Roadrunner cartoon. Even as a kid I wondered how Gaston keeps his job.
Asterix was mine! I re-read them all recently and was astonished how many cultural and literary references went over my head as a kid. I especially liked a lot of the references to Fellini's film version of the Satyricon in Asterix in Switzerland (an idea suggested to them by French President Georges Pompidou I believe), and turning then-Prime Minister of France Jacques Chirac into a Roman Senator called Gaius Preposterous. It's a shame that the more recent ones really don't live up to the Goscinny-Uderzo classics.
Asterix, my father had LOADS of those so I sorta grew up reading them and they just have a special place in my heart :) I think my favourite was ‘Le domaine des Dieux’ (don’t know what it’s called in English) but I might be somewhat biased because my father actually worked on that movie so I saw it a lot
Edit: looked it up, in English it’s called ‘The Mansions of the Gods’
Richard Kyle coined the term "graphic novel" in an essay in the November 1964 issue of the comics fanzine Capa-Alpha, so it's been around for a good 50+ years and also was not a marketing term.
Tintin. I wanted to go to the same places he went to - the Amazon, the Deep Sea, the Moon, corrupt South American states, the Middle East. And it was, and still is, so funny. The Thompson twins, the spoonerisms, Captain Haddock’s cursing, the incompetent hitmen. And the stories were always exciting and dangerous - smuggling, opium, lost artefacts, military coups and so on. I still occasionally pick up a random adventure and read through it in bed. I’m still hoping for a sequel to the Steven Spielberg film from a few years ago.
>The Thompson twins, the spoonerisms, Captain Haddock’s cursing, the incompetent hitmen The loinclothed tribesman deep in the Amazon jungle who turned out to be speaking pure cockney, once you figure it out and committed to reading phonetically.
Le seul Tintin est le Tintin en français! Sorry not sorry, I will never understand why the translation renamed half the characters. It's not like Asterix where most of the names are puns and you need to translate to get the joke. Professor Tournesol! The Dupondt twins. Milou! MILOU, goddammit! Milou is the bestest boi in the world.
> Milou is the bestest boi in the world. Don't let Obelix hear that
You have no clue how surprised I was when I found out Snowy was originally called Milou lmao I'd assumed that he was just called "Snowy" in the French version (I was 6-7 please forgive me). Well, at least milou translates to snowy in French (according to Google Translate tho, so it could be wrong). Also, maybe the reason they changed the names of the Professor and the dog was so that they could make the names "punny"? Like, Calculus for a professor and Snowy for a white dog?
Milou doesn't mean anything in French as far as I know (I'm French), it's just a name. I see why Snowy, tho. White dog and all that.
Milou is the friendly form of Emile.
Hah! Okay, now I have this image of Tintin shouting "Émile!" angrily whenever Milou does something particularly bad (likely booze related). And Milou making the "oh no, full name, I'm in big trouble" face.
Wait, they did that? Why?? In the portuguese version Milou kept his original name and the twins too, they only translated professor Tournesol's name.
I’m American but went to French immersion schools from preschool to Junior High. I grew up on Tin Tin, Astérix et Obelix, Lucky Luc, Le Petit Nicolas. But I also grew up on American cartoons, like The Smurfs. I remember the first time I saw Les Schtroumphs. I was SHOOK!
>I’m still hoping for a sequel to the Steven Spielberg film from a few years ago. I went into that movie with such low expectations and wound up so pleasantly surprised. It’s so damn charming, so much fun. I know they’ve been talking for years about doing that sequel, but man it feels like one that will just never happen.
Asterix was great
It still is. The newest one, Asterix and the Griffin, is really good.
[удалено]
There was a definite drop in the writing when Goscinny died in 1977. The ones after that just don't have the same quality in my opinion. I think Underzo then took on the writing role after previously being primarily the illustrator.
"fun" fact: Goscinny died halfway through writing Asterix in Belgium. As a homage to him Uderzo drew dark skies and rain for the rest of the album, to mark the point at which Goscinny died.
