André Franquin, Modeste et Pompon, Tout plein de gags, 1973, Pages de garde de l'album

In 1973, several pages which failed to be published in the first two Lombard linen albums at the end of the 1950s appeared in Tout plein de Gags (Plenty of Gags).Following a contractual dispute with his publisher Dupuis, and somewhat on a whim, André Franquin had switched allegiance in 1955. Three months after leaving Dupuis, he signed a new con-tract with Raymond Leblanc and Journal Tintin ? which was how he came to be creating this new series based on a single-page weekly gag.These front pages, where all the characters of his fictional fam-ily are to be found (including the baby inspired by the birth of the artist?s own daughter, Isabelle), appear exactly as the great Franquin had been dreaming them up since 1950 and his album Quatre Aventures de Spirou et Fantasio (Four Adventures of Spirou and Fantasio).That much is clear from the excellent Chronologie d?une ?uvre by J. L. Bosquet and E. Verhoest, published by Dupuis. Flick through this and you will note the consistency of these pages where the characters and the story are systematically developed against a coloured ground. Created in 1973, Franquin?s pages thus dovetail beautifully between the pages of the Gaston albums for Le Géant de la Gaffe (1972) and Gaffes, Bévures et Boulette (1973).