Delaf after Franquin © Dupuis, 2023
NOS Nieuws•gisteren, 17:33
Ruben Eg
economics editor
Ruben Eg
economics editor
More than a quarter of a century after the last album, new work about cartoon character Guust Flater is available in stores today. The new comics of the bumbling office clerk were preceded by a legal soap opera that lasted a year and a half. The daughter of the cartoonist André Franquin, who died in 1997, tried to ban Guust’s return through the courts.
It was supposed to be the highlight of the centenary of the Belgian comics publisher Dupuis last year. But almost immediately after the first joke was printed in the French-language comics magazine Spirou in March last year, pre-publication had to be halted due to the lawsuit.
The lengthy lawsuit that followed, in which accusations about money and rights flew back and forth, dampened the initial party campaign about Guust’s comeback. The battle over the plan to introduce young readers to a series that many people over the age of forty grew up with was only settled in Dupuis’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 back on the case. “Isabelle Franquin may have had to get used to the idea of her father’s inheritance.”
Approved
Yet the ruling had an important caveat. The judge ruled that daughter Franquin cannot prohibit publication, but does have the right to inspect all drawings and jokes in advance for quality. Now that’s the book Flatter strikes again is in stores, at least means that the new artist Marc Delafontaine, a 50-year-old Canadian with the stage name Delaf, has been officially approved.
Delaf after Franquin © Dupuis, 2023
That seems reassuring to long-time readers. Franquin, together with Tintin artist Hergé, is seen as the grand master of European comics. Franquin was praised for both his swinging drawing style and humor. The fact that a Canadian took over – and not a Belgian or Frenchman – did not sit well with every old reader.
“For me, Mozart, Einstein and Franquin clearly fall into the same category,” Delaf said in an interview with the Walloon newspaper Le Soir. “Franquin was able to see the nuances of life that 99 percent of people don’t see. And his extraordinary talent ensured that he was able to put these nuances on paper. Whether it be clothing, the attitude of a cat or the caricature of a car; everything was right, always.”
Little boy
Dupuis chose Delaf as his new artist after he made a page of Guust for a tribute album in 2015. Friend and enemy were surprised that both the drawing style and the humor came eerily close to that of Franquin, who, in addition to Guust Flater, also made Spirou and Fantasio, the Marsupilami, Ton and Tineke and Zwartkijk. “No one before came so close to Franquin’s style,” says Goossens about the new artist.
Delaf said in Le Soir that he was “overwhelmed with emotions” after he was asked to continue Guust. At the same time he had doubts. “The little boy 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.”
Delaf after Franquin © Dupuis, 2023
Ultimately, Delaf decided to keep Guust in his heyday in the sixties and seventies, with an office full of typewriters and rotary telephones, including his old, polluting Fiat 509. According to Delaf, a modern Guust felt like a betrayal. “It’s clear that I’m not Franquin. I don’t have his drawing style, I don’t have his humor, I don’t have his vision of the world.”
After countless hours of literally studying drawings and sketches, Delaf 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 treated with love and respect, they would be more accepting of a new album.”
Comics are still popular. For example, Asterix’s fortieth album was released in October:
‘It always makes my husband laugh so much’
2023-11-22 16:33:45
#Guust #Flater #comic #legal #soap #Canadian #artist
