The first pictures comes from his apparition in the weekly magazine “Spirou”. It was a running gag of him wandering in the offices of the editor and leading to strange behaviours in the magazine. His name was “Gaston, the hero without a job”.
Then he appeared in some of the albums of Spirou as a side character (only twice if I remember well). At the same time, small albums with one page comics were released. These album had a strange format (half the size of an album). My father said that booksellers were confused at first and offered these books when you bought other albums. He has these small albums. Fantasio was the nemesis of Gaston. And it was a side job for Franquin ; his first job was Spirou.
At least, Franquin stopped to draw the Spirou albums to draw Gaston only. The name change to “Gaston Lagaffe”. Prunelle is the new nemesis, replacing Fantasio. It’s only one page comics.
There are three or four eras of Gaston.
The first pictures comes from his apparition in the weekly magazine “Spirou”. It was a running gag of him wandering in the offices of the editor and leading to strange behaviours in the magazine. His name was “Gaston, the hero without a job”.
Then he appeared in some of the albums of Spirou as a side character (only twice if I remember well). At the same time, small albums with one page comics were released. These album had a strange format (half the size of an album). My father said that booksellers were confused at first and offered these books when you bought other albums. He has these small albums. Fantasio was the nemesis of Gaston. And it was a side job for Franquin ; his first job was Spirou.
At least, Franquin stopped to draw the Spirou albums to draw Gaston only. The name change to “Gaston Lagaffe”. Prunelle is the new nemesis, replacing Fantasio. It’s only one page comics.
Thanks for explaining!
You know, this post makes a nice companion to my earlier Evolution of Spirou post: https://lemm.ee/post/7758076