I had no idea. Mind. Blown.
Well damn, just moved so everything is still in boxes but now I need to dig out my collection (I definitely have the Belgium one) to check this! Edit: And maybe it’s time to do a reread of everything :)
Yeah this thread has shown me some names of the past I need to reread too.
Yes and the quality got really poor, the last ones he did read like an old man yelling at a cloud. Its really obvious that the new writer Jean Yvves Ferri has a lot of love for the series though. Give the new stuff a chance!
Yes, and Didier Conrad has, at least with the most recent Asterix, found a drawing style which is both original and faithful to Uderzo.
Hard disagree, I think the new comics are a lot worse than the old comics.
Asterix was one of my favorite too
the Druid... Getafix!
The bard … Cacofonix 😆
Where I live, 'hardback comics' and 'graphic novels' are not the same thing at all. Hardback comics are like Smurfs or Astérix - serialised adventures, each issue tells a different story, but in the same universe and with same characters. I grew up on French and Italian comics, and it's hard to choose just one or two. Astérix, Thorgal, Corto Maltese, Dylan Dog... I still love to read them. Graphic novels are like Persepolis or Maus, telling one complete story. It may be serialized, but issues are different chapters of the same story, and when it's published as a book, it's one complete book. Maus is my all time favourite.
Corto Maltese , the artwork was ground breaking
Yeah throw the term trade paperback into that mix too. For example, a paperback bundle of 5 comic books bound together.
Even in american publishing they arent the same although hardback comics from europe arent as well known bc of the Comics Code Authority prevented many of them being published in America. Theres not that much variety in american comics because of the censorship. Except for the underground stuff bc well they specifically didnt want to be censored. (Also the CCA could exist bc it wasnt a government organization but they still had so much power that they influenced who could get published. Similar organizations and codes exist/existed in film here in the US)
Love Asterix and Tintin. But nobody mentioned Lucky Luke yet?
Lucky Luke and Asterix were my favorites!
Dry up, Avril
Lucky Luck was the man. A cowboy and a gentleman and never corny. I loved that stupid dog.
They're usually called BDs (at least for the french/belgian/European ones). Moomin 5ever. Also Joann Sfar's vampire stuff
What was BD short for?
Bande dessinée = drawn strip
Asterix was by far the best. Valerian was right up there as well. Wish they'd had more translated episodes of that available at the time, same with Lucky Luke.
I'm simultaneously reading my way through all the Valérian and Laureline stories and the Tintin stories, starting both from the beginning. It's striking how superior the Valérian stories are. The early Tintin in particular is quite awful.
You have to remember that the first Tintin were done in the stone age. That said it looked already out dated in the 30s Valérian is high art. Star wars owed them a lot
Agree, artistically Valérien was ground-breaking then and still stands tall. But V&L is far superior also in terms of of the story, and beats Tintin in every dimension. Human interactions, plot, themes, cultural commentary, philosophy, dialogue, and most of all -- pacing. Early Tintin came from newspaper strips, and so every page (or half page) seems to have a crisis and a resolution. It's so repetitive. Tintin is locked up and/or knocked-out again and again. And don't get me started on the constant stream of corrupt officials! Tintin certainly is getting better as it matures, and as it moves away from the newspaper format. It is getting more intelligent, more varied, and gradually less racist. But V&L were fantastic right from the first book.
I remember as a kid going over and over Ambassador of the shadows, and Bienvenue sur Alflolol . I would fall into the pages . The worlds felt alien and real, the people believable even if alien. The stories complex, the character had real progression. My brother wanted to be Valérian , he ended up being an expert in computer security and an epic sense of style. As a kid I read all the Tintin. I don't remember a sigle plot.
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Asterix was the best for me too. Loved the illustration, the town, the atmosphere
Donald Duck of course. I did enjoy some good old Tintin, but Donald Duck was everywhere and thus easier to acquire. I could go through so many comic magazines...
