Spirou: A Head for Crime

[houbanaut.insanejournal.com]

In honor of the ongoing Tour de France, here's a taste of a classic Spirou & Fantasio story newly available in English, A Head for Crime by André Franquin (La Mauvaise Tête, 1956, 54pp).

Let's start from the beginning:


Fantasio is being a big drama queen as usual. His personality has changed a lot through the series' run, but "excitable" remains a constant characteristic. By the way, the "Mosquito" is Le Moustique, a real Belgian news/celebrity/lifestyle magazine now known as Télémoustique, from the same publisher as Spirou magazine.

Also, Spirou and Fantasio apparently live apart in this story. In the early years of Franquin's run, Spirou had an apartment and Fantasio lived in the house seen here. At some point, Spirou moved in with him, and they've been sharing that house at least up until Machine Qui Reve (1998).

Anyway, Spirou and Fantasio get into an argument over racquetball and part in a huff. Later that evening, Spirou is walking around Brussels:

I love Franquin's depiction of Brussels on an apparently quite chilly 1950s summer evening. Some stylish fashions, too! Also, if you look closely you'll notice that when Fantasio snubs him, Spirou drops the newspaper he was carrying in shock.

While the police are taking down statements, Fantasio shows up, and the goldsmith identifies him as the robber! Fantasio denies it, giving an alibi Spirou knows is completely false. After the police let them go, they have another argument, leaving Spirou hurt and confused:


Again, the top-modern TV models in the shop window (and the fact that people hang around outside an electrical appliances store to watch TV) serve to date the story.

Fantasio is now wanted by the police, but he insists to Spirou that he has been framed. Spirou investigates and manages to track down the real robbers, but they escape with the loot and most of the evidence.

Spirou and a fugitive Fantasio pursue the criminals to the south of France, but a dogged police inspector is on their trail. To evade the law, Spirou has an idea: Fantasio should hide in the crowd of Tour de France riders! But things don't turn out entirely according to plan:





Fantasio is captured, and the cops want to arrest Spirou too, for assisting a fugitive. However, he makes a break for it and gets away. The rest of the story has Spirou confronting the robbers and trying to get the evidence that can clear Fantasio's name.

The last time I posted Spirou scans, I said that Eurobooks didn't respond to online orders. Well, they seem to have got their act together since then, working with the most excellent Granth Book Shop, and I was able to get all 12 books sent to the US. (Although it did involve wiring the payment through Western Union.)

The books are quite nice on the whole. Softcover on glossy paper, apparently working from the latest French-language editions (judging by the coloring and the inclusion of front-page art from the original magazine installments). However, the typesetting leaves quite a lot to be desired. Newspapers are set like speech balloons, in a total mess of type. The translation isn't up to Kim Thompson's work on Z is for Zorglub, either. And purists should be aware that most names have been changed, for example Champignac --> Culdesac (that one is quite funny, in my opinion), Marsupilami --> Beastie(!), Seccotine --> Snoopie, and Zantafio --> Pathetico. And in something of a blasphemy, "Beastie" no longer goes "Houba Hop!", but "Gleep Gloop!" instead. Still, it's a lot better than nothing.

Comments

[nezchan.insanejournal.com]

Thanks for posting this, it's actually one of my favourites from the early days. I'd say "Pathetico" is a bit of a blasphemy in its own right, he's usually pretty successful up until the point that Spirou & Fantasio get involved in his plots.

I do know that they're living together in Aux Sources du Z (which does a nice tribute to this volume), so perhaps that apartment bit in Machine Qui Reve was an attempt for Tome & Janry to rewrite that bit of their history, as with Seccotine's name and so forth. Which was all tossed out as a bad idea when the next crew took over, although it wouldn't surprise me if they were told to do so from on high.

[houbanaut.insanejournal.com]

My pleasure.

"Pathetico" may be going a bit too far, but his dictatorship of Palombia was pretty rickety and ridiculous, and in L'homme qui ne voulait pas mourir he seems to spend most of the story bickering with his henchmen. I guess I see what they were going for (Fantasio is characterized by his imagination, Pathetico by his... failures?), but I don't really see how it's preferable to the original in any way.*

As for Aux Sources du Z, ten-to-one says that too will be tossed out of continuity as soon as the next team takes over. (Apparently the PTB considered releasing it in the out-of-continuity "One-Shot" series, but left it in as a #50 anniversary volume.) Also, if you think closely about that tribute, it seems like Spirou biked all the way back to Brussels from the south of France. Hmmm...

_{* In my ongoing effort to rationalize the Spirouniverse, I've decided that there must be a reason why cousins Fantasio and Zantafio have such similar names. My theory is that Zantafio is the real family name (Eastern European, perhaps?), and that Fantasio is a pen name or nickname chosen by F.}

[nezchan.insanejournal.com]

Going backwards, Tanzafio is Fantasio's uncle, although I'm not sure if that's Zanta's dad or a mutual uncle. He's the one who supposedly died in Zanta's first appearance, anyhow. I assume the whole family just got an attack of the Raving Clevers.

