You see, for me it all began on a visit from Dalborn to Lemgo
(both in Lippe, Germany). I was looking around the hypermarket there and
saw some comic albums and a few comics.
This was still the day of Bastei before Egmont bought them out and
really screwed up things. There were a few of the ghost comics
Spuk Geschichten and
Geister Geschichten. Grabbed those. Then, behind a copy of an Ehapa
Batman And The Outsiders I spotted a bit of purple coloured costume. There were two issues so I pulled them out.
Mikros. And the back-up strip -
Photonik. I had seen neither before but suddenly I was hooked!
I read and re-read the comics and I even wondered whether the comic shop in Lemgo might have copies. However, the shop had
really odd opening hours so I never go to find out.
Firstly,Cool French Comics on Mikros:
“Created & Written by: Malcolm Naughton (pseudonym of Marcel Navarro) (1919- )
Artist: John Milton (pseudonym of Jean-Yves Mitton) (1945- )
Mikros features three Harvard entomologists and Olympic athletes,
Mike Ross (Mikros), Priscilla Conway (Saltarella) and Bobby Crabb
(Crabb), who are unwillingly mutated into insect-sized humanoids by the
alien insectoid race called the Svizz. The Svizz plan to use armies of
insect-sized slaves to conquer Earth, but Mikros and his friends
defeat their plans and overthrow their ruler, Super-Termitor. Later
in the series, the heroic trio is forced to move to France, where they
encounrer their arch-eneny, Raoul de Roquemaure, Count of Monsegur,
a.k.a. Psi, who turns Saltarella into her queen.
Mikros was the creation of Marcel Navarro, Publisher-Editor of
Editions Lug, who later entrusted the character to writer-artist
Jean-Yves Mitton, with whom he had previously collaborated on a Silver
Surfer story. Sixteen episodes of Mikros were originally serialized in
“Mustang”.
FOR MORE BACKGROUND INFORMATION ABOUT “MUSTANG”, .
After “Mustang”‘s cancellation in 1981, the series was continued in
“Titans”, which also published French versions of “Star Wars”,
“Dazzler”, “Iron Fist”, “New Mutants”, etc. At Mitton’s behest, the
series, which had originally taken place in the United States, moved to
Southern Europe, in particular Venice (“Titans” ep. 1) and France
(“Titans” ep. 7). Mitton also introduced the heroes’ arch-nemesis, a
power-mad mentalist named Psi.
Mitton eventually gave a sequel to the saga of Mikros in Epsilon
(a.k.a. Moi, Epsilon, 15 Ans, Fils du Néant) [I, Epsilon, 15-Years Old,
Son Of No One], which also featured the return of the nefarious Psi.
Mikros was recently reprinted Editions Sang d’Encre. Two volumes have been published so far.”
Rather than meander through this myself,I’ve lifted further information from the above excellent Cool French Comics site.
“After the success of the Marvel Comics translations launched by Editions
Lug in 1969, Publisher-Editor Marcel
Navarro decided to create his own brand of French super-powered characters. The first of these was
Wampus (1969).
Then, in 1972,
Lug launched the magazine “
Futura“, which featured several characters such as
Jaleb the Telepath,
Homicron,
The Time Brigade,
The Other,
Larry Cannon,
Jeff Sullivan, etc. and ran for 33 issues until 1975. “
Futura” was followed by the short-lived “
Waki” (1974), about a prehistoric hero whose colorful adventures took place in a post-cataclysmic world, “
Kabur” (1975), about a mythical warrior hero and
Lug‘s answer to Marvel’s
Conan, and finally “
Mustang” (Series II) in 1980.
While the above series had all been worthy efforts, none had met with the success
Navarro had been hoping for. Certainly, none rivaled the success of the Marvel material.
Navarro
then decided to call on writer-artists with a better understanding
of the super-hero genre, and try them in a new magazine and a new
format.
That magazine was originally going to be entitled
“Sup’Heros” but, for business reasons, at the last minute,
Navarro decided instead to revamp one of
Lug‘s existing western magazine “
Mustang“. With No. 54, “
Mustang” therefore became a full-fledged super-hero comic.
Unfortunately, the new “
Mustang” was not
profitable enough -– at least compared to the relatively inexpensive
purchase of American material -– and was cancelled with issue 70 in
1981. Nevertheless, it had revealed two new, native stars to the
French readers: Cyrus
Tota with
Photonik, and Jean-Yves
Mitton with
Mikros.
Seventeen episodes of
Photonik were originally serialized in “
Mustang“. (The last one was produced by
Mitton.) After “
Mustang“‘s cancellation,
Photonik returned in the Marvel-based magazine “
Spidey“, starting with No. 22 in 1982. In 1987, four episodes were again written and drawn by Mitton.
In 1999, “
Spidey” eps. 21-24 and 25-28 were reprinted in two hardcover editions by publisher
Delcourt.”
For far more info on stories/issues check out:
http://www.coolfrenchcomics.com/photonik.htm
Mitton’s Mykros is superb and I feel are long overdue a translation into English.