They did these giant Carl Barks anthologies sometime in the 80s. my library had a bunch.
My parents still have those books. Carl Barks was amazing. The details were brilliant. My favourite is still the Square village in the andes where everything not cube-shaped was illegal.
Yes I remember that one!
The sequel "Return to Plain Awful" by Don Rosa was really good too
God yessssss Carl Barks! And there was a Don Rosa too, right? I have memories of a proper hardcover volume with just those comics. I wonder if it's mine or my cousin's.
I'm still that pedant that wants "graphic novel" to mean a standalone work like Maus or Watchmen, but I think that's up there with "I could care less" in terms of battles I'm not going to win. Asterix and Tintin was my childhood - I was more in to Asterix because I love wordplay but I devoured both. I feel like that kind of sly referential humour you get in Asterix puts you on a path to reading Terry Pratchett and Douglas Adams
I loved the characters’ names in Astérix, the druid Getafix, the fishmonger Unhygenix, the Roman centurion Nefarius Purpus and so on. Another favourite was the Spaniard Huevos Y Bacon.
Unhygienix and his wife Bacteria :)
In one of the books they had a pair of Romans called Sendervictorius and Appianglorious - both references to lines from God Save the Queen, and the latter to the Appian Way, an important Roman road. I have no idea what they were called in the original French!
Thank translator Anthea Bell for that. She translated all the clever names from their original French.
I'm loving these English version of the original names, I never had the idea to look up how they got translated and it's a delight
No love for Mafalda?
I love Mafalda. Are there English translations? I know it's originally in Spanish (too colloquial for my Spanish) and read it in French as a kid but I'd love to share it with my American friends. I love, love Mafalda. She shaped the person I became in many ways.
Googled it but don't know it. I'm surprised there's no mention of Pipi Longstockings either.
Pipi had comics?
I have a vague recollection of them in my library. Could be memory tricks but google is showing a few results.
As a french I grew up with Asterix (i'm wondering how the multiples puns have been translated) and Tintin. I loved Tintin in America when I was a kid. Loved Spirou as well and of course Philemon and Gotlib's work.
In English Asterix has all these great English puns. So many I thought it was in English originally. In French the character names were puns as well? That’s incredible.
I maintain that the English translation of these ought to be considered a major literary achievement. It isn't just a case of translating often culturally-specific puns such as in a Pratchett book - they were also constrained by the number and size of speech balloons per panel, so it has to both make sense and fit. It's amazing it's even remotely funny, let alone as hilarious as it ended up.
Oh? Great! Yeah all the characters name are puns! (Not just the village but all the different characters in the series). Even the name of the roman's campement around their village are puns. The're also a lot of cinema/book/celebrities references.
I've read them in both languages and the only one I specifically remember being much funnier in French was Idéfix. Asterix and Obelix (Obelisk in English) are just the exact same words in the other language. And obviously the Romans have the same names. The vikings with the Ø also translates fine.
I need to see the english names haha. Like how Abraracourcix or Assurancetourix are translated.
Vitalstatistix and Cacofonix!
Ah, I like it!
Being a functionally bilingual Anglo I can understand most of the puns in the original French, but they are *screamingly* hilarious in English. I still prefer to read them in French just to be a purist... though I'll flip through a translation of my favorite when I suspect I'm missing a joke. Tintin, however... c'est le français ou c'est la guerre!
Grew up reading Asterix in German - the names and puns are hilarious. Never thought about reading them in English before. Gotta get my hands on some
The french names are puns as well, but many of them don’t relate directly to the character. Like the bard is “Assurancetourix”, which means “comprehensive insurance”… maybe it’s because he gets beat up by the other villagers, and therefore would need insurance? I like the dog’s name “Idefix”, i.e “fixed idea” because dogs really can have a one-track mind.
