The Belgian Comic Strip Center - Museum Brussels

It should be recalled that with the appearance of Docteur Poche in 1976, Marc Wasterlain imposed a new semi-realist approach which was to be widely emulated: Spirou and other publications soon saw the arrival of a new generation of cartoonists destined for fame who were initially inspired by his original graphic style.
Marc Wasterlain suffered the upheavals in the comic strip market with his Pixels, which skilfully revive the art of the children’s comic strip. The series found refuge in the pages of the monthly magazine Pif Gadget in 2007, shortly before it ceased publication. The BCSC is delighted to highlight the initiative of the Mosquito publishing house, which has had the perspicacity to continue this great series in albums!

JC De la Royère, BCSC

The PIXELS is the name of the rock group formed by Arno, Kévin and Zébra. Kévin’s father bans the group from practising in the garage when his son gets very bad results in maths.... Our friends decide to ask Professor Cyclotron to coach Kévin for the exam. They go to the island where the elderly scholar has sought refuge in order to work on his plan to bring the dinosaurs back to life from their DNA. But although he manages to hatch some dinosaurs out of chicken’s eggs, the creatures remain very small, to the scientist’s great disappointment. Norok, the rival and sworn enemy of the amiable, absent-minded Cyclotron, spies on the PIXELS so that he can seize the Professor’s work and steal the credit for the results.

Born in Erquelinnes in 1946, Marc Wasterlain was attracted to the graphic arts from an early stage and soon became a pupil of Dino Attanasio, working on the inking and backgrounds for the series Modeste et Pompon. In 1966 he joined the Peyo studio, where he collaborated on the Smurfs cartoons and worked on the backgrounds for Benoît Brisefer. He made his solo debut in the weekly comic Tintin in 1971 with the series Bob Moon et Titania. Two years later he created the charming series Monsieur Bonhomme. But it was with Docteur Poche, who appeared in Spirou in 1976, and then Jeannette Pointu, in 1982, that Wasterlain became one of the main reinventers of the Franco-Belgian comic strip and was much lauded by the critics. He continues his creative work today with the Pixels, whose third album is published in January 2012 by Mosquito.

The Editor