The Adventures of Nero
The Adventures of Nero | |
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The Adventures of Nero or Nero was a Belgian comic strip drawn by Marc Sleen and the name of its main character. The original title ranged from De Avonturen van Detectief Van Zwam in 1947 to De Avonturen van Nero en zijn Hoed in 1950, and finally De Avonturen van Nero & Co from 1951.[1] It ran in continuous syndication until 2002. From 1947 until 1993 it was all drawn by Sleen himself. From 1992 until 2002 Dirk Stallaert took over the drawing while Sleen kept inventing the stories.
Together with
History
The series debuted in the newspaper De Nieuwe Gids in the autumn of 1947 and was written and drawn by
In 1950 Sleen left De Nieuwe Gids and joined the newspaper
Sleen continued drawing Nero for many decades. Only in 1992 did he finally hire an assistant, Dirk Stallaert, to do the drawing for him, because his eyesight had become too poor. Stallaert was promoted as Sleen's successor but in 2002 he decided to leave the series in favour of work at Vandersteen's studio.[4] Sleen then terminated the series for good. Stallaert still draws "Nero"-related publicity images and merchandise.
The early stories had a random length, often around 240 strips, while the latter ones (from 1965 on) had a length of 32 pages of 4 strips each. Every day, two strips appeared in the newspaper.
Concept
The Adventures of Nero is a humorous adventure comic strip about Nero, an unemployed man who describes himself as "newspaper appearance" and prefers reading his newspaper on his sofa. He and his wife, named "Madam Nero" ("Madam Nero") by everyone, have one son, Adhemar, who is a child prodigy. Nero has an eccentric group of friends, who often help him out or force him to set out on an adventure. Many stories display a love for nature and the animal world, which mirrors the creator's own frequent safari trips. Since the album Het Groene Vuur ("The Green Fire") (1965) nearly all "Nero" albums end with a traditional waffle feast, where Madam Nero and Madam Pheip bake waffles for the entire cast.[3]
With two strips published a day, six days a week, the comic strip followed daily news events quite closely and often made references to real life news events. In the story De IJzeren Kolonel ("The Iron Colonel") (1956), for instance, the then-current
Since Sleen worked without assistance for the majority of his career, he kept his drawing style simple and efficient. He had no time for elaborate detailed drawings and as a result many of his stories are filled to the brim with
Main characters
During its 55-year course, a lot of regular characters joined the original duo of Nero and Van Zwam.
- Nero is the main protagonist. Essentially good-hearted, he can also be a selfish, lazy man, who does not know how to keep his money and always gets himself into trouble. Nero is one of the very few anti-heroes to lead a comic strip.
- His wife (often called Madam Nero or, in some stories, Bea) stays mainly at home and tries to keep a semblance of a household while her husband is off to some far-flung corner of the Earth. If needs be, she knows how to defend herself.
- Detective Van Zwam is a private detective. Driving a Porsche 911 (which seems to crash at least once every comic), he is always at the scene of a crime extremely quickly, and can make the most brilliant deductions out of the smallest clues (often a cigarette stub).
- Adhemar is Nero's son. He is a child prodigy. He is only a few years old, but has received numerous Nobel prizes and Ph.D.s. His major hobby is building rockets, called Adhemar I, II, ... They also tend to crash somewhere in every story, but are a major means to get to the exotic countries where the stories often take place.
- bourgeois friend of Nero. In initial albums it appears he can only speak a broken, French-sounding kind of Flemish due to his French-speaking background. Later, he is portrayed as an old-fashioned Flemish nouveau riche, who thinks it is fitting that he speaks some poor kind of French instead of Dutch (a reference to the language battle between the Flemish and the French-speaking communities).
- Madam Pheip is his wife. She is a pipe-smoking bully, loyal to her kids, herself, her husband, and her friends (in that order). When necessary, she can make a smoke curtain with her pipe.
- Petatje is the adopted daughter of the Pheips. Her father and mother died when she was very young. Initially, she was adopted by Nero, but soon got to live with the Pheips. Her name, "Petatje", is a reference to the Flemish word for potato being "patat" (in dialect pronounced as "petat").
- Petoetje is their adopted son. He is actually the son of a Papuan king, and is extremely bright. Petoetje and Petatje are treated like children (which they are, around 10 years old) by their step-parents, even though they act more maturely most of the time.
- Clo-Clo is the younger son of the Pheips. His main characteristic is wearing a large moustache, despite being a toddler. He weeps for the smallest reason.
- Abraham Tuizentfloot is "the last pirate still alive", or so he believes. Armed with a dagger or sometimes a cannon, he is very easily irritated and chases everyone around. He can pop up in a story at any given time and it can never be predicted what he might do next. His name is a conflation of "duizendpoot" (jack of all trades) and "vloot" (fleet).
- Captain Oliepul is the captain of a tugboat named 'His Majesty's Pull'. He is a good friend of Nero, and has saved him many times. He's Marc Sleen's "deus ex machina": whenever characters seem to be drowning, at the very last moment captain Oliepul coincidentally passes by and saves them just in time.
- Jan Spier is an extremely strong man, who is said to be the last descendant of Jan Breydel. His last name means "muscle" in Dutch. He makes a living selling French fries or chips. He disappeared for many years in the middle part of the series, but readers convinced Sleen to let Jan Spier reappear. During the run of the series, he was married to at least two different women, Minoetje and Isabella. No divorce was ever mentioned or other explanation given.
