Berlin: Move Over, Marvel! 10 Euro Comics That Are Ripe for Adaptation

Ernesto Lechner
·7 min read

Historically, the relationship between Hollywood and European comic books has been fraught with mutual distrust and cultural dissonance. Not to disparage Steven Spielberg — one of our national treasures — but his 2011 adaptation of The Adventures of Tintin was a bit of a disaster. And when La Femme Nikita director Luc Besson fulfilled a childhood fantasy in 2017 by bankrolling Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets out of his own pocket, the most expensive independent movie ever made landed with the thud of a global box office bomb.

But there’s hope on the horizon. European comic books — specifically, the Franco-Belgian school spearheaded by the Tintin character and his creator Hergé — are both a multimillion Euro industry and a sumptuous art form with dozens of successful franchises waiting to be developed. N

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ow that the offerings of Marvel and DC are beginning to feel a tad fatigued, to say the least, this may be the perfect moment for Hollywood to mine this treasure trove of fresh stories and memorable characters.

Here are 10 candidates:

Blake and Mortimer — Belgium

Captain Blake is an officer in the British army. Professor Mortimer is a physicist with a notorious talent for getting involved in international intrigues that at times veer into science fiction. Their adventures take place mostly during the ’40s and ’50s, close in spirit to the Tintin canon — which makes sense, since their creator, Belgian artist Edgar P. Jacobs, collaborated with Hergé before branching out on his own. The Blake and Mortimer franchise boasts panoramic vistas straight out of a David Lean epic and densely layered dialogue. Originally published in 1950, the two-volume set The Mystery of the Great Pyramid is a majestic archaeological yarn involving lost treasures, hieroglyphics and nefarious villains. Following Jacobs’ death in 1987, a number of notable writers and illustrators have kept the heroes alive with new installments.

Alix — France/Belgium

Not only did Hergé single-handedly create the 23 Tintin books, but he also founded a comics journal in 1946 — Le Journal Tintin — where friends and collaborators contributed a weekly page of an ongoing story each. One of them was Jacques Martin, an incredibly prolific writer and illustrator whose greatest creation was Alix, about a young wandering hero in the late Roman empire. Protected by Julius Caesar and persecuted by Pompeii, Alix and his allies travel throughout the Mediterranean, Africa and beyond. Following the precise, meticulously documented style of Hergé (known in French as “ligne claire” — “the clear line”), the Alix books boast drawings with a rich palette of primary colors and lighting effects. Martin created 20 volumes on his own, but the series continued after his death in 2010, generating the spinoff franchise Alix, Senator.

Lucky Luke — Belgium

After Hergé, the most transcendent creator in French-language comics was scriptwriter René Goscinny, whose three main series — Asterix, Lucky Luke and Iznogoud — have sold millions of copies. Enriched by the agile, near-cartoonish drawings of Morris, Lucky Luke is a comedic Western in the vein of Destry Rides Again and El Dorado, with the occasional splash of Sergio Leone’s spaghetti mystique. The franchise remains alive, but the best books came out between 1957 and 1977, when Goscinny wrote the stories, peppering them with his witty dialogue. A laconic, good-natured — and very lonesome — cowboy with exceptional gun skills, Luke rides the prairies of the Old West with his horse Jolly Jumper, encountering such real-life characters as Billy the Kid, Calamity Jane and the Dalton Brothers, portrayed here as four criminal nitwits who are always finding new ways to get out of jail.

Iznogoud — France

In Ancient Baghdad, its good-natured but idiotic caliph has no idea that his Machiavellian Grand Vizier Iznogoud spends his days scheming the perfect murder in order to usurp the throne. Sadly for Iznogoud, his diabolical attempts are destined to fail. The setup may seem pedestrian, but in the hands of writer Goscinny and the rough, expressive drawings of Jean Tabary, the gimmick becomes a loopy existential labyrinth with surreal touches that appear to have sprouted from a Jorge Luis Borges short story. Goscinny’s mockery of every Arabian Nights trope imaginable is hilarious — but his examination of destiny and its designs makes for some profound contrast.

