par E10 le Sam 27 Oct - 16:58
Dear ‘Amis de Freddy’,
One of your friends kindly invited me to join in on your ‘Club Les Amis de Freddy’ , an Yves Chaland forum, which I appreciate very much.
However, my knowledge of your beautiful language unfortunately is very limited. So he offered me to propose to you to open an English edition of the chat room, which you all agreed upon.
I like to thank you all for your kindness; thus we can share our admiration I hope and add joy and or knowledge to all.
Due to my rather busy agenda (too many hobbies ;-), I will not be able to daily participate, may be even not on a weekly basis, however I will try to make as much time as possible to add to the discussions and information exchange - promise.
You might be interested to learn how come an aging Dutch guy is a fan of Yves Chaland ?
It happened way back in history, it must have been mid 1981, on a nice warm Sunday afternoon, when I found myself strolling the streets of Brussels.
Reading comic books since I was young, I stopped to look at a shop window of a comic book store, scanning for new editions. A beautiful designed cover caught my eye … ‘A book with a cover like that must be a great book’, flashed through my mind. Bad luck though, ….. the shop was closed and didn't open, not even when I looked very disturbed !
The cover drawing however was on my mind constantly until a few weeks later I was so lucky to be send to Brussels again for business. This was a too good opportunity to miss and I went as soon as my work let me (a bit sooner even) to find a comic bookshop. I discovered one at Rue Adolf Max/Lemmonier and went in with a very difficult question and my best French:
"I am looking for a book, from which I don't know the title, the editor nor the writer/cartoonist ( ! ) …. but I can describe the cover. The far left side is black with a small yellow thunder flash, the mid- and right part show a scene on rooftops in Brussels and a guy chasing a Moron, dressed in black and in the background a pin-up in distress, watching ...??...".
I never forget the young man looked at me and instantly said: "Do you mean this one ?" and he walks over to one side of his shop, covered by thousands of comic books, peals one out and shows me Bob Fish by Yves Chaland, edition: Les Humanoïdes Associés !
He added: "If you like that book so much you might consider to purchase Captivant", which I did, since a with guy that knows his comics so well one can be relied upon his judgment
This was the beginning of an everlasting admiration of the works of Yves Chaland.
The subject shop became my favorite one and was called..... Chick Bull, owned by the twin brothers Pasamonik, later also to become the editors of Magic Strip. I was thus stranded in the middle of an important Yves Chaland circle. You no doubt know how significant the twin brothers were for Yves Chaland: they were his 'Belgium connection', his Belgium ‘eyes and ears’.
It was the joint appreciation of me and of Yves Chaland, the designer of that cover, for Jijé, Franquin and Tillieux that had triggered me that Sunday afternoon ....