While
Top Gun Maverick
is a hit on the big screen, we should not forget the other great comic book hero who has no equal in triumphing in perilous dogfights: Buck Danny.
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This legendary American aviator is part of the golden age of Franco-Belgian comics.
Appeared in
Spirou
in 1947, he still continues today to live his own adventures.
Nevertheless, Dupuis editions had the excellent idea of creating a parallel series where we find the famous Navy fighter pilot created by Jean-Michel Charlier and Victor Hubinon, in June 1942 at the heart of the battle. of the Pacific...
Buck Danny is the prototype of the American hero, the quintessential Navy fighter pilot.
He's a scout with wings!
Yann screenwriter
The first volume of this
Buck Danny-Origins
diptych is called
The Broken Wing Pilot
.
With great enthusiasm and an infallible knowledge of the period, the prolific screenwriter Yann (
Les Innommables, Mézek, Black Squaw...)
takes hold of the legendary aviator and recounts his surprising origins.
How did Buck Danny become Buck Danny?
Passionate about airplanes and aviation comics, Yann Le Pennetier has patiently bided his time.
Returning to heroic times, he signs an album of great quality, greatly aided by the majestic design of the Italian Giuseppe de Luca.
Scriptwriter Yann, passionate about aviation comics, has sketched the plots of two major series at Dupuis:
Buck Danny
and
Black Squaw
, which tells the true story of Bessie Coleman.
The third volume, entitled
Le Crotoy
, drawn by Henriet, has just been published.
© Dupuis Editions
“The genesis of this album dates back ten years
, remembers the screenwriter.
Sergio Honoré, then collection director at Dupuis, suggested that I take over
Buck Danny.
In this restaurant in Brussels, I first started by telling him that it was all my childhood.
And then I told him that I certainly didn't want to start on a contemporary album.
That, I did not want!
No, for me, the interest of
Buck Danny
, as for
Blake and Mortimer,
is the dusty and nostalgic aspect of the plot which remains in its time.
Me, I like the zincs with propellers in prison and bolts which engage in Homeric dogfights in an azure blue sky!
»
I find that Giuseppe de Luca's drawing did not copy and paste Victor Hubinon's at all.
It is a modern reinterpretation of his style.
Yann screenwriter
The editor agrees.
He thinks of creating a parallel series located in the young years of the hero, and encourages the screenwriter to
"plug the holes that Jean-Michel Charlier left."
Alas, the story remains there... It will be necessary to wait a few years before another editor of the Dupuis editions, Alexandre Paringaux, returns to propose to Yann the recovery of
Buck Danny
within the framework of a collection baptized "Buck Danny - Origins”.
The project took off thanks to the recruitment of Italian designer Giuseppe de Luca.
“I developed a real bond with Giuseppe de Luca
, recognizes Yann.
We talked a lot by email.
I need this complicity.
Giuseppe first read my script.
He sent me back a drawn storyboard.
After, I pruned, I removed the redundant texts.
I find that Giuseppe de Luca's drawing did not copy and paste Victor Hubinon's at all.
It is a modern reinterpretation of his style.
I'm flabbergasted, especially since I know the first thirty albums in the series by heart.
Giuseppe has an incredible talent!”
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Black Squaw,
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In this album, we dive back into the youth of this aviator hero.
“Buck Danny is the prototype of the American hero, the quintessence of the Navy fighter pilot,
analyzes Yann.
He's a scout with wings!
But while he should be a great seducer, we don't know of any female conquest.
We barely feel a slight quivering of the kepi with Lady X in his house
.
THE BD BOX
In this dramatic page, fighter pilot Buck Danny is about to shoot down a Japanese Zero fighter... © Éditions Dupuis
As Yann points out,
“the plate on page 19 is perfect, and very spectacular.”
In box 1, we discover a large cloudy sky in June 1942 in the heart of the Pacific Ocean.
“Buck Danny's 'Wild Cat' is chasing a Japanese Zero fighter,
deciphers Yann.
Giuseppe de Luca orchestrated a round of planes in the sky which gives a nice dynamic to the whole box.
By tilting the horizon line, it destabilizes the reader.
This gives movement to the image.
When I saw it, this large box that takes up half the page reminded me of Roy Lichtenstein's famous pop art painting
Whaam!.
That's probably why there are no onomatopoeias in the drawing... We have to stay in the action... But I admit that this box could very well make a splendid poster.
Yann:
“In this large box Giuseppe de Luca orchestrated a round of planes in the sky which gives a nice dynamic to the whole box.
» © Dupuis Editions
In box 2, more panoramic, we change point of view.
“After the shot, here is the reverse shot,
explains Yann.
The reader finds himself face to face with the pilot of the Japanese fighter chased by Buck Danny.
You can feel the anguish on the annoyed face of the airman who is turning his head, pursued by the Wild Cat.
I slipped in this somewhat dramatic bubble:
“You are going to pay for the friends!”
We feel all the anger of the hero, who in the previous page attended the funeral of his fellow pilots.
Above all, it was necessary to bring out the red cockade of the aircraft, because otherwise, one would have thought that it was Buck Danny's plane that was targeted..."
Yann:
“In this second box, the reader finds himself facing the pilot of the Japanese fighter chased by Buck Danny.
» © Dupuis Editions
With the strip of boxes 3, 4 and 5, the action accelerates.
"Here, I wanted to show an angry Buck Danny
," says Yann.
I told Giuseppe de Luca that he had to draw inspiration from Theodore Roosevelt's eyes, two hours after Pearl Harbor!
Buck Danny frowns.
He firmly holds the joystick of his plane and presses the button.
He shoots and knocks out the Zero.
There, he switches to the side of the “bad guys”.
He's a hothead, a beast of war.
But of course, like all comics of this era, Buck Danny is going to be caught up in some kind of immanent justice.
If in box 4, the Zero literally flies apart, in the last box, one end of the propeller strikes the wing of its aircraft.
VS'
as the title of the album suggests.
This board is a crucial moment in the hero's existence.
It is from this moment that his luck turns, that he will know the fall... then the redemption.
»
Yann: “
In these last three boxes, Buck Danny switches to the “bad guys” side.
He's a hothead, a beast of war.
» © Dupuis Editions
Buck Danny - Origins. Volume 1 The pilot with a broken wing,
by Yann and Giuseppe de Luca, 48 p., €14.95.