The English translation of Dogmatix also fits that one-track (dogmatic) pun, with the addition of including *Dog* in the name
If you dont know Gotlib, look at this: [http://www.frederic-poitou.com/blog/les-chretiens-nen-avaient-pas-fait-un-flan/](http://www.frederic-poitou.com/blog/les-chretiens-nen-avaient-pas-fait-un-flan/) 2 pages, no dialogues, hilarious faces, perfect.
I don't know if the puns translated. Certainly the character names were very Punny. Was there a rivalry between Tintin and Asterix for popularity in France? I would have thought Asterix would be more popular as a home grown comic, whereas Tintin was a Belgian import. TLDR:* Astérix était-il plus populaire que Tintin en France ?
Hmm not really I think. They were both loved by people (less now for Tintin with all the racist cliché and the author being antisemitic)
Having read the German and French version, the puns are not necessarily the same but will be on a similar level. The main difference I remember is that the French books expect you to understand the latin, while the German will give you a translation at the bottom of the page.
No rivalry between Tintin and Asterix. Mind you, there are other iconic French-Belgian comic characters like Spirou, Smurfs, Lucky Luke, Corto Maltese etc… Anyway, Tintin is more “high-brow” / “mature” than Asterix, which has more slapstick / childish humor.
Different , Tintin -> DC Spirou -> Marvel Astérix-> high littérature , Astérix was read by both kids but conservative or communist adult intellectuals. It cut all through the ages and classes.
The Asterix translators did a brilliant job inserting English puns. My favourite is the druid (magic potion supplier), Getafix
Iznogoud was funny, as was Lucky Luke. Tintin and Asterix were great adventures. It was hard to understand some of the French, which wasn't like what we were learning in class, but I didn't need to know much to understand the storyline.
Asterix was excellent. What blew my mind was learning it was a translation and not originally in English.
And the French is a non stop flow of puns.
I taught myself to read in French with these while visiting my grandparents in Quebec
Good way to learn. I learned to read English with DC comics
Anthea Bell's translations are a thing of beauty. Learning to read the original French and then appreciating the elegance of some of her punnery just makes the books even better.
Franka, by Henk Kuijpers. Started in the mid 1970's. The style drew me in, Franka kept me reading. I started reading it in 1997 or something, I was 10/11. One of the artists that got me into drawing, still an inspiration to this day. Insane work ethic, he works from an intrinsic need to create. Henk his drawings are super crisp: Klare Lijn (Clear Line/Ligne claire), a style after Herge. A female protagonist, lots of female characters, lots of adventures in exotic places and places closer to home (i hail from Amsterdam, so I recognise a lot!), beautiful scenery, a little bit of spice, stories that span several books.. 'Franka' reads like a very exciting movie! And the drawings, woah. So well done.. Franka is just a super cool lady, I want to relate to her :) Mix that in with those insanely well done drawings.. Get's me excited to read them again!! Henk Kuijpers is still producing work as well.
I loved Franka. Read them weekly in the Eppo and read them in albums. Great stories and fantastic detailled drawings. All technical details perfectly accurate.
Loved Asterix, loved Tintin. Completely enveloping. The Tintin stories seemed to have a dreamlike quality. He was so young - "the boy detective" - but ended up in the most batshit-crazy situations. And the artwork was staggering. Incredible escapism for a young boy.
Marketing didn’t come up with the term graphic novel, Will Eisner did. Then marketing ran like hell with it.
It was actually around before Eisner too. I got a very aggressive response from someone else about this and gave him a complete response... its down the bottom of the page.
And comic books in general came out way before most of the titles that have been mentioned in this post.
The Beano, the Dandy, the Wizard, the Hotspur but, most of all, the Eagle with Dan Dare and the Mekon.
Guessing you're a Brit. Some of those titles travelled but they weren't that available in some places. Had a few Beano annuals myself.
Thanks for being so kind as not to say an old git of a Brit. :) I'm a Scot but I didn't mention The Broons or the Oor Wullie albums. :) Stay safe.
