Le Petit Spirou is a popular Belgiancomic strip created by Tome and Janry in 1987. The series developed from La jeunesse de Spirou, a Spirou et Fantasioalbum in which Tome and Janry set to imagine Spirou's youth. It was developed into a spin-off series shortly afterwards and the authors have focused on it ever since the controversy created after their final Spirou et Fantasio album, Machine qui rêve. New albums are among the bestselling French-language comics, with 330,000 copies for the latest one. In addition to continuing to develop the character in the spirit of previous Spirou et Fantasio author Franquin, in this series Tome and Janry paid homage to Franquin's manner of animating the gag's signature.
Synopsis
This series details the antics of the character as an elementary schoolboy. A lot of the gags center around the character's interest in the opposite sex, most notably he and his pals coming up with ways of spying on the girls' showers and dressing room. Other topics concern religion and the contradictions and absurdities of the adult world. It is generally acknowledged that, psychologically speaking, the character in Le Petit Spirou has little in common with the clean-cut adult he will become.
Characters
In La Jeunesse de Spirou, regular characters such as Fantasio, Spip the squirrel and their enemy Zantafio also featured as children. However, when the actual P'tit Spirou series came about it was decided to leave them out and to create new characters, given that, in the original series, Spirou had not met them until adulthood.
Nicolas Ponchelot - Spirou's second best friend, with a good appetite and a few extra pounds.
Cyprien Futu "Cassius" - Another friend of Spirou, of African origins. The son of the school's cook. His nickname is a reference to Cassius Clay as he is very good at boxing.
Jean-Henri Masseur - Another friend, big but not very intelligent. In French "Masseur" sounds like "ma soeur", "My sister". This allows Suzette to trade photos of the naked Masseur for treats, as people understand "Je te donnerai une photo de Masseur nue" as "Je te donnerai une photo de ma sœur nue" "I'll give you a nude photo of my sister".
André-Baptiste Depérinconu - The secret son of the abbot? In any case, he copies him in everything. Word play on French "de père inconnu", "of unknown father".
Marine from "My Treasure Island"
The adults
Mr. Mégot - The gym teacher, always trying to organize original sporting events that always end in disaster. Drinks and smokes a lot. "Mégot" is French for a cigarette butt.
Abbot Langelusse - He always has ideas to pray God's glory and save the souls of his flock, which usually also end in disaster. A word play on angelus.
Miss Claudia Chiffre - The math teacher. "Chiffre" is French for digit and an obvious play on the name Claudia Schiffer.
Melchior Dugenou - A timid teacher with big glasses and the boyfriend of Miss Chiffre, which nobody understands why. He is a good head shorter than his girlfriend, Miss Chiffre.
Pépé Spirou - Spirou's grandfather and his favourite adult. At his age, he is not much wiser than his grandson. He also wears the family's trademark red outfit.
Mrs. Gourmandine - Pépé's girlfriend.
Mrs. Spirou - Spirou's mother, dressed in a female version of her son's red outfit.
Mr. Spirou - Spirou's father, dressed in the standard bellboy outfit. He appears seldom in the series and his face is never seen. Tome claims that this was because he would have looked too much like the adult Spirou. Tome also claims that he did not know his own father well and that he lacked "emotional documentation on the subject".
Albums
Like the main series, these albums are published by Dupuis.