There's a lot I liked in Aux Sources du Z, even if it does break my brain. But I could see it being a "one-shot" rather than canon. We'll see when the next team starts. Having three Spirous in-universe would be interesting if they were willing to follow up on it.

Finally, I can see that with Zanta as dictator, but he seemed to get more and more competent as time went by. The fact that he even became a dictator in the first place is pretty impressive, given he started as a petty con man.

[roily_rogue.insanejournal.com]

The panels of him struggling on the bike are just cartooning at its finest. You can FEEL the speed and the effort. I especially love the "This is the pits" panel, because of how well it depicts his struggle and how HEAVY it is and you can just feel the gravity pulling and I'm not even sure what it is about the artwork that makes it come across so well. It's just supremely well-rendered. Captivating. It's ALIVE.

[houbanaut.insanejournal.com]

Ha ha, yeah. Franquin knew what he was doing! I've read that he wasn't satisfied with the story as a whole (then again, he never was), but it's hard to find fault with that particular episode.

I kind of agree with Franquin that the plot doesn't quite work as a mystery or thriller, and the reveal of the main villain never really made sense to me. But reading it again, I'm struck by how much of it is about the friendship between Fantasio and Spirou - whether they're fighting or risking their lives for each other. That theme is always a winner for the series, here just as well as in Valley of the Banished (http://asylums.insanejournal.com/scans_daily/534541.html).

[nezchan.insanejournal.com]

From what I read, Franquin actually lived in Jije's house while he learned the style, but in the end far surpassed anything Jije was capable of, both in plot and art. I'm a bit more partial to Janry in the long run, but Franquin was a real talent.

[tavella.insanejournal.com]

Yes, the shot where he's plunging down the hill into the traffic and bikes you can really feel the Doom of Gravity.

[bluefall.insanejournal.com]

Come on, Fantasio, invest in some toe clips and maybe an arrowbar if you're going to crash the tour. Verisimilitude, man!

[squirle.insanejournal.com]

"Beastie" no longer goes "Houba Hop!", but "Gleep Gloop!"

WHAT?!

*outrage*

[toasty_fresh.insanejournal.com]

I'm really beginning to love Spirou. Thanks for posting!

[triestine.livejournal.com (from insanejournal.com)]

Oh, thank you for this!

[psychop_rex.insanejournal.com]

This is great stuff! Hopefully, more of these will have been released in english by the time I have money to spend on them.

[ficticons.livejournal.com (from insanejournal.com)]

Thanks for these! I'd never read any Spirou before seeing your posts (although I ♥ bande dessinée), and I think these are interesting. I agree with roily_rogue that the art, especially during the cycling scenes, is great. I particularly like the fifth panel of page 32, and the way the commentator gets more and more excited as Fantasio comes charging down the mountain and onto the road is really nicely done.

I took a closer look at the Brussels street scene after reading your comments about it. I like it, and Spirou dropping that newspaper is a fine bit of extra detail that is easy to overlook, so thanks for mentioning it.

The books are quite nice on the whole...However, the typesetting leaves quite a lot to be desired.
I concur. Two of my cousins have one or two Quick and Flupke books as published by Eurobooks, and when I looked through them when I was visiting this summer my reaction was along the lines of "ugh, they could have chosen a better font".

As for translation, I do wonder who does it for them. Is he/she credited at all?

[houbanaut.insanejournal.com]

Glad you like it! I hope Spirou can build up more of a fan base in the English-speaking world, so they'll release more of the books here.

Yeah, the font (Comic Sans?) isn't great, though I find that it's not too terrible for the standard word balloon text. However, it looks pretty bad at larger sizes, whenever characters are shouting. Compare Fantasio's "Spirou!" on the first page with Spirou's much better-looking, hand-drawn "?!" But the real crime is the way the text is positioned in the balloons, and like I said, the type-setting on other translated elements, like newspapers (there are no examples in this excerpt, fortunately).

The translator is not credited anywhere.

[stuka_junker88.insanejournal.com]

Being bilingual, and having been introduced to Spirou in French, I can tell you that the translation is god-awful.

[houbanaut.insanejournal.com]

I think dialogue like "And that is what is freaking you out like this?!" kind of gave it away to people who don't speak French, too.

I actually wanted to post a few pages from The Moray's Hideout, where Spirou is providing air-support in a Fantacopter for the Count's and Fantasio's escape, but the Count's exclamation of "CARAMBA!" dissuaded me. I mean: W! T! F! ???

Would you say the translation is inaccurate as to the content, or just badly written and not true to the style?

[stuka_junker88.insanejournal.com]

Badly written and not true to the style. 'The Moray's Hideout'?! Oh god... 'The Lair of the Moray' would be much better.

[ulf_boehnke.insanejournal.com]

One of the few cases where a giant head on the cover isn't metaphorical.