Spirou and Fantasio sketches (adapted from ill. Pierre "Pica" Tranchand; image from pierretranchand02.businesscatalyst.com)

It Could Have Been Official: Tranchand & Corteggiani

by Spirou Reporter14 July, 201615 July, 2016

Lots of people have worked on Spirou & Fantasio over the years, but many more have wanted to. During Nic & Cauvin’s troubled run in the early eighties, for example, several other creators were in talks with Dupuis before Tome & Janry took over definitely.

One of these pitches was from the team of François Corteggiani and Pierre “Pica” Tranchand.

Then relatively unknown, they’ve since had successful careers, with Corteggiani writing a wide range of titles, from Disney comics to La Jeunesse de Blueberry, and Tranchand more recently winning acclaim for Les Profs (“Teachers”, currently being published in Danish as Anstalten, or “The Institution”). Their collaborations include Marine, Smith & Wesson and L’École Abracadabra.

Here are some character studies Tranchand made for their proposal (higher resolution, but slightly cropped and blurry, versions available here):

Corteggiani writes:

Towards the end of the Raoul Cauvin / Nic Broca period, Pierre Tranchard and I (heedless of our youth) offered our services to take over the bellhop. The only answer we received from Dupuis Publishing at the time was to inform us that unfortunately we did not qualify for this honor because we were not Belgian. We still laugh about it, and fortunately this has, in some cases, changed nowadays. I’ve found these sketches by Pierre which I for one find splendid – I consider him a great artist. Some would say that I am biased… and they are right!