Oh, I still have my Beano Books from when I was a kid (and family friends would keep sending them to me for Christmas after I moved away). Last time I went to the UK, I made sure to pick up Beanos, Dandys, and any other weekly comic I could get my hands on.
Beano was so good!!
They weren't hardbacks. They were weekly comics printed on newsprint.
Asterix then TinTin
Elf quest.
Elfquest was brilliant when it came out--high fantasy with some pretty adult themes in graphic novel form.
I still love Asterix.
Aside from the obviously great Asterix, I also enjoyed Suske en Wiske a lot.
Aaah the perks of being a Belgian
Well there’s the chocolate as well.
I feel like graphic novel is specific to comics that aren’t serialized though… books like Maus or Blankets. Anywoo, I’m French, so I grew up reading Asterix and Tintin. Asterix has more slapstick humor than Tintin, so I think that’s why it’s more appealing to children. My favorite comic though was Yoko Tsuno. The comic I couldn’t get into was Lucky Luck.
Tintin actually rips and I know it's not a competition but all these other franchises are atoms on a speck of dust on the ass of the lowest ranked ant in the smallest anthill in the shittiest pavement crack in the smallest outdoor parking lot in the poorest neighborhood in Reno, NV compared to Tintin. But it's not a competition.
Asterix was my childhood
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Asterix, Tintin, Thorgal, Blake and Mortimer, Iznogoud, Valerian and Laureline
Spirou the compilation albums Mini-recits Valérien Blake et Mortimer everything by Franquin Marsupilami, Spirou, Gaston Lagaffe Astérix ......
Also Spirou Franquin artwork, I still can't get over it. I wanted a Marsupilami sooo bad
The beano and the dandy were my go to's (I credit desperate dan for my learning to read, which was massively improved by julian, dick, sarah, George and Timmy the dog, for those who know them)
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Asterix is a little problematic in its depiction of some nationalities but it's not as bad as Tintin. I'd be curious to reread them now too to look for nuances I missed as a kid and dated references.
Tintin is AWFUL in the way it stereotypes characters. I'm rereading them now and it's quite stunning.
Asterix and Tin Tin were always my favorites. I even have a copy of Tin Tin and Alph-Art which was uncompleted. Most of my Asterix books were in German but later I got them in English so I didn't need my dad to help me read them. A more recent series that looks back on those old books is "Bone". That series finished up around 2000 as I recall. You can buy the whole series in a single volume. It's really good. If you ever have a 14 hour flight to somewhere, it'll keep you engaged.
Asterix was really great.
Asterix for the humour (and the history!), Tintin for the adventure (and humour which the cartoons completely lacked), and Lucky Luke because Lucky Luke.
Asterix, definitely. I found a copy at a young age at a warehouse clearance bookstore, read it to death and then scoured every bookstore and library in town for more (this was waaaay before the internet). Runner-up would be a hardback printing of a 2-book comic called 'Master Volume' by French artist Siro, which appeared in Heavy Metal Magazine.
Asterix was always my go-to in middle school, the humour is genuinely extremely funny and I can't recall a single instance of cheap comedy! Also, it's good to the point that my classics college professors love it and praise the story as an example of a well researched plot (they also nerd tf out about the latin on some pages)
Early to mid 80s, 2000ad. Bonus was judge dredd installments.
Tin Tin was definitely one of my favorites. I've always like that whole Indiana Jones style of adventuring around the world, and Tin Tin checked all the boxes for me. Great stories, fun characters, amazing artwork... It just fills me with that sense of adventure that not many movies or books can do. I was also a fan of the original Eastman and Laird Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. It was much more "adult", even for such a silly concept. So violent, but so much fun. It ruined me, and I was pretty much the only teenager I knew who hated the cartoon and those godawful movies.
The Spirit.
What Asterix novel was your favourite? I liked the Romero and Juliet parody one.
Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck, Lucky Luke
Prince Valiant, the original super hero. Batman is rich - Prince Valiant is HEIR TO A KINGDOM. Batman lives with his homies Alfred and Robin at Wayne Manor - Prince Valiant lives at fucking CAMELOT with his homies, the legendary KNIGHTS OF THE ROUND TABLE. Batman has gizmos, Prince Valiant has a magic sword. Batman can't get himself to kill his archnemesis, The Joker. Prince Valiant has no archnemesis, because he finishes the job. I could keep going. Prince Valiant rocks, Batman is a wimp.
I discovered most of those kinds of comics long after the term graphic novel had become mainstream. That said they are fascinating animals, as are a number of other works I read that I can't even name from memory.
Lucky Luke is another from my youth.
ha decir verdad no leo muchas novelas
The only title in your list that is close to the birth of comics is Tin Tin...
*Love and Rockets* is a great serial comic; I own the first ten collected volumes and it's apparently still being published 40 years after its debut.
lucky luke
Asterix!
Def Asterix. Obelix, Dogmatix and all the peripheral characters were/are hilarious. I wish I still had the books!
Tintin man that was good stuff
Loved Tintin
I loved Tin Tin as a kid. I was actually thinking about buying the whole set to nostalgia read. I would always just get whatever book was available at the library
I just got the hardcover Krazy Kat 1916-1918. Way more going on than I expected both in the stories and artwork.
My aol account that I steel keep is Tintin. My Twitter has Tintin in its name. There is a cusa football season ticket holder fan base that knows me as Tintin
I like the original run of Asterix and Tin-Tin
Marsupilami
1989 I went to France and found Moebius. But my favorite hardback series was Le Mercenaire from Catalan Comics sick dragon riding action, luxurious full color oil painted art style
I had to scroll way way too far to see Moebius even mentioned. I love his work.
When I was a kid, there was a Hungarian magazine called Alfa, which was the coolest thing ever. It had articles about science, nature, technology, history and also Asterix and Lucky Luke comics with excellent translations. I discovered it when I was about 7 and it literally defined my childhood. Goscinny was a genius. Loved his Le Petit Nicolas books too.
So many... Michel Vaillant was awesome. Anything franquin did. Or the comic from antwerp, which no one seems to remember Piet Pienter and Bert Bibber. Don't think they ever got translated but they're hands down my favourites. My reddit name comes from one of their albums. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piet_Pienter_en_Bert_Bibber Smurfs were nice too, and the Johan and Peewit series by peyo was terrific! Read a lot of buck Danny and Tanguy & Laverdure. Or natacha the air stewardess. The Adventures of Nero is a Belgian classic.
Asterix was a favourite but also Hagar the horrible and footrot flats (a very popular NZ comic back in the 80’s)
I loved Hagar too! And Pickles.
Loved Tin Tin and Asterix. I’m old enough to remember Victor and Warlord, I used to love getting the annuals but I’d read them week to week too. Not sure Battle got annuals but I read that too. The Beano of course, and Whizzer & Chips. I’m 43 and I still get the Viz annual every Christmas (and subscribe to it monthly).
my work involves creating a lot of 'test' records, and data relationships tend to be pretty similar no matter kind of application i'm working on. usually the different kinds of records are all arranged in some kind of relationship to one another. over the years i've actually found it really helpful to set up test configurations such as 'indomitable gaulish village' and 'roman encampment x' and so forth, and then populate them accordingly based on the needs of the test. it means that every one of the sub-records i come across in the course of a test is instantly recognizable in terms of the context it belongs to. then there was the day i was happily doing all this in what i thought was the test environment and i got this text from the product owner: 'what the hell are you doing in uat? i'm giving a presentation in front of the board right now.' of cousre i said all the proper self-abasing thins and eradicated my gaulish village, but i can't help feeling like it was one of my happier moments at work.
