Spike and Suzy

The main characters of the Spike and Suzy series on a wall painting in Brussels. From bottom to top, Jethro (above the statue Manneken Pis), Ambrose, Aunt Sidonia, Spike, and Suzy who is holding her puppet called "muffin"

Spike and Suzy, the British title for Suske en Wiske in Dutch, is a comics series created by the Belgian comics author Willy Vandersteen. The strip is known as Bob et Bobette and Willy and Wanda in U.S. It was first published in De Nieuwe Standaard in 1945 and soon became popular. Alhough not in its earlier form, the strip adapted to the Ligne claire style pioneered by Hergé, a change taking place when the strip became serialised in Hergé's comics magazines Kuifje and Tintin, from 1948 to 1959.

The strip still runs daily in De Standaard, new books are being created, and remain popular among children in the Netherlands and Belgium. As of 2005, more than 250 books have been published. Many Flemish and Dutch adults consider the older books to be classics of the comic book genre. Actually it may be argued that the series created by Vandersteen himself, prior to about 1972, belong to a somewhat different genre of comics than those made after he handed over the production to his assistants.^{[citation needed]}

Main characters

The main characters are a group of friends. In the first regular comic, Suzy and her Aunt Sidonia meet the orphan Spike and unrelated Professor Barnabas. In the next comic, they also meet Ambrose. Later, in De dolle musketiers (book #18, 1953), Jerom (called Jethro in the UK version), the self-proclaimed "strongest man in the western hemisphere", was introduced.^[1] Apart from Suzy and Aunt Sidonia, none of them are related, and most seem to have no other family.

• Spike: originally Suske (Flemish diminutive of Francis), also known as Willy or Bob, is a young orphan who becomes friends with Suzy and Aunt Sidonia in the first album, Het Eiland Amoras, from 1946. Spike is about ten to twelve years old and usually a well-behaved, brave and curious boy who is always willing to defend the poor and helpless, and of course his friends. He has black hair with a small spike, and wears a red shirt and black shorts.

• Suzy: originally Wiske (Flemish diminutive of Louise), also known as Wanda or Bobette, is the young heroine. Slightly younger than Spike, she seems to be an orphan as well. In the out-of-series prequel Rikki en Wiske from 1945, she has an older brother Rikki, but he disappears after that story to be replaced by Spike. She lives with her aunt Sidonia (as does Spike after the first story). Strong-headed, curious and slightly foolish, she is a brave girl as well, quite similar to Spike in many aspects. She is dressed in a white skirt with a red stripe, and has a red band in her fair hair.

• Muffin, originally Schalulleke, later in Dutch renamed to Schanulleke, also known as Molly or Sawdust, is Suzy's doll. A small human (probably female) figure, she is inanimate. She has a major role in a few stories when she gets stolen (album 6, "Prinses Zagemeel"), brought to life, or is turned into a mindless giant.

(NB: Schalulleke was renamed Schanulleke because there were too many L's in her name. Lul is the Dutch phrase for cunt)

• Aunt Sidonia, originally called tante Sidonie, later renamed to tante Sidonia, and also once known as Agatha, is the aunt of Suzy. Long and extremely thin with gigantic feet, a large protruding chin, and fair hair, she is often portrayed as the housewife but very often joins the heroes on their adventures. She is known for her hysterical fits and her crush on Ambrose.

• Professor Barabas, is a long-time friend of Suzy and Aunt Sidnoia, first met in Het Eiland Amoras (An Island called Hoboken). He is the archetypical distracted professor, but contrary to many mad scientists he is entirely benevolent. His main inventions are the Teletime machine (which enables them to travel through time and space), the Gyronef (a helicopter which was quite advanced for its time), the Terranef (a subterranean vehicle), and the Klankentapper, which enables you to talk with plants. Contrary to most other main characters, he does not appear in all comics.

• Ambrose, originally called Lambik and once known as Orville, is a bald man of about forty. He is first encountered in album 3, The Zincshrinker, as a rather stupid plumber. He is intended as the comic relief of the series, considering himself the main hero but often ruining the plans of the others by his pompous behaviour and his short temper. He is usually the only one of the main characters who gets tempted by evil, like in album 67, De Poenschepper, but in the end he has a good character and cares about his friends. He lives together with Jethro.

• Jethro, originally known as Jerom and also known as Wilbur, is an extremely strong man, brought from prehistory to the Middle Ages by an alchemist in album 18, The merry musketeers as a mindless weapon. He falls in love with Muffin and turns into a caring man instead of a wild beast, and is subsequently taken along by the friends to the present. Initially he is dressed in a loincloth only and speaks in grunts and monosyllables, but soon he becomes a smart, sophisticated man, although he still speaks in a particular shorthand. He is often used as a deus ex machina solution for the troubles the friends and especially Ambrose get in, but he is equally often drugged or away on a trip as to avoid the easy solution for the story.

