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Frank Pé’s one-shot La Lumière de Bornéo (“The Light from Borneo”) has just come out, so it seemed like the right time to feature his first real Spirou comic, this somewhat enigmatic two-pager from 2013. It has quite a bit in common with his album…
The story, La Vieux chemin (“The Old Country Lane”), comes from the 75th anniversary issue of the Journal de Spirou, #3914. In a short intro, Frank writes: “The old country lane that opens Le Repaire de la murène (Spirou & Fantasio #9, “The Lair of the Moray”) was the first background by Franquin that really made a deep impression on me, at 10 years old. It gave me a taste for stories set in the countryside, which led to Broussaille. And Brousaille gave me the opportunity to draw these two pages. Nice symmetry! But it has nothing to do with the one-shot that I’m working on at the moment.”
If you are confused by the story, it might help at least a little to point out that the procession at the end of the first page is from the painting The Blind Leading the Blind by Pieter Bruegel the Elder.
This story was previously translated by Miriam based on scans from InediSpirou, and I’ve borrowed a couple of lines from that translation. Thanks!
Regarding the translation: In French, the town of Champignac is located in the region “Cambrousse”, which means “middle of nowhere”. I’ve translated it here by “Shroomshire” (in imitation of Shropshire), since I couldn’t come up with a good direct translation.
Incidentally, the full name [i]Champignac-en-Cambrousse[/i] seems to have been introduced for the first time on the page that inspires this story: the opening page of “Lair of the Moray”.
As for how to interpret the story, it has baffled many, but there is some discussion [url=http://www.bdgest.com/forum/le-spirou-de-frank-et-zidrou-dupuis-t59709-100.html#p3639276]here[/url] (in French).
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