And again as promised:
The Adventures of Nero & Co #74: The A-ray
Or in its original language:
De A-straal (1981)
Unlike Blake and Mortimer, this issue was chosen completely at random. It's not a classic like the Yellow Sign, it's just one of the 30-something Nero-issues I have.
About the author: Created by Marc Sleen (born Marc Neels).
Things you need to know about Mr. Sleen:
- He was born in 1922 and is still alive today, so he's probably in the running for oldest living comicbook creator (Looking it up: he's not the oldest, Pom, another Belgian comic artist probably is. He was born in 1919).
- He is originally a caricaturist rather than a comic book artist. A talent he would often use over the years in his comics as well.
- He's in the Guinness Book of Records for singlehandedly drawing Nero from 1946 till 1992 (Nero appeared as a comic in newspapers: every day 2 "strips" of comics, so about 5-6 panels daily for 46 years). No assistants (like was usual for big artists over here), no inkers, no scenarists.. just Sleen by himself. In 1992, age 70, he took a penciller, Dirk Stallaert, while he kept writing till 2002. The idea was that Dirk would take over the series, but in the end Dirk declined. (Can't blame him, those are awfully big shoes to fill). So Nero retired together with his creator, finished after 163 issues (and a couple of specials).
- When Sleen switched newspapers for publishing his Nero&Co in the 60s, thousands of subscriptions moved with him. Sleen did some other comics till the mid 60s, but from then on focused solely on Nero.
Sleen is a legend in Belgium. To illustrate the relationship between Belgians and comics: in early 2000s, most countries had one network or another do a Top 100 Greatest Countryman poll; the UK had Winston Churchill win, the US had Ronald Reagan win. The Netherlands had William of Orange as its victor... and the Belgians (or at least the Flemish; they had 2 different polls because the dutch-speaking and the french-speaking parts couldn't agree on a list of nominees) had ... Father Damien. (Do you really think that a comicbook artist will win from a guy that spend his life caring for people with leprosy?) But more to the point (which I'm terrible at making here): their top 100 had 3 comic book artists on it (Herge at 24, Willy Vandersteen at 29 and Marc Sleen at 48). The french-speaking Belgians even had 5 and Herge in the top 10 at number 8. Others were Franquin (18), Peyo (33), Morris (79) and Edgar P. Jacobs at 98. (and on rereading I notice Roba at 100, so that makes 6... and I may have missed others.) Can you tell me of any other country that threats comic writers and artists with that much respect? There are statues of Sleen's characters and there is a museum dedicated to him in Brussels (as Chris knows, cause he's been there and this is the reason why I decided to do a bit on Nero&Co).
So why haven't you heard of Sleen before, unlike several others I mentioned above? Because Sleen's work is as good as untranslateable as it gets. Again I go back to my conversation with Chris on this (yes, I can still remember this after the beers we had) where I told that Marten Toonder's work would be meaningless to anybody not dutch, because his comics influenced the dutch language in many ways, introducing many words and ideas and without that you lose so much. You can translate Shakespeare into other languages, and you'd get the basic plot (which is still very impressive), but miss so much subtle jokes and clever bits. Sleen's work is similar but different: you need to be Flemish to get the feeling of the comic, its jokes, its rhythm.
So basically this whole bit is meaningless?
Nope, there still is enough here to talk about:
About the series: Originally started as the adventures of Detective van Zwam, the series introduced a madman in its first issue who thought he was the Roman Emperor Nero. Even though he's cured in the first issue, he retains the name of Nero (and keeps wearing his oak leaf crown.. or at least two small leaves behind each ear.) By issue 3 Van Zwam has become a minor character and Nero has taken over. By issue 9, the series is retitled to the adventures of Nero&Co and Van Zwam is a supporting character who doesn't even appear in all issues. (In the series itself Van Zwam and Nero will joke and argue over this as I will note below as well). The plots start without explanation, are usually absurd and anarchistic and most of the time not important at all.
There are downsides: as a series starting in the 40s and drawn by a caricaturist, early issues are ... racially problematic to say the least. (Later issues tend to be weird on this point, as one of Nero's friends, a little black boy called Petatje is drawn normally, but minor characters will look stereotypical again)
On the upside: Sleen's women are unique. One of the major female characters is Madame Pheip (shown below), married to Mr. Pheip (the man caught in her smoke). Madame Pheip is shown to be decisive, forceful and in fights nearly unstoppable as long as she can smoke her pipe. Definitely not a damsel in distress and her look is definitely not the standard female comic book character. Nero's wife is also a middle-aged woman, slightly robust though not as much of a ... ahem... presence as Mrs. Pheip. The Pheips relationship with Nero's family is also depended on knowing Belgian culture: Mr. Pheip is rich and french speaking, Nero is relatively poor and Flemish speaking.
The cast of Nero is very large and characters move in and out of stories. On the back of most issues, Sleen has drawn lots of faces of different characters, having about 30 issues of the ~160 issues produced, a know most of these characters, but certainly not all of them. You have Nero, his wife, his genius son Adhemar, the Pheips, their rather-less genius son, their foster kids Petoetje and Petatje, Detective van Zwam, a crazy pirate, a superstrong french fries salesman, the captain of a steamboot and many many others.
And most stories end with waffles:
The story:So the A-ray or A-beam or whatever you want to call it. All Nero's start with a Title-panel they used to anounce the new story in the newspaper. This story starts with a joke: the title image says "The Magic Flute", has Nero on a tropical island surrounded by topless women and Madame Pheip taking the kids away, noting that "This is no story for kids." The next image is the actual title sequence, this time with the right title and the kids driving the adults away, telling them that *this* won't be a story for adults. (A small panel notes that yesterday's title sequence generated 703 complaints that protested against any form of sex in comics. They also received 704 letters that were elated by the show of feminine force.)
Anyway the story itself: The economic crisis (wait, when was this written?) has hit Nero hard: he will have to find a job. He wants to borrow money from Pheip, but Pheip offers him a job as his butler instead. Nero lasts about a page before being fired and looks up his genius son who has created the A-ray. A beam that will make any person hit incredibly generous, giving away all his possessions gladly and without hesitation. Nero tries to ray on the Pheips, who give him all their money, but their son Clo-Clo uses the beam on Nero again and gets the money back. Clo-Clo then tries to use the beam on an icecream salesman, but he runs off with the beam himself (after dumping Clo-Clo in his icecream car.)
What follows is a race to get both the A-beam and its design. Polo, the icecream salesman tries to sell his invention to the ministry of finance (because he wants to become rich in an honest way.. Appearantly forgetting that he stole the beam from a kid). Nero and van Zwam try to track him down (after a bit of argument about who's in charge. Nero does mention that this is issue 128, so my count of 163 issues may be completely off. Probably because the series got renumbered when it was coloured.) and the Italian mob try to get the invention by violence. There is some 4th wall busting as Clo-Clo is the only one to know where Polo has disappeared to (he knows, because he's read the newspaper where Nero&Co appears in and saw Polo's plan) and in the end the Ministery of Finance ends up with the formula, but Adhemar is not worried, noting that the minister (drawn as the actual minister of finance at the time, Willy De Clercq) is a sensible man who won't abuse the invention. A faith in government rarely seen in comics.
But unlike most Nero comics:
NO WAFFLES! (Instead icecream as Polo apologizes to Nero&co for his actions.) John Oliver would be disappointed: Belgians without waffles?
