S.K. Collection - Lot 24

S.K. Collection ALBERT UDERZO JEHAN PISTOLET Jehan Pistolet and the spy (T.3), Albert René 1999 Original plate no. 118 (from the start of the series), prepublished in La Libre Junior n° 39, September 30, 1954. Indian ink and white gouache on paper 41.2 × 52 cm (16.22 × 20.47 in.) The Jehan Pistolet series is a landmark in the careers of Albert Uderzo and René Goscinny. It was produced by Georges Troisfontaines' World Press and distributed by his brother-in-law Yvan Chéron of International Presse, who affixed his copyright at the bottom of the last panel. The dream was to create a press agency that would provide content for the country's leading publications in France and Belgium. A young lawyer, Jean-Michel Charlier, assisted Troisfontaines in the editorial management of the agency. When the young and talented Albert Uderzo came along, it was Charlier who wrote the scenarios, notably for the adventures of Chevalier Belloy. But Charlier was not at ease with humor, and when a young weirdo by the name of René Goscinny showed up ("Is he Italian?" asked Uderzo, "not a Frenchman of Polish origin"), the symbiosis was immediate. Jehan Pistolet was their first collaboration, created in 1952 for La Libre Junior, a supplement supplied by Chéron to the Belgian Catholic daily La Libre Belgique. This humorous adventure series, recounting the exploits of a young French privateer in the 18th century, was a veritable laboratory for the great series to come, Oumpah-Pah and Asterix. We already recognize a village under siege (sound familiar?), as well as Goscinny himself and the German and Spanish attackers, already perfectly caricatured.