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  Robin for example

  Economics Editor

More than a quarter of a century after the last album, a new work about the cartoon character Guust Flater is in stores today. The bumbling office clerk’s new comic strip was preceded by a legal TV series that ran for a year and a half. The daughter of cartoonist Andre Franquin, who died in 1997, tried to block Ghost’s return through the courts.

It was supposed to be the highlight of the centenary of Belgian comics publisher Dupuis last year. But immediately after the first joke was published in French-language comic magazine Spiro in March last year, pre-publication had to be halted due to a lawsuit.

The lengthy lawsuit that followed, with accusations flying about money and rights, weakened the initial partisan campaign around Ghost’s return. The battle over the plan to introduce young readers to a series that many over-40s grew up with was only settled in Dupuy’s favor in May.

“Five years before his death, Franquin sold the rights to the character to the publisher. The publisher acted accordingly,” says Inne Goossens of Standaard Uitgeverij, Dupuis’s parent company, looking into the case. “Maybe Isabelle Franquin should get used to the idea of ​​her father’s inheritance.”

However, the ruling had an important caveat. The judge ruled that daughter Franquin could not prevent publication, but she had the right to pre-screen all drawings and jokes to ensure their quality. Now that’s the book Flat strikes again In stores, at least that means new cartoonist Marc Delafontaine, a 50-year-old Canadian with the stage name Delaf, has been officially approved.

This seems reassuring to long-time readers. Franquin, along with Tintin artist Hergé, is viewed as the master of European comics. Franquin has been praised for his swing drawing style and sense of humor. And the fact that a Canadian took charge – not a Belgian or a Frenchman – did not appeal to every longtime reader.

“For me, it is clear that Mozart, Einstein and Franquin fall into the same category,” Delaff said in an interview with the Walloon newspaper Le Soir. “Franquin was able to see the nuances in life that 99 percent of people don’t see. His exceptional talent ensured that he was able to put these nuances on paper. Whether it was the clothes, the cat’s attitude, or the caricature of a car; everything was Fine, always.”

Dupuis chose Delaf as his new artist after he created a Guust page for a tribute album in 2015. Friend and foe were surprised that the drawing style and humor were eerily close to that of Franquin, who, in addition to Guust Flutter, had made Spiro and Fantasio, Marsupellamy, Toon and Tiniki, and Zwartkiek . “No one has ever come close to Franquin’s style,” Goossens says of the new artist.

Delaff said at Le Soir that he was “overwhelmed with emotion” after being asked to continue Guust. At the same time he had doubts. “The little kid in me couldn’t believe it, but as an adult I needed time to process the offer. You shouldn’t respond to something like that on a whim.”

Ultimately, Delaff decided to keep Gast in his 1960s and 1970s heyday, with an office full of typewriters and rotary telephones, including his old, tarnished Fiat 509. According to Delaff, the contemporary Gast felt like a betrayal. “Obviously I’m not Franquin. I don’t have his drawing style, I don’t have his sense of humor, I don’t have his vision of the world.”

After countless hours of studying drawings and drawings verbatim, Delaff mastered the style. “I could only try to get as close as possible. In fact, ‘respect’ was the key word. I thought that if the reader felt that Guust was being treated with love and respect, they would be more receptive to a new album.”

Comics are still very popular. For example, Asterix’s 40th album was released in October: