Juillard - Lot 66

Juillard ANDRÉ JUILLARD LES 7 VIES DE L'ÉPERVIER L'Arbre de mai (T.3), Glénat 1986 Original plate no. 35, prepublished in Vécu no. 12, February 1986. Signed. India ink and white gouache on paper 32.4 × 43.9 cm (12.76 × 17.28 in.) Having just promised Marie de Médicis a coronation and a solemn entry into the capital, the good King Henri is in a hurry to forget his good resolutions in the company of Germain Grandpin, a solid bamboozling companion. Henri IV, nicknamed "le Vert-Galant" (the Green Giant), was incognito at one of Paris's inns. Certainly not the most chic, but one of those where the ladies are not too shy and where you can drink as much wine as you like. And we laughed, and cheated, and drank, and drank some more, and had the time of our lives with no regard for etiquette. The two men find themselves in good company. Next to them are Gunther and Master Pitz, the two German mercenaries from Chemins de Malefosse, Circus's other major historical-adventure series. This series, created by Daniel Bardet and François Dermaut, began at the same time as Cothias and Juillard's Les 7 Vies de l'Épervier... A crossover that must have amused their authors! Another curiosity: in the last panel, we see a more scowling quidam, listening to what the partygoers have to say. Unknowingly, Vert-Galant has just crossed paths with his future assassin: François Ravaillac! A panel that some will consider historic. I have neither the ambition nor the pretension to be a scientist (any more than Alexandre Dumas): what I like about comics is that you can do anything. At least on a sufficiently solid basis to be credible and give a fairly reliable idea of what the period was like. A.J.