UDERZO, Albert (1927-2020) - Lot 347

UDERZO, Albert (1927-2020) Luc Junior et les bijoux volés, plate 2. India ink, white gouache on paper. 32x39 cm. Signed Al Uderzo and Goscinny. This first Luc Junior story was published in La Libre Junior from October 7, 1954 to March 3, 1955. Uderzo and Goscinny met in Paris, both working for Georges Troisfontaines and Yvan Chéron, businessmen from Liège who ran the companies World Press and International Press, supplying some Dupuis publications among others. An unfailing friendship was born. Wishing to compete with the success of Le Petit Vingtième and Tintin, the Belgian daily La Libre Belgique creates its youth supplement, entitled "La Libre Junior". It was Charlier, Goscinny and Uderzo who took charge, creating a star character to appear every week on the front page: this was Luc Junior, a young journalist whose adventures would run over 157 panels from 1954 to 1957, flanked by a gruff adult and a dog, but in a different, extremely dynamic humorous style, also found in the duo's other creations, in Oumpah-Pah for example, and then Asterix. In this anthology panel, Luc Junior meets the temperamental photographer Laplaque (the exclamation "a thousand million telephoto lenses" is a clear reference to Hergé), who is to become his sidekick on many adventures. Goscinny and Uderzo's work is marked by the relationship between friendship and the hero duo, the "side kick" being a formidable and universal narrative mechanism. (Source: Intégrale Luc Junior, Editions Albert René / Goscinny Uderzo, 2014) A few marks of age, small stain in lower margin, but overall very good condition.