EUROPEAN COMICS 187
this remarkable evolution, because after 1945 there was an even greater increase in
indigenous comics creations in various European countries and a decrease of imported
U.S. comics. In Eastern Europe, the Soviet domination of Comintern was in general
not very favorable to the development of comics—only in Tito’s Yugoslavia was the
situation slightly more favorable. Propaganda comics took a large part of the comics
markets with the Comintern. Until the 1970s, indigenous comics blossomed not only
in newspapers but also in specialized comics journals: Spirou and Tintin in Belgium;
Tom Poes Weekblad, Pep, and Tina in the Netherlands; Eagle and Girl in Great Britain;
Pilote in France; Fix und Foxi in West Germany; Mosaik in East Germany; and Plavi
vjesnik and Politikin zabavnik in Yugoslavia. Among the dominant types of European
stories (often inspired by American comic strips) was the adventure comic in a realistic
style: including We s t e r n s such as the Italian Tex Willer (1948), historical comics such
as the Spanish El Capitán Trueno (1956), science fi ction stories such as the British
Dan Dare (1950) or the Belgian Blake et Mortimer (1946). Famous artists in this vein
are Pellos, Marijac, Giff ey in France; Jijé and Jacobs in Belgium; Bellamy and Hampson
in Great Britain; Kresse in the Netherlands, Blasco in Spain; Caprioli, Canale, Galep,
and Molino in Italy; Coelho in Portugal; Maurović and Radulović in Yugoslavia; Ernő
Zórád in Hungary; and Grzegorz Rosiński in Poland.
Th e second popular type of comics was humorous adventure in a more caricature-
based style, including such series as Sjors en Sjimmie (Piët, 1938), Suske & Wiske
(Vandersteen, 1945), Lucky Luke (Morris, 1947), Pepito (Bottaro, 1951), and Astérix
(Goscinny & Uderzo, 1959), and Ty t u s, Romek i A’tomek (Chmielewski, 1957). A third
popular type was the animal comic; famous examples include Rupert (Tourtel, 1920),
Babar (de Brunhoff , 1931), To m P o e s (Toonder, 1941), La Bête est morte (Calvo, 1944).
After the 1945 liberation, the genre developed further with scores of new titles: Pif le
Chien (Arnal, 1948), Petzi (Rasmus Klump, Hansen, 1951), Fix und Foxi (Kauka & van
der Heide, 1952), Zvitorepec (Muster 1952), Chlorophylle (Macherot, 1953), Moomin
( Jansson, 1954), Bamse (Andréasson, 1973). Th e fourth popular type of comic at this
time was the gag comic: famous short gag series are Franquin’s Gaston Lagaff e (1957),
Roba’s Boule et Bill (1959), and Smythe’s Andy Capp (1957). Within each group, series
were specially destined for boys or girls—in the middle of the 20th century, several
girls’ comics magazines were popular, particularly in countries like Great Britain,
France, and Spain. Th ough some standardization (like a fi xed number of pages for a
particular publication format) set in, comics took various shapes: from big tabloids to
small pocket-size formats, from black and white printings on low quality paper to glossy
colorful publications (e.g., Eagle). While most comics were published in the upright
format (with vertical, or portrait, page orientation), in countries like the Netherlands,
Spain, Italy, and Poland the oblong format (or landscape format with horizontal page
orientation) was largely used.
Th e success of comics among children continued to worry educators, parents, and
politicians. Th ough the European comics of the 1950s were less horror-orientated
or violent compared to their American counterparts, in various European countries
