Spirou #496
Spirou #496, dated 16 October 1947, marks the opening installment of 'Le Savant fou' (also known as 'Radar le Robot') — the first wholly self-contained serial adventure André Franquin scripted and drew for the Spirou et Fantasio feature from its very first page. Coming just months after the magazine's 1 May 1947 renaming from Le Journal de Spirou to simply Spirou, the issue stands at the threshold of what critics have called the golden age of Belgian comics. Franquin's gradual evolution away from Jijé's inherited style into his own kinetic, expressive voice begins in earnest with this story, which foreshadows the mad-scientist and gadget-driven adventure plots that would define the series for two decades. The issue is therefore a foundational document of the Marcinelle school — the distinctly Belgian visual grammar that would influence Franco-Belgian comics artists from Peyo and Morris to Jean Giraud.
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By the time issue #496 appeared, André Franquin had been responsible for the Spirou et Fantasio strip since Spirou #427 (20 June 1946), when his mentor Joseph Gillain — known as Jijé — handed him the feature mid-story without briefing him on the plot. Jijé had formed the celebrated 'Gang of Four' studio alongside Franquin, Morris, and Will at his Waterloo atelier, laying the groundwork for the Marcinelle school aesthetic that would distinguish Spirou from its ligne-claire rival Tintin magazine. 'Le Savant fou', the story launched in #496, was Franquin's second full serial and directly continued the robot-themed threat established in the previous 'Radar le Robot' arc; it was later collected — alongside three other early Franquin tales — in the 1948 Dupuis hardcover album now regarded as the first major Franquin book, and reprinted again in the 1970s hors-série 'Radar le Robot' and in a 2009 limited-edition facsimile edition.
Trivia · 7 facts
- Published 16 October 1947 by Éditions Dupuis (Marcinelle, Belgium) as part of the newly renamed Spirou weekly (formerly Le Journal de Spirou until 1 May 1947).
- Issue #496 opens the serial 'Le Savant fou' (a.k.a. 'Radar le Robot'), written and drawn by André Franquin; the story ran from #496 through #521 across 26 pages.
- This is among Franquin's earliest fully original serials after taking over the Spirou et Fantasio feature from Jijé in mid-1946, and is set in his recognizable Brussels working-class milieu.
- Spirou (the bellhop-turned-reporter) and his established companion Fantasio — introduced by Jijé in 1944 — appear together; Spirou's pet squirrel Spip also features as a recurring character throughout this era.
- Fantasio had been introduced by Jijé in 1944 and was inherited by Franquin; by this issue their comedic journalist-adventurer dynamic was fully established but still evolving stylistically toward the Franquin ideal.
- The story was later reprinted in the 1948 Dupuis hardcover album collecting four early Franquin tales, then again in the 1970s Dupuis hors-série album 'Radar le Robot' (with new cover art and reformatted page layout), and once more in a limited-edition 2009 facsimile of the 1948 original.
- The issue appeared during what historians describe as the founding period of the Marcinelle school — the cartoony, expressive Belgian house style developed by Jijé's 'Gang of Four' (Franquin, Morris, Will, and Jijé) that defined Spirou's identity in contrast to the ligne-claire style of rival Tintin magazine.