The Long-Awaited Crossover series, part two: Mike Pearse
If you wait long enough, all the things you like will overlap and become part of one huge, delicious universe. Such is basically the Commetulevois Theory of Everything. So, one glorious day (if only in my dreams), the kids from Bash Street and Digimon Adventure 02 will unite under the wise counsel of Danger Mouse and go to meet Spirou & Fantasio on the streets of Tsim Sha Tsui East to protect the world from something or another (while listening to The Smiths). But maybe I'm getting ahead of myself.
The first part of the Long-Awaited Crossover series isn't labelled as such, but it's this post about the Hanna-Barbera production of Peyo's Johan & Pirlouit. This second part looks at some clins d'oeil sneaked into long-running British comic The Beano by artist/writer Mike Pearse.
Pearse drew the Bash Street Kids (BSK) and Bash Street Kids – Singled Out strips in the early 2000s, giving the series something of a breath of fresh air (he also drew The Three Bears). I was a Beano reader in the 1980s and 1990s so Pearse's work is quite new to me: I've been thrilled to spot more than a couple of references to Franco-Belgian comics! Shall we have a look?
Pearse's first strip in the Beano was It's A Funny Old Game(1) in 1999, a story featuring characters from multiple Beano strips. The last page's first panel is this delightful homage to Goscinny & Uderzo's Asterix.
Asterix himself appears at a head teachers' conference in The Great Bash Street Nativity Play(2), a feature-length Christmas story from 1999 (compared to a panel from Goscinny & Uderzo’s Asterix & the Roman Agent).
Our good friend the Count de Champignac (from the Spirou & Fantasio series) appears as a museum Curator in another feature-length story, Finders Keepers(3). (Next to it is a panel from Franquin’s Le Voyageur du Mésozoïque.)
Monsieur Mégot, the sadistic PE teacher from Le Petit Spirou, makes an appearance in the Bash Street staff room in A Nightmare On Bash Street(4).
Pearse's superb lettering and onomatopoeias (seen here in Dennis' Big Birthday Party(5)) are also reminiscent of bande dessinée... (And, on second look, Plug stuck in a deckchair in the second panel is not unlike Fantasio trapped in the settee in Franquin’s La Foire Aux Gangsters.)
... Right down to the hand gestures. Ooh là lààà!
The Signore Studios blog hosts scans of Mike Pearse's Beano work, if you want to take a look. If you like his work, I'd encourage you to track down the 2009 and 2010 BSK books and follow his work on Facebook (he currently works in the Netherlands, lucky chap).
References:
1) It's A Funny Old Game appears originally in The Beano #2978 (1999/08/14) and is reprinted in the BSK 2009 annual, The Bash Street Kids in Space Cadets (D.C. Thomson & Co Ltd., 2008. ISBN-13: 978-1845353520)
2) The Great Bash Street Nativity Play appears originally in The Beano #2997 (1999/12/25).
3) Finders Keepers appears originally in The Beano #3025 (2000/07/08).
4) A Nightmare On Bash Street appears originally in The Beano #3041 (2000/10/28).
5) Dennis' Big Birthday Party appears originally in The Beano #3061 (2001/03/17).
Illustrations from:
Asterix and the Roman Agent, GOSCINNY René & UDERZO Albert
Astérix et la Grande Traversée, GOSCINNY René & UDERZO Albert
Asterix the Gladiator, GOSCINNY René & UDERZO Albert
Le Petit Spirou: Tu Veux Mon Doigt?, TOME & JANRY
Le Voyageur du Mésozoïque, FRANQUIN André
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