From our continental correspondent – Translation Please: the Furox | The Forbidden Planet International Blog Log

From our continental correspondent – Translation Please: the Furox

Mon, Nov 17, 2008

Comics and cartoons, From our Continental Correspondent, Translation please

Imagine a story about a Jewish cryptozoologist who has to flee Germany when the Nazi’s gain power, only to battle his successor at the university over the fate of the last Furox, the flying, fire-breathing but not-that-fearsome dragon of legend. That is the story of The Furox, a graphic novel series by Belgian cartoonist Simon Spruyt, in a nutshell.

Simon Spruyt de Furox 1 Diaspora Bries.jpg

(cover to the first album of De Furox: Diaspora, published by Bries and created by and (c) Simon Spruyt)

So far, two books have been published in Dutch, introducing Egon Spielspass, a famous specialist in the field of legendary animals, who finds himself expelled from the university in favour of a Nazi party member, Herr Doktor Marsmann, and flees to America. It also brings a strange, green dragon to the stage, who made the same journey two centuries earlier, when he was expelled from the British countryside, and was able to make it across the Atlantic by impersonating the figurehead of a trading ship. In the second book, Terra Nova, Spielspass and the Furox meet, and together they fight against Marsmann, who wants to enlist the dragon in the army of the Third Reich, and who has called in the help of a vampire and a small army of zombies.

A story like this sounds very much like Mike Mignola’s Hellboy, but with fewer swatches of black. Mignola’s stories are laden with doom and horror, whereas Spruyt takes things more lightly. Sure, the story is played out against the backdrop of a world on the brink of war, and the confrontations with the several fantastical creatures can be quite explosive, and at times even scary. Still, Spruyt provides the appropriate comic relief, not in the least via the Furox’s hilarious conversations about his predicament with his friend Terrence, a street cat, or the inventiveness with which he hides in plain sight.

This equilibrium between a rather serious historical background and a fantastic story, or between horror and comedy, allows Spruyt to give his story a certain thematic depth without going all preachy on his readers. Even though they are the stuff of myth, Spruyt’s creatures are never superheroes but rather very human. They have their tempers and their cowardice, and they are easily tempted away from the rightful path. Which in turn makes them ideal symbols of human values like tolerance and respect for others. And this saves the story from being mere escapism, or veering towards heavy-handed morality.

Simon Spruyt de Furox 1 Diaspora Bries preview page.jpg

(preview page of De Furox 1: Diaspora, borrowed from the Bries site, by and (c) Simon Spruyt)

Simon Spruyt’s artwork gets better all the time. His art is playful and full of expression at the same time, and his colours follow the atmosphere of the story (even though he’s never far away from a quite fashionable dark-pastel palette). At no point he is the slave of some style or other, and his art changes as the story dictates it. The results are pages that can quite easily be put side by side with the best of Duchazeau or Sfar.

Diaspora and Terra Nova, the first two Furox books, establishes the characters, their background and motivations very well, and lays the foundations for what could be a very long epic. The first storyline is complete at the end of part 2, but it would be a shame if this would be all there is. So, dear publishers, get these rights and get translation (or give us a call).

Simon Spruyt: The Furox (2 books published by Bries)

Wim Lockefeer lives in Belgium where he ponders matters such as how big a catflap type opening he would need in his door should he persuade his wife they should adopt a dragon as a pet; you can read more of his work on his own Ephemerist blog.