Spirou Reporter

…That’s an… odd question.I’m not going to search through all albums for this. I can tell you, though, that in none of the Franquin albums Spirou is shirtless since even wearing short trousers (knee-length) was verboten and got censured, in the album Il y a un sorcier à Champignac. My guess would be that Spirou is only shirtless in a couple of Tome et Janry album, like Vito la Déveine.Why this question, though… Are you trying to make me fall asleep?

Ok. So Gil Coeur-Vaillant seens to be referencing Gil Jourdan (brilliant detective series by Maurice Tillieux) and the magazine “Coeurs Vaillants” (about which I know nothing except the title). Gil Jourdan is something like a film noir kind of detective, blunt, smart, wise-cracking, very 1950s.I guess in English the name could be a mashup of some famous detectives? A double-barrelled surname would be great and make him seem very distinguished… :-DIs it fun to scanlate so far?

For an English name, how about going off the classic American adventure/detective comics of the 1940s/50s? Stuff like Rip Kirby, Steve Canyon, Agent Phil Corrigan, Kerry Drake, Steve Roper, etc. Gil certainly feels like he could be an older version of one of those heroes. Rip Corrigan?

The Gaston Ball - An unlucky explorer

Gaston is given the odd name of ‘Cranky Franky’ in these and Fantasio is only referred to as ‘Boss’. These may be the only time Gaston has been officially published in English. Also enjoy some of the awful cheap colouring.

Gaston 363 (the spain one)

Cinebooks have said they would like to publish it, but there’s some problem with getting the rights.

Anyway… long live Tome & Janry!

Or were they already well known for other things?

Personally I think the first couple of pages of La voix sans maître were enough to prove that they were already better than Nic & Cauvin, and Virus is so superior to any of N&C’s albums that I think it would have been cruel to have them continue working in parallel.

Gaston 739 - His own small sanctuary