EXTRACTS: Illustrators issue 24 © 2018 The Book Palace (96 PAGES in Full edition)

96 would be a brilliant idea to actually give a real lion cub to publisher Dupuis, and simultaneously be a great way to promote the series. As to how Larraz got hold of a lion cub, just proves that back in the day, anything was possible. However, the last thing publisher Dupuis was expecting was to receive a lion cub in his own office. Fortunately Spirou’s editor-in-chief Yvan Delporte came to the rescue and said that he would take the cub with him. Delporte was the typical beatnik of the day: sporting a beard before it became popular again, with a cigarette dangling from his lips, and wearing a raincoat at all times be it summer or winter. He was also one of the main writers in the magazine and an artist’s friend, much to the detriment of the publisher. While the lion incident served to replenish the editorial pages for many weeks, after a couple of months the lion cub grew too large to be held at Delporte’s home, so he finally gave him away to the local zoo, where they could take much better care of him. Obviously Larraz’s first intention never worked out, and the incident remained one of those in-house anecdotes that seemed too hard to believe but was exploited every way possible in the editorial pages, leading to further editorials about wild animals in the Spirou offices. Even Franquin, probably one of Belgium’s most popular comic artists (second to Hergé), decided to revive the incident in his popular series Gaston (known in English as Gomer Goof ). Since Gaston’s adventures all took place in the (fictional) offices of Spirou and among all the artists and personnel working there (all invented), we would see him for many weeks with the lion cub, later shuffling his feet with a cow following behind. An incident Franquin obtained from the previous (real) one with Larraz by exchanging the lion cub for a cow instead. ● Beware of what some creators believe is a great way for promoting their series. From The Inside: A Roaring Gift Artists are aware that to get some attention you need to create an event. See what Dali did to catch the attention of the public. In comic books it’s not much different and, once a genre becomes popular, everyone jumps on the bandwagon to do exactly the same. But there are certain authors who were larger than life, and one of those was Spaniard, José Ramón Larraz Gil. Larraz began doing comic strips for magazines such as El Coyote , but later moved to Belgium and worked for publisher Dupuis and the popular children’s comics magazine Spirou . Larraz was a Hemingway sort of character who had been big game hunting in Africa and was a womanizer (or at least claimed to be one, and lived under that premise). While in Belgium he ran into film director, Joseph Von Sternberg, who suggested he should try directing films. Through a connection with the Carreras family who were behind the Hammer films, Larraz moved to England and became a horror and exploitation filmmaker. But before all this he was working for Spirou drawing and writing different series. Spirou published mainly humorous strips, but in the 1960s had begun publishing some more realistic adventure series. One of those serieswas ‘Michael’ created by Larraz (who signed the strip as Dan Daubeney), telling the adventures of a young boy living in Africa with a pet lion cub as his companion. Larraz thought it Spirou was a bellhop and the magazine’s main character. Gaston was created by Franquin as an anti-hero working in the offices of Dupuis. BELOW: Editor Yvan Delporte paying for the food his lion cub devours. © Franquin - Spirou