According to Lambiek:
“Jean-Yves was born in Toulouse and studied Fine Arts in Lyon. After
completing his studies, he found employment in the retouching studio of
Lug publishers. Here, he discovered American and Italian comics. His
first series, ‘Sammy Sam’, was published from 1965 in magazine Pim, Pam,
Poum, Pipo. For this series, he took on the penname Jym. Next, he took
over the series ‘Pugacioff’ from the Italian artist Giorgio Rebuffi in
Maxi Pipo, which was later illustrated by Amouriq and Yves Chantereau.
He also created the little indian ‘Plume’.
With scenario writer Navarro, he made series like ‘Oum le Dauphin’,
based on the television series, and ‘Blek le Roc’ (‘Il Grande Blek’).
For this last series, he changed from a humorous to a realistic style.
He was additionally a productive cover artist for the Lug publications.
Under the pseudonym John Milton, he worked for Nova, where he made
several comics with superheroes like ‘The Silver Surfer’, ‘The Fantastic
Four’ and ‘Spider-man’.
In 1980, he started the saga ‘Mikros’ in Mustang and Titans, and made
a comic adaptation of the television series ‘Blackstar’. Continuing
his work on superheroes, he illustrated stories with ‘Cosmo’ and
‘Photonik’, and created ‘Epsilon’ and ‘Kronos’.
Starting in 1987, he associated himself with François François
Corteggiani, with whom he made ‘l’Archer Blanc’ and ‘Noël et Marie’. In
1989, Mitton took over ‘De Silence et de Sang’ from Marc Malès. Next,
he began a series about the Gaulish-Roman time: ‘Vae Victis’ and a
comic about pirates, ‘Les survivants de l’Atlantique’. In 1994, he
produced his series ‘Chroniques Barbares’, a saga about a tribe of
vikings. Additionally, he made ‘Quetzalcoatl’ for Glénat and several
comics for the Scandinavian magazine Fantomen, such as ‘Herman Storm’
with text by Eirik Ildahl.
As a scriptwriter, he has worked with Frank Bonnet (‘Attila… mon
amour’) and Michel Rodrigue (‘Les Truculentes Aventures de Rabelais’).
For the advertising agency Jet Stream, Mitton produced ‘Papoose’ with
scriptwriter Chantelouve in 2002. His series ‘Colorado’ was published by
Carpe Diem.”
Regarding Cyrus Tota,my favourite source -Lambiek- has this very short entry:
“Cyrus Tota started working for the publisher Lug in the 1970s,
mostly retouching comics and making cover illustrations. He contributed
to the ‘Blek’ series of the Italian Essegesse studios from 1977 to
1980. In 1980, he started his own series, ‘Photonik’. Later on, he also
created ‘Fuzz et Fizzbi’ for Glénat and three volumes of the
‘Aquablue’ series for Delcourt.”
The thing was that,at that time in the 1980s,I had no idea these were
super heroes created by French men. Initially I assumed they were
German but the style and colour of both strips is so eye-catching and
the stories were full of fun and enjoyable -I loved Mykros in Vienna for
the Carnival totally unaware that the Black Gondolier was on his way
to Earth.
Yes,the “Black Gondolier”. Imagine a black Silver Surfer with gondoliers straw hat steering a..gondola. Beautiful.
There were epic story lines -this wasn’t just junk comics.
Talk of an animated Photonik tv series was brief so,sadly,I’ve no idea whether it happened or not.
While Cinebook The 9th Art publish an incredible line of books of all
genres for all ages I think there is room for the publishing of
Photonik,Mikros and other French characters including Wampus.
Wampus,of course,has been collected into a book by Hexagon Comics and
you can find details here:
http://www.blackcoatpress.com/hexagon.htm
I would encourage anyone with a love of comics to check out Cool
French Comics and to discover some of these gems. Publishers -there’s
an opportunity here somewhere! So,please,don’t think Cinebook are the
start and end of French comics and with the number of BD published each
year…well,I wish I was rich and read better French!
That’s what I wrote back then. Mitton should be working for Marvel
US, though that doesn’t mean to say he wants to! Europe offers creators
far more freedom and I really must start saving the pennies because I
want those two L’Archer Blanc books…I want to Photonik and Mikros
books. I just plain want!
To me, Mitton shows true style -blending European style and flair into whatever he draws.
Want some links ?-THANKS to Sebchoq!
http://www.bleus-et-originaux.fr/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=213%3Amitton&catid=18&Itemid=105&lang=fr
And
http://translate.google.fr/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.saintrapt.com%2Fimaginer%2Findex.php%3F2011%2F04%2F24%2F87-lee-falk-1911-1999&sl=fr&tl=en&hl=&ie=UTF-8
Below: fans have been waiting a long time to see Mitton’s Phantom
work for Egmont (Scandinavia as Egmont does not publish comics in the UK
just those adverts with some ‘comic’ work).
The White Archer was another fan favourite and two new volumes appeared a few years back.
Below: For the last couple years, Mitton has been drawing Ben Hur for Delcourt and his work is incredible.
Until Mitton’s work is published in English…
MAKE MINE MITTON!