Corto Maltese — Italy

Why the character of Corto Maltese hasn’t been turned into a lavish film franchise in the U.S. remains a mystery. A six-episode series with Frank Miller writing and executive producing was announced in late 2022, but it remains to be seen if the team can get the elusive charm of its hero right. Think of Corto as a soft-spoken, perpetually nostalgic version of Indiana Jones, whose adventures take him from the Caribbean and Siberia to Venice and the Greek islands between 1905 and 1925. Corto was the fictional alter ego of its creator, Italian artist and globe wanderer Hugo Pratt, whose elegant drawings and watercolor work are dreamy and evocative. So unforgettable are the female characters in Corto — brilliant, defiant, stubbornly independent — that they inspired an entire book devoted to them, The Women of Corto Maltese.

India Dreams — France

Maryse and Jean-François Charles make for a formidable and criminally underrated team. She writes the scripts, and her husband takes care of the art in a widely encompassing series of historical adventures that wander from Congo and Egypt to China and the U.S. India Dreams is their best effort — a story about the clash between India and British colonizers during the Raj that evokes David Lean’s Passage to India and the classic British miniseries The Jewel in the Crown. With its delicate erotic scenes, pervasive feeling of menace and occasional outbursts of violence — every single frame here is an exquisite tableau — this would make for a perfect Netflix series.

Torpedo 1936 — Spain

Veteran American artist Alex Toth participated in the first steps of this radical series by Spanish scriptwriter Enrique Sánchez Abulí. Toth was allegedly put off by the story’s profanity and darkly hued cosmovision, and refused to continue. His replacement, Jordi Bernet, enhanced the Torpedo aesthetic with stark black-and-white images and noirish shadows-and-light texture. Torpedo is a sociopathic Sicilian mobster who plies his trade in Depression-era New York, aided by his hapless sidekick Rascal. Abulí’s short stories — at times, they function almost like comedic vignettes — make up a despondent mosaic of aimless violence, over-the-top sexuality and gleeful political incorrectness. Their filthy dialogue, bleak plot twists and reckless amorality are all wrong in every possibly way, which makes Torpedo addictive entertainment in a train wreck kind of way.

Amours Fragiles — France/Belgium

The Franco-Belgian comic book format is well suited for sprawling atmospheric sagas that span decades. One of the best is the nine-volume series Amours Fragiles, written by Philippe Richelle with art by Jean-Michel Beuriot, which debuted in 2001 and concluded last September. It begins in 1932, when Martin Mahner, a hypersensitive and painfully shy college student and German citizen, gets swept away by World War II turmoil and falls in love with a Jewish girl. Even though the suspense is there, this incredibly sophisticated tour de force focuses mostly on observing its characters from a distance, as well as the pivotal events that bring change and trauma to their lives. This one’s ready-made for a Max adaptation.

Les 4 As — Belgium

There are shades of Scooby-Doo in this endearing series about the adventures of four friends in 1960s and ‘70s France: Lastic, the athletic team leader; Dina, cosmopolitan but ever-so-easily frightened; Doc, a bookish nerd obsessed with quoting maxims in Latin; Bouffi, a gourmet cook and bon vivant; and their dog, Oscar. More than 40 books were published, but the first 10 are superior, with plots involving a sea serpent at a summer resort, a haunted mansion, and a trip to India. This down-to-earth series gains points for its cozy imagery and bubbly character interaction.

Tintin — Belgium

Tintin is to European comics what The Beatles were to pop: the foundational soul around which everything else revolves. This means that the Tintin franchise — legendary for its combination of nonstop action, mystery, quirky characters and buoyant sense of humor — is officially ready for a major reboot. Somebody should finally realize that computer animation is simply not the right medium to capture Tintin’s rich visual zeitgeist (both Tintin and sidekick Captain Haddock look slightly creepy in the 2011 version.) A vast visual canvass and maximalist POV is required if one is to capture the Tintin books in all their opulent glory. Perhaps the most unusual entry in the series, The Castafiore Emerald — a sprightly, witty mystery set in the Belgian countryside of the ’60s — could, in the right hands, become a spectacular film.

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