- Officer Gaston was the last character to become a regular in the comic, and appeared very late, in 1995, twenty years after the birth of Clo-Clo (at that point the last regular to be added to the cast). Gaston is fat, not too bright, and at times incredibly incompetent. However, somehow he has managed to save Nero a few times.
- Nero's worst enemies are the Maltese (see: "De Spekschieter") bandit Ricardo and a devil called Geraard de Duivel ("Gerard the Devil", named after the medieval building, Geeraard de Duivelsteen, in Ghent).
Popularity and influence
During its heyday Nero was the second most popular Flemish comic strip, after
Attempts have been made to translate Nero to the Dutch, British, French, German and South African market. Except for in Wallonia and the Netherlands, the translated versions of Nero never caught on.[3] Sleen has very rarely used his characters for merchandising or other commercializations.
Nero was very influential for the development of comics in Flanders. Its loose drawing style and story lines replete with
In popular culture
The Flemish comics prize Bronzen Adhemar is named and sculpted after the character Adhemar. In Turnhout, where the award ceremony is traditionally held, a huge statue of Adhemar can be seen in the Warande park since June 15, 1991. It was created by Frank-Ivo Van Damme.[7]
Several characters from the series also have their own statues.
The organisation "Nero-Harmonie" in Hoeilaart and a mountain bike route have been named after "Nero".[12]
In 1984 composer Johan De Smet, conductor Vincent D'Hondt and director Arne Sierens chose upon the "Nero" story Het Rattenkasteel ("The Rats' Castle") (1947) for an opera adaptation.[13][14] It premiered as Het Rattenkasteel.
The entire cast of the series was sculpted on a
In the Belgian Comic Strip Center in Brussels the permanent exhibition pays homage to the pioneers of Belgian comics, among them Marc Sleen. In the room dedicated to his work everything is designed to look like Nero's cosy home, complete with a tower of Belgian waffles and champagne nearby.[16]
Nero is among the many Belgian comics characters to have, facetiously, a Brussels street named after them. The Rue de la Fourche/ Greepstraat has a commemorative plaque with the name Rue Néron/ Nerostraat placed under the actual street sign.[17]
In 1995 a wall was dedicated to "Nero" at the Sint-Goriksplein/Place Saint-Géry in Brussels,[18] where it is part of the Brussels' Comic Book Route. Between 1996 and 2011 Hasselt also had a wall. In 2014 a wall was dedicated to "Nero" in the Kloosterstraat in Antwerp, depicting a scene from the album "De Oliespuiter" ("The Oil Injector").[19] depicting Nero, Petoetje and Petatje.[19][20]
The
Nero, the dog of the character Carmen Waterslaeghers in the successful Flemish TV sitcom
References
- ^ a b Lambiek Comiclopedia. "Marc Sleen".
- ^ Sleen, Marc, Het Geheim van Matsuoka, Uitgeverij Het Volk, 1947.
- ^ a b c d AUWERA, Fernand, en SMET, Jan, Marc Sleen, Uitgeverij Edicon/Standaard Uitgeverij, Antwerpen, 1985.
- ^ "Dirk Stallaert".
- ^ "60 Jaar Nero". Archived from the original on 2011-08-24. Retrieved 2015-10-29.
- ^ a b Marc Sleen: een uitgave van de Bronzen Adhemar Stichting, v.z.w., Turnhout, 1993.
- ^ [1][permanent dead link]
- ^ "Nero | Gemeente Hoeilaart". 16 March 2015.
- ^ "Standbeeld van Nero terug op de Zeedijk".
- ^ "Meneer Pheip".
- ^ Kathleen Brughmans (3 March 2000). "Stripfiguur Tuizentfloot uit Nero krijgt standbeeld in Wuust... - Gazet van Antwerpen". Gazet van Antwerpen.
- ^ "Nero-standbeeld in Hoeilaart nu in het brons". Gazet van Antwerpen. 2 September 2004.
- ^ "De Smet Johan (1956) | Matrix". Archived from the original on 2015-12-10. Retrieved 2015-10-29.
- ^ "Power of Mechanical Watch". Archived from the original on 2015-12-10. Retrieved 2015-10-29.
- ^ "Paul Dekker - de Wafelenbak". Archived from the original on 2016-11-10. Retrieved 2015-10-29.
- ^ "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2015-12-22. Retrieved 2015-11-07.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) - ^ "eBru | Bruxelles Capitale de la Bande Dessinée (BD) - Noms de rue". www.ebru.be.
- ^ [2][permanent dead link]
- ^ a b http://www.hln.be/regio/nieuws-uit-antwerpen/nero-prijkt-op-stripmuur-a1937681/.
{{cite web}}
: Missing or empty|title=
(help) - ^ "Stripmuren in Antwerpen - Comic murals in Antwerp".
- ^ Marc Sleen heeft eigen museum in Zandstraat, De Morgen.be, 19-06-2009
- ^ "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2015-07-14. Retrieved 2016-04-09.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) - ^ "Brussel krijgt Nerowandeling". 5 October 2011.
Sources
- Nero dossier European Comics on the Web
External links
Media related to Nero (Flemish Comics) at Wikimedia Commons