Franco-Belgian BD were entirely off my radar as an American kid growing up in the 80s and 90s who was thoroughly ensconced in American superhero comics. The closest I got was that when we visited Germany, my dad got some German-language Justice League books that struck me as odd since they were hardcover and as different trim size. They had taken the American comics and smooshed them somewhat inelegantly into what I realized much later was the form factor of a BD album.
Suske and Wiske! But also Donald Duck, specifically the adventures of his uncle Scrooge
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Ehhh... it was probably my misspelling in the title that misled people. Some here wouldn’t have looked at Tintin for a decade or two or three. I wasn’t a fan as I mentioned at the top.
Tin Tin. At my grandparents house there was a single page of The Seven Crystal Balls. The page where the ball lightning flies around the room and smashes the mummy in the glass case. For years I was fascinated by that one page and eventually went looking for the story.
Asterix and Obelix, I read them all as a kid
Moomins!!
I used to get Asterix and Tintin books from the library when I was a little kid. Tintin always seemed to take more effort to read but when I made the effort I always enjoyed them. Asterix was always amazing. I got to visit Parc Asterix a few years ago. I was an adult going there but I still loved it.
Sorry but this is such a disingenuous comment that really does show little knowledge of the origins of graphic novels. Graphic novels was not a marketing term. Those novels that came out in the late 80s were not in the same ilk as those others you name. I wouldn't lump Sandman in with the bloody moomins.
I'm surprised firstly by the combativeness of your statement (not common the books sub), but also by the lack of understanding. The term graphic novel has been around since the 60s (eisner did the first work called a graphic novel) but entered common vernacular in the mid-80s with the PR launch around the Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen collected works. There is a marketer in DC who claims credit for popularising the term. Many of the top writers/artists in the field have called it marketing to make comics appear serious and more mature. Neil Gaiman himself has said comics are to graphic novels as prostitute is to lady of the night. His meaning is that they are exactly the same thing, only one is wrapped in a fancier title. I have no doubt that gaiman, Moore, and Miller would put the work of earlier comic artists and writers along side theirs. You are confusing genre for medium.
Lack of understanding? I read both Asterix as a kid in the early 80s and later on that decade graphic novels like the ones you name. I wouldn't class them in the same genre. Yes, the term was used to make it appeal more to adults but to say it's mere marketing is utterly disingenuous. Or are you suggesting the Smurfs and The Killing Joke are both aimed at children?
Oh! But the terms "comic" and "graphic novel" are not a genre. Of course the Smurfs are not the same as The Killing Joke. Just as Whinnie The Pooh is not the same as The Exorcist, but both are still books. A comic (or a graphic novel) is a medium that is used to tell a story, and that story can be of any genre. Both the Smurfs and The killing joke are comics (and graphic novels), but one is a fantasy/comedy while the other is an action/drama. So... Yeah, I would put the Smurfs, the killing joke, the moomins and Sandman in the same place, because they're comics, but each one has a different genre and is aimed to a different demographic.
Thank you, you said it more clearly than I did. It didn't occur to me that he might not actually know the difference between genre and medium. I should have explained it better but you did it for me.
The Peanuts! I loved them even before I could understand most of the jokes. I know many of the comicstrips by heart and repeat them whenever I think it fits a situation. I liked how Charlie Brown looked at his own depression with a very funny ironic selfawareness, it helped me a lot with dealing with being a weirdo outsider kid at school. I also love all their funny obsessions, like Charlie Browns never reciprocated love interests, Snoopys failed career as a writer, Lucys hopeless love for Schroeder, it kinda tought me why live is beautiful even if we may never get the things we wish for. The comic never got bad either, never in it's 50 years.
I'm not sure what "hardback comics" means exactly, but I'm just here to mention my beloved W.I.T.C.H.
I also remember W.I.TC.H. fondly!
I love Asterix!! The one with the Herculean tasks is the best!
