Episode 79: The Beatles and Asterix
The Beatles had a 12 month period in the mid-1960s where they released four studio albums.
Is there a similar comics version of that kind of productivity? Ok, sure, probably Jack Kirby with or without Stan Lee. But keeping with the theme of this podcast, who comes to mind?
Easy: Rene Goscinny and Albert Uderzo in the mid-1960s released 3 books in the same calendar year, and 5 in the span of two years.
In this podcast, I’ll run down the list for you.
In the podcast, I also mentioned and recommended Rick Beato’s YouTube channel if you’re looking for smart analysis of music on-line.
The Beatles Documentary, “Get Back,” is streaming on Disney Plus.
My reviews of the books from that fateful year:
Learning French: I’m using DuoLingo for learning French. I recently extended my stream past the 700 days mark. Je t’invite a la fete de mon anniversaire — en Mars!
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Interesting comparison. Of course, in European BD, having single or duets of creators on the long term is way more frequent, since they retain their rights, as opposed to the sweatshop revolving door/assembly line of comics production in the US. Way more spectacular in terms of production, Lambil & Cauvin on the Bluecoats, just to name one of so so many. But you’re right, as the Beatles dominated their field in the 60’s, so did Uderzo & Goscinny. I’m trying to remember if there is some kind of chart of the longest BD/comics series by the same creator(s). It must have been documented somewhere, isn’t it?
Morris drew 70 volumes of Lucky Luke, just a few more than Lambil & Cauvin’s 64 volumes of Les Tuniques Bleues, I’m guessing that’s gonna be hard to beat. Cauvin also has a 42 book run on Femmes En Blanc with Bercovici. The only other that I can think of is Seron with 44 volumes of Les Petits Hommes, and he’s not even that close by comparison.
Would be nice indeed to have some kind of reference for that stuff, I googled for a bit but couldn’t easily find much.
Oh there are plenty more examples of that, I believe Jean Graton produced more than 70 volumes of Michel Vaillant until his son took over, not to mention spinoff Julie Wood. Tif & Tondu, Ric Hochet, Léonard, Cubitus, Achille Talon, Just off the top of my head. On the Belgian side, Bob & Bobette had a pretty good run all by Willy Vandersteen, Buck Danny by Charlier & Hubinon…
Sure that’s nothing next to One Piece, but still…
Aaaaah, I should have known better than to match knowledge with a true fan of bédés, the top of your head knows a lot more than mine!
Doing some research now, Ric Hochet is at 78 with Tibet and Duchâteau… but Bob & Bobette has over 200 from Vandersteen! That’s pretty crazy!
Not sure it’s fair to compare bédés’s average 48 pages a year (if that much) to manga’s 15 (smaller and uncolored) pages a week haha!
In US comics Cerebus had 300 issues by Dave Sim, and the only one even coming close is Erik Larsen with Savage Dragon currently up to 250something, should catch up to him in about 4 years.
Definitely a fun discussion. There’s a lot of series I used to read as a kid that I didn’t even know were still going on, I never seem to notice them in stores here in Montreal.
I believe Todd McFarlane recently entered the Guinness book of records when Spawn reached #301 but it’s a bit of a cheat as the toddster was hardly involved in his own creation for a while. Then there’s Paul S. Newman who’s in a class of his own.
Actually, Morris drew 72 volumes of Lucky Luke if you include Kid Lucky from 1995 and Oklahoma Jim from 1997 that is.