Boule and Bill: eternal laughter

Nearly two thousand gags and the source does not dry up. Boule et Bill's new album, Te fait pas d'Bill, is like the previous 43. Jean Roba's successors have remained faithful to the spirit and universe of the master. Bill always gets into mischief and Boule always finds a way to get through his own, especially when it's time for Dad to sign the school report! Bill's ears allowing him to play ball, or the problem of a doghouse in which he refuses to sleep are discoveries added to all those of a series which is more than sixty years old and does not make them. The source of the jokes is clearly not exhausted for the happiness of the oldest, but also of new generations who will discover, by reading the daily life of this family, a world where life was good.

Jean Roba has always loved dogs, and in particular cocker spaniels. This is how, quite naturally, he chose to draw one when the editor-in-chief of Spirou asked him to create a short story for one of the mini-stories, to be cut out, then stapled, traditionally placed in the center of the weekly. This is how he imagines a duo resembling Philippe, his 7-year-old son, whom he nicknames Boule, and his cocker spaniel, called Bill. In the days following the publication of Boule contre les mini-sharks, young readers showed their enthusiasm. It was then decided that the adventures of Boule and Bill would continue, in the magazine, at the rate of one page per week.

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At the age of 30, Jean Roba became one of the pillars of a newspaper where he joined in 1957, after training in a decorative arts school in Brussels and his first professional experience as an illustrator, then head of a studio. creation in an advertising agency. Franquin, who noticed his trait, had him hired to collaborate on the sets of three adventures of Spirou et Fantasio, Spirou et les Hommes-bulles, Tembo Tabou and Les Petits Formats. Three years later, at the time of creating his own series, Jean Roba cherishes the hope of keeping it alive for a year, perhaps more. He does not know that he has just started a marathon which will continue for more than 1000 weeks. From the start, he established a rule from which he would never deviate. In a world whose excesses do not fail to worry him, he decides to play the counterbalance card in his own way by writing and drawing exclusively simple, even naive stories, whose images would resemble these photo albums, where We classify memories of happy moments. Allergic to everything that relates to everyday realities, and in particular to administrative contingencies, he thus takes refuge in a childhood world that he would have dreamed of never leaving.

To offer these moments of smile, it will sometimes be difficult. He quickly realizes how difficult it is to keep up with the weekly gag. You have to find the most original idea possible each time. To achieve this, it is necessary to look and listen to others, and not just those close to you. The stupid things that a dog never fails to do on a daily basis, such as stealing a leg of lamb, for example, can make you smile once, but not twice. In his mind, no gag should be like the last! A constant observer of the world around him, he returns one evening, very angry, from a day at the beach and immediately rushes to his drawing board. This is how a page is born where, at the edge of the ocean, Boule and Bill discover marine fauna fleeing a sea that has turned black. At a time when pollution was not a topical issue, he became, without knowing it, a pioneer of ecology. Finally, having learned from Franquin the absolute requirement for the smallest detail, he systematically takes the time to add an unusual touch to a piece of clothing or behavior, which the reader will not necessarily notice on first reading.

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Suffering from polyarthritis, he put down his pencil for good in 2003 and passed the torch to Laurent Verron, one of his most loyal assistants. Today, it is the turn of Christophe Cazenove and Jean Bastide to take over. With the 44th album, Don't worry about Bill, we don't worry about it either. The authors remained faithful to the master's paw, but also to that of his dog.

Don't worry about Bill, Christophe Cazenove and Jean Bastide based on Roba, Dargaud, 48 pages, 11.95 euros.

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