Cartoon from 'E. P. Jacobs: The Dreamer of the Apocalypse', by François Rivière and Philippe Wurm, published by Norma.
Edgar P. Jacobs (1904-1987) wanted to be a famous baritone. And he almost succeeded: after a long time acting as an extra, he managed to make his debut in opera, but bel canto did not pay the bills and he had to take advantage of another of his talents to be able to live, drawing. From the beginning of the Second World War, the Belgian dedicated himself to illustration, which would open the doors of the children's comic magazine Bravo!, where his perfectionism was soon appreciated, which would lead him to a task that would change his life: to take charge of the pages of one of the public's favorite series, Alex Raymond's Flash Gordon. With the arrival of materials from the United States, paralyzed by the war, Jacobs had to give continuity to the original stories of the famous character and managed to clone the precious academic style of the American cartoonist so perfectly that practically no reader noticed. An effort that allowed him the magazine to give him the opportunity to propose his own series, El rayo U. A biographical comic published a few weeks ago, E. P. Jacobs: The Dreamer of the Apocalypse, by François Rivière and Philippe Wurm, rescues the entire journey and talent of the Belgian author, which can also be verified thanks to the complete reissue of his most famous series, Blake and Mortimer (Norma Editorial).
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'Blake and Mortimer', the Visionary Comic Book Who Invented the Modern Graphic Novel
His first personal work for Bravo! followed the canon of Flash Gordon, science-fiction with touches of fantasy, but several constants of Jacobs' work began to be glimpsed: the passion for a technology represented with verisimilitude, the reflection of current socio-political events and the careful treatment of color. It would be precisely this last skill that would attract the attention of Hergé, who would hire him as an assistant to color Tintin in the Congo and Ottokar's Scepter. Jacobs' talent would dazzle with his meticulous documentation work for The 7 Crystal Balls and The Temple of the Sun, but his first great success would come with the creation of the magazine Le journal de Tintin, which would give him the opportunity to pour his concerns into a series where he would be a complete author.
Belgian comedian Edgar P. Jacobs, in an undated image.
Although Jacobs wanted to make a story set in the Middle Ages, the magazine's management commissioned him to write a more modern plot, for which the author would draw on his youthful readings: from the French folklore to the science-fiction of H.G. Wells and Jules Verne, passing through the detective Conan Doyle. With this background, The Secret of the Swordboard was born, which with the subtitle Neptunium and the Silver Ray introduced an espionage plot starring two charismatic heroes: British intelligence captain Francis Blake and the brilliant scientist Philip Mortimer, creator of a supersonic device capable of ending any war. A duo with chemistry, based on the contrast of personalities, with which Jacobs knew how to keep the interest of young readers in a long story in which the desire to control the world came from the East and evil was symbolized in the perfidious Olrik, a villain who would become the great evil counterpoint of the duo Blake and Mortimer.
Jacobs knew how to create a couple that combined stereotypes while exchanging them. Francis Blake is the upright and heroic British soldier, thoughtful but always ready to give his life for the country and with a special fondness for disguise. Philip Mortimer is a scientist who distances himself from the model of the absent-minded researcher of the time due to his joviality and impulsive character, always ready to feed his curiosity although, paradoxically, we will only know about his work as a researcher as the inventor of the Sword. A well-matched couple where the reader quickly identifies with the character of Mortimer, who is often the driving force behind the adventures that he and his partner will run. Moving between science fiction and espionage, the series took advantage of exotic settings such as the Egypt of The Mystery of the Great Pyramid to shock a young reading public that devoured them and asked for more from an author who often saw their strict rigor forbidden by the publisher, who considered them too adult for his readers.
With masterful deliveries such as The Yellow Mark, the series became an absolute benchmark of the clear line, always in that framework of adventures that it would have in The 3 Formulas of Professor Sato, its last installment, with an eventful publication that prevented its author from seeing it finished after his death in 1987, as narrated in the recent comic about his biography.
Detail of the cover of 'The Yellow Mark', from the saga of Blake and Mortimer, by E. P. Jacobs, edited by Norma.
The end of the saga would come three years after Jacobs' death thanks to the work of Bob de Moor, who would finish the work from the original author's script. However, Blake and Mortimer were not destined to go down in the pantheon of illustrious lost comic book characters. Just a few years later, the French newspaper Liberation opened its September 21, 1996 edition with a large cartoon announcing in large letters "Blake & Mortimer have been found", dedicating an extensive report to the resumption of famous stories by two revered figures of Franco-Belgian comics, the screenwriter Jean Van Hamme and the cartoonist Ted Benoit. An initiative that was only the visible face of an immense business operation: the Dargaud label had paid millions of dollars to Studio Jacobs and the previous publisher of the characters' albums and launched one of the most powerful marketing campaigns in French comics: 100,000 copies of the classic comics were distributed to passengers on high-speed trains as part of an advertising plan that would make it ubiquitous the cover of the new adventure, The Francis Blake Affair, which would also be pre-published in the popular magazine Télérama.
The exquisite work of Van Hamme and Benoit, perfectly mimicking Jacobs' stroke and thus marking the style of this new stage, had an overwhelming popular response with more than 600,000 copies sold, but also the recognition of critics and prestigious awards such as the Alph'Art of the Angoulême festival. A success that did not silence the thorny issue of the continuation of a series with authors different from its creator, common in the case of American comics, for example, but hardly explored at the time in Franco-Belgian comics.
However, the spectacular reception encouraged the series to be extended with the extraordinary The Voronov Machination, by Yves Sente and André Juillard, opening a long trajectory of deliveries that already outnumber those signed by its creator and to which has been added since an official parody, Les aventures de Philip et Francis, by Pierre Veys and Nicolas Barral, to out-of-collection versions that explore connections with other series, such as The Last Pharaoh, by Jaco Van Dormael, Thomas Gunzig and François Schuiten, almost a crossover with the setting of the famous universe of The Dark Cities; the completion of Jacobs' first creation with The Burning Arrow (Norma Editorial), a dedicated and respectful tribute signed by Jean Van Hamme, Christian Cailleaux and Étienne Schréder; or even a hypothetical ending in which some elderly characters recalled their adventures epistolarily in the unpublished in Spain The Last Chapter, by Convard and Juillard. Undoubtedly, Jacobs created with Blake and Mortimer one of the great icons of European comics, which still projects its fundamental influence today.
A man reads a comic book by Edgar Pierre Jacobs in 1992.
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