Other characters

• Krimson. A principal bad guy, Krimson was introduced in Het rijmende paard (#48, 1963). Later in the series, after having been in prison, he is forced to start over as a petty criminal. Growing stronger again, he manages to overthrow the Belgian government (De Krimson Crisis, book 215, 1988). In De Kwaaie Kwieten (book 209, 1987) he even constructs a top-secret military base capable of fighting extraterrestrials. For reasons unknown he often suffers from mental breakdowns, throwing fits until his butler force feeds him a large quantity of pills. Despite his name there is no connection between him and the colour crimson, other than that both often have sinister connotations.

• Arthur is Ambrose’s younger brother who grew up in the jungle and gained the ability to fly from the juice of a plant. He is more primitive than his brother, but substantially smarter. He dresses in animal skins and wears a beard, though it is unknown if he, unlike Ambrose, has much hair on his head as he always sports a bowler hat. He spends more time in the air and in trees than on the ground, and therefore has acquired some bird characteristics, such as standing on his hands instead of his feet and chirping while speaking. His favorite food is birdseed.

Character evolution

Over the course of the series, characters are added and changed, and stories become more didactic. Ambrose and Jethro change significantly: in the beginning, Ambrose was just an amusing fool, in current stories he is a cynical and sceptical man. In early stories, Jethro was portrayed as an ignorant strong man, but by now he is a wise man, although one of few words. In most stories Muffin is just a puppet, but one very special to Suzy, and they are inseparable. In some stories Muffin comes to life and plays an important role.

Settings

In the earliest stories, Willy Vandersteen used fictional countries like "Chokowakije" (a fictional Eastern European country) and "Amoras" (a tropical island, "Hoboken" in the English language version). He dropped the use of those after a few stories, although some later stories revisit Amoras.

Most of the current adventures of Spike and Suzy happen in real countries all over the world, with Belgium (their home country) and the Netherlands as main focus for many stories.

While in the early stories most trips were done by the Gyronef, the experimental helicopter devised by professor Barabas, since the 1960s all travelling by plane is done with KLM, the Dutch national airline, making it an early and prominent example of product placement in European comics. Vandersteen chose KLM over the Belgian national airline SABENA because of his friendship with Ron Winderink, PR manager of KLM.^[2]

Publication history

Willy Vandersteen created Suske en Wiske, beginning publication in De Nieuwe Standaard on March 30, 1945. To Vandersteen's disappointment the editor had renamed the strip's first chapter Rikki en Wiske.^[3] The following story was titled De avonturen van Suske en Wiske - Op het eiland Amoras and no longer featured Rikki.^[4] Ater a few years of publication in several newspapers, Vandersteen was approached by Hergé, intent to improve sales of the Dutch language Kuifje, who wanted Suske and Wiske for his publications rebuilt in the Ligne claire style.^[5] Vandersteen made the adaptation and Suske en Wiske first appeared in Kuifje and Belgian Tintin on September 16, 1948 with the story titled Het Spaanse spook and Le Fantôme Espagnol in the two languages.^[6][4] In all 8 stories ran until it ended in April 1959, making up the material collected in The Blue Series.

Vandersteen established Studio Vandersteen in 1952 to manage his expanded activities.^[3] To have time for other series such as De Rode Ridder (The Red Knight) and Tijl Uilenspiegel, he gave Paul Geerts the job of creating new albums of Suske en Wiske in 1968. Geerts did this until 2001, when he gave this task to Marc Verhaegen. From 2005 on, a team of writers and cartoonists makes the new series, led by Luc Morjeau. These authors were helped by Studio Vandersteen.

Publications

Newspapers and magazines

Before Suske en Wiske appeared as albums, they were published in several newspapers and magazines, such as:

• De Standaard (1945-...) daily newspaper
• Tintin and Kuifje magazines (1948-1959) Dargaud's French and Dutch sister publications
• TV Ekspres (1972-2001) weekly TV magazine
• Suske en Wiske weekblad (1993-2003) weekly comics magazine

The Red Series and The Blue Series

The books are generally divided into two groups - The Red Series, and The Blue series. The Red Series contains the vast majority of the books, and is so called because all of the books in this series have a red colour. There are only a few books in the blue series, and they are so called because of their blue colour. The blue series encompasses all those originally published in Tintin and Kuifje. The Red series is everything published before or after. The following album series exist:

• 1.The Red Series

1. .The Flemish non-coloured series (1946-1959): 1-35
2. .The Dutch non-coloured series(1953-1959): 1-23
3. .The Flemish two-coloured series (1959-1964): 7,19,20,32-50
4. .The Dutch two-coloured series (1959-1964): 1,8,10,11,21-50
5. .The uniform Flemish-Dutch (two-coloured)series (1964-1966): 51-66
6. .The (uniform) four-coloured series (1967-...): 67-... ; the first 66 albums and the blue series have been reedited in this series.

