Frank Pé, with books like Zoo and Brousaille an important comics creator in his own right, is also a great fan of all things comics. For a new book, Les Portraits Heroiques, published earlier this month by Dupuis, he created portraits of important comic characters from the Franco-Belgian tradition, in his own style. You’ll get to see people like Spirou, Lucky Luke or Obélix’s love interest, Falbala, as they would have looked had they played a part in Frank’s books.
(cover of Les Portraits Heroiques by Frank Pé, published Dupuis)
Frank also wanted to include portraits of Hergé’s characters, most notably the colourful Professeur Tournesol and Capitaine Haddock, as well as some of Peyo’s Smurfs, but that didn’t quite fit with the current owners of the rights to those characters. For some reason, Belgian law allows for caricatures, but not for hommages. And so they’re not in the book, but you can see them at a virtual exhibition at the Galerie du 9e art. Frank talks about this project in an interview with Allison Reber in BoDoï; they really are worth a look.
( lovely, moody portrait of the legendary Hugo Pratt’s Corto Maltese by Frank Pé )
Fri, Dec 26, 2008
Art and animation, Books, Comics and cartoons, From our Continental Correspondent