Les Aventures de Tanguy et Laverdure is a Franco-Belgian comics series

Franco-Belgian comics

Franco-Belgian comics are comics that are created in Belgium and France. These countries have a long tradition in comics and comic books, where they are known as BDs, an abbreviation of bande dessinée in French and stripverhalen in Dutch...

 created by Jean-Michel Charlier

Jean-Michel Charlier

Jean-Michel Charlier was a Belgian script writer best known as a writer of realistic European comics. He was a co-founder of the famed European comics magazine Pilote.-Biography:...

 and Albert Uderzo

Albert Uderzo

Albert Uderzo is a French comic book artist, and scriptwriter. He is best known for his work on the Astérix series, but also drew other comics such as Oumpah-pah, also in collaboration with René Goscinny.-Early life:...

, about the two pilots Michel Tanguy and Ernest Laverdure, and their adventures in the French Air Force.

Publication history

Initially titled Michel Tanguy, it made its debut in the first issue of the comics magazine

Franco-Belgian comics magazines

Belgium and France have a long tradition in comics. They have a common history for comics and magazines.In the early years of its history, magazines had a large place on the comics market and were often the only place where comics were published. Most of them were kids-targeted.In the 1970s,...

 Pilote

Pilote

thumb|Cover of the first Pilote teaser issue, #0.Pilote was a French comics periodical published from 1959 to 1989. Showcasing most of the major French or Belgian comics talents of its day the magazine introduced major series such as Astérix le Gaulois, Blueberry, Achille Talon, and Valérian et...

on October 29, 1959. The series provided Pilote with a competitor to the similar series Buck Danny

Buck Danny

Buck Danny is a Franco-Belgian comics series about a military flying ace and his two sidekicks serving in the United States Navy or the United States Air Force. The series is noted for its realism both in the drawings and the descriptions of air force procedures as part of the storyline. In...

serialised in Spirou

Spirou (magazine)

Spirou magazine is a weekly Belgian comics magazine published by the Dupuis company...

and Dan Cooper of Tintin

Tintin (magazine)

Le journal de Tintin or Kuifje , was a weekly Belgian comics magazine of the second half of the 20th century...

.

Started in October 1959, the series was continuously published by Pilote until June 1971. Then its publication went on in Tintin (1973), Super As (1979/1980), the Catholic magazine Le Pélerin

Le Pèlerin

Le Pèlerin, today simply called Pèlerin, is a French weekly journal founded on July 12, 1873 by the Assumptionists....

(around 1981/1984), Moustique Junior (Belgium ; 1988). In 2002, the series resumed by two new authors, after a long break caused by Charlier's death.

Tanguy et Laverdure has been translated into languages such as German, Dutch, Danish, Indonesian, English, Spanish, Portuguese and Serbocroatian. It was adapted into a televised series, Les Chevaliers du Ciel, initially broadcast 1967-69, and 1988–91, adapted into a 2005 film, Les Chevaliers du Ciel

Les Chevaliers du ciel

Les Chevaliers du ciel is a 2005 French film directed by Gérard Pirès about two air force pilots preventing a terrorist attack on the Bastille Day celebrations in Paris...

.

English publications

The comic has been published in English in the British comic magazine Lion between April and September 1966 under the title The Flying Furies. The main characters were renamed with English names, Tanguy became Jim Power and Laverdure Terry Madden. There was an annual published in 1973 with the title The Aeronauts, the same title as the TV series received in Britain. This annual was a slightly edited compilation of two original albums, 11. Destination Pacifique and 12. Menace sur Mururoa, and used the characters' French names.

Story

Tanguy and Laverdure are two friends from the flying school with opposite personalities. While Tanguy is serious, honest and obedient, Laverdure is eccentric, blundering and awkward. However, Laverdure is a strong team mate for Tanguy in difficult situations. Dangerous missions and spying are everyday tasks for the two pilots, who are flying aces and efficient defenders of their homeland.

Leaving the Salon-de-Provence

Salon-de-Provence

Salon-de-Provence is a commune in the Bouches-du-Rhône department in southern France. It is the location of an important air base.-History:Salon was a Gallo-Roman oppidum well positioned on the salt trade routes between Adriatic, Atlantic and Mediterranean seas, hence its name...

 Air School, they are sent to the Meknès

Meknes

Meknes is a city in northern Morocco, located from the capital Rabat and from Fes. It is served by the A2 expressway between those two cities and by the corresponding railway. Meknes was the capital of Morocco under the reign of Moulay Ismail , before it was relocated to Marrakech. The...

 Air School to improve their knowledge. Just arrived, they search through the snowy Anti-Atlas

Anti-Atlas

The Anti-Atlas or Lesser Atlas or Little Atlas, is a mountain range in Morocco, a part of the Atlas mountains in the northwest of Africa. The Anti-Atlas extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the southwest toward the northeast, to the heights of Ouarzazate and further east to the city of Tafilalt,...

 to retrieve a lost warhead with confidential information. Later, Michel Tanguy and Ernest Laverdure join the Cigognes squadron, (which once included such flying aces as Georges Guynemer

Georges Guynemer

Georges Guynemer was a top fighter ace for France during World War I, and a French national hero at the time of his death.-Early life and military career:...

) where they pilot the Mirage III plane. Their adventures lead them to Dijon air base, Tel Aviv and Greenland.

External links

• Official website
• Tanguy et Laverdure on Jean-Michel Charlier's website
• L'integrale Tanguy et Laverdure