• 2.The Blue Series (1952-1957)

Special editions

Other stories or editions have been published, such as:

1. .The collector's editions (1958-...)
2. .Advertisement editions (1965-...)
3. .Various collections (1972-...)
4. .Holiday editions (1973-...)
5. .Luxury editions (1977-...)
6. .Suske en Wiske Classics (1993-1999)

Albums in English

Main article List of Spike and Suzy books in English

English translations have been published in three incarnations. The first was in the U.S., under the name of Willy and Wanda. It was then published in the U.K. in the 1990s named Bob and Bobette, a copy of the French title. The final print run was in the U.K. by the title Spike and Suzy.

Spin-off series

There have been various spin-off comic series from Spike and Suzy:

• In 1960, Jerom began publication. It featured the character Jerom (Jethro) and focused on his adventures as a modern day knight.
• In the 1950s, Lambik (Ambrose), ran in the newspaper De Bond. These were then put into the albums called De Grappen van Lambik ("The jokes of Ambrose"). The series was ended in 1962, but in 2004, it resumed with new stories. 7 books in the new series have been released.
• In 2002, Klein Suske en Wiske ("Small Spike and Suzy") ran in the magazine Suske en Wiske weekblad. It charts the adventures of the children when they were very small, along with their pet dog. So far 9 albums have been released, containing short sketches.

Worldview expressed in Vandersteen's albums

Willy Vandersteen's pre-1972 Spike and Suzy albums create their own universe, with its own laws and elements. It is this universe, and its worldview, that readers may be attracted to in the albums.

• A total lack of limitations of the earthly kind: money, distances, languages, borders, or even time barriers, none of these are ever a real limitation to the protagonists. They can speak with anyone anywhere, always find some kind of newly invented equipment to fly somewhere far, including Barabas' time machine, or they encounter the occasional magic carpet, supernatural giant or the like to take them where they have to go.

• The motives the protagonists always have, making them do whatever they do in a given adventure (often a classical quest), is to do the right thing, which is usually to help someone out: a friend in trouble, or a total stranger just met.

• The protagonists are essentially "good guys". However, they can be bad too: greed, curiosity, vanity and seduction create additional obstacles on the way. If one of the protagonists causes trouble in the first place, it seems that this person is not really him/herself. In the end, there is always reconciliation, and the confused troublemaker regains his own, genuine, goodness. In fact, the theme of a "good me" and "bad me" being present in one person, constantly struggling for domination, is occasionally explicitly employed.

• "Bad guys", once defeated, often repent, and are then completely forgiven by the protagonists. In this case, no matter how much terrible affliction they caused, in the end they understand how bad they have been behaving and gladly accept their, usually mild, punishment, devoting themselves to the service of those they once oppressed.

• Things are as they are, and improvements are slow; they need to come from within. Revolutions of any kind are usually dangerous, but specific, identifiable sources of injustice are addressed. The protagonists, themselves of a rather unclear background, easily move in elite circles: kings, the rich and famous, brilliant scientists, etc. Structures such as governments, laws, taxes, the bureaucracy are often mocked, maybe because the protagonists hardly ever need them. Jokes about paying taxes and the job of politician abound.

Other media

The strip has made it onto TV, cinema and stage:

• In 1975, BRT produced a TV series consisting of six stories taking the form of a puppet show narrated by Ambrose. These stories were later converted into comics. Dutch broadcaster TROS was the first to air the series with BRT following suit in 1976. Dust-offs came in 1985 and 1990.

• In 1994, a musical was started by the Royal Youth Theatre of Antwerp. It ran for several years, touring the country.

• In 2004, Suske en Wiske: De duistere diamant, a Spike and Suzy live action film was released in French and Dutch called The Dark Diamond. The score for the movie was written by Brian Clifton.

(NB: Aunt Sidonia was played by a male actor. Apparently no actresses could be found with Sidonia's frame)

• A 3D-animated film is in production called The Texas Rangers. It is scheduled for 2008. The film will be the first made of 10 films. It will be produced by Skyline Entertaiment in conjunction with CoToon.

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

Suske en Wiske

• Studio Vandersteen official site (Dutch)
• Spike and Suzy on the www

vls:Suske en Wiske

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