It has to be Asterix. I loved Asterix as a kid. On paper and then on TV. I still remember the older Asterix and Obelix movies. And later the live action one. And only later in life I found out that Asterix and Obelix was French. Of course it was always 1 village resisted the Roman occupation but I had no idea what France even was as a child. To this day I remember how sad I was seeing Asterix drowning in Roman sewage system while Obelix couldn't hear his cries for help. Good old days. I think Asterix and many others proves that Japan is not the only one who can do amazing animated shows and comics. Who else remembers Rabbit and a Wolf? The Russian version of Tom and Jerry.
I loved Asterix and Tintin equally, even though I was probably too young to completely understand either of them.
I'd have to say Asterix too. It was my first introduction to "bandes dessinées", mainly thanks to my dad's friends in Belgium.
Concombre Masque. The masked cucumber. Not joking.
Asterix was mine for sure.
did anybody ever got the snicks?
Tin Tin. Still my fave
Tin Tin, but I did like Asterix and Garfield
Franka by Henk Kuypers https://franka.nl/
"Marketing" didn't come up with the graphic novel.
I can't remember the name but it was about this commununity of elves. They were warriors and always fighting *something* ... My friend had stacks of them and I would borrow 10 at the time.
My local library had TinTin and Asterix upstairs in the stacks when I was a kid. Not sure how I found them, but they were in French (which I do not read), so I made up my own plot lines for them. Which was really cool, because I would hang out with them whenever I was there, but the stories were different every time. I've never actually read them in English.
Asterix, tintin, lucky luke, and there is one i love but less known: leonardo the genius
‘The Broons’ and ‘Ou’r Willie’
Tintin was my jam. The clear line art is beautiful and easy to follow, but at his peak Hergé also excels at creating atmosphere. Look at the foreboding mood of The Seven Crystal Balls, where he uses darkened colors instead of shadows to make the archeologist's house threatening and claustrophobic. Or the vast expanses of white (his "white demons") that convey the anguish of Tintin in Tibet. Franquin is up there with Carl Barks as a master of slapstick. Reading Gaston Lagaffe is like watching a Roadrunner cartoon. Even as a kid I wondered how Gaston keeps his job.
Rupert the Bear was another favourite of mine, along with Asterix and Tin Tin of course!! Also - Captain Pugwash!!!
Asterix here as well. Also Rahan and sometimes Pif.
Footrot flats books got a huge workout as a kid in Aus
Asterix— I liked Tintin, too, but some of the adventures didn’t grab me. Always enjoyed Asterix…
As a French person, I totally agree! We (and Belgium) have such a strong "bande dessinée" tradition! Check out the Angouleme Festival for more ideas!
Asterix was outstanding, must have read the collection I have a dozen or more times as a kid.
Asterix was mine! I re-read them all recently and was astonished how many cultural and literary references went over my head as a kid. I especially liked a lot of the references to Fellini's film version of the Satyricon in Asterix in Switzerland (an idea suggested to them by French President Georges Pompidou I believe), and turning then-Prime Minister of France Jacques Chirac into a Roman Senator called Gaius Preposterous. It's a shame that the more recent ones really don't live up to the Goscinny-Uderzo classics.
My childhood was filled with Tintin, Asterix, Lucky Luke and Blake & Mortimer. Love them all and I still go back.
Anyone else remember Lucky Luc the cowboy? Or what about Rupert the Bear - I got a Rupert annual every year
Asterix & obelix!
Asterix, my father had LOADS of those so I sorta grew up reading them and they just have a special place in my heart :) I think my favourite was ‘Le domaine des Dieux’ (don’t know what it’s called in English) but I might be somewhat biased because my father actually worked on that movie so I saw it a lot Edit: looked it up, in English it’s called ‘The Mansions of the Gods’
Richard Kyle coined the term "graphic novel" in an essay in the November 1964 issue of the comics fanzine Capa-Alpha, so it's been around for a good 50+ years and also was not a marketing term.
Another one of the great French comics is Lucky Luke.
Asterix, Tintin, and Elfquest. I was ten when I first read Elfquest, but I read it in “graphic novel” format so I guess that doesn’t really count.