MY FAVORITE COMICS - Les Schtroumpfs, Johan et Pirlouit, Benoît Brisefer by Peyo

     Speaking of blue skinned creatures... back when I was a little kid, the Schtroumpfs were everywhere. There was an animated tv series, toys, all sorts of merchandising and, naturally, the comics. I remember how that stuff really triggered my imagination. I mean, for a small child, at least in those more innocent times, there could really be some lost race of little creatures somewhere out there, right? Oh, I also remember seeing the ads for a movie, "La flûte à six Schtroumpfs". Sadly, mom and dad never took me to see that movie... But what seemed like the two main heroes of the film, at least from the poster and movie stills shown outside the theatres (named Johan and Pirlouit, I would later learn) stuck on my mind. They seemed like fun. Fast forward a few years and I borrow a couple of books from a friend of a friend. Both by Peyo. The cartoonist behind the Schtroumpfs. Guess who I finally get to know? That's right, Johan and Pirlouit. Boy, were my instincts right? This was even more fun that those Schtroumpfs books I had, which were already pretty good. This was more like adventure! And plus, the other book had a character I had never even seen or heard about: Benoît Brisefer, a superpowered kid who loses his powers whenever he catches a cold. More innocent times like I said... but they sure don't mak'em like they used to. 

MY FAVORITE COMICS - Yoko Tsuno

Anyone reading this sequence of posts must be thinking I was a marvel zombie. Well, while I did read far too many marvel comics for my own good (they were cheap and easy to come by), my comic book reading diet as a kid was composed of other stuff as well, like Disney comics, Harvey comics (Richie Rich and Friends), Brazilian Turma da Mónica and, naturally, european comics too. Out of these later, one that sticks out as a personal favorite was the first volume of Roger Leloup's Yoko Tsuno "Le Trio de l'étrange". Again, as in other cases, my love for science-fiction probably had a hand on my love for this comic. Also, this is one of those cases where I remember enjoying Leloup's artwork so much that I copied quite a few pages of this book. Everything was so cool and nicely drawn - the characters, the spaceships, the alien civilization... speaking of which and looking back, I wonder if the skin color of the aliens who show up in this comic played a role (subconsciously) on how I handled that aspect of the Annunaki on my own The Mighty Enlil...?  

MY FAVORITE COMICS - Star-lord by Chris Claremont, John Byrne and Terry Austin

A long time ago, there were fun comics, the kind that you read on a breeze and later forget about them and there were good comics, the kind that you'd keep coming back to and read again and again and again until the comic would start wearing out and falling apart. This, the debut of the creative team of Claremont/Byrne/Austin, belongs to this later type of comic. I still remember how it felt unlike anything else I had been reading from marvel. I still remember how I wanted and waited for further stories with these same characters and creators... and how that never came to pass. Still, the team would go on to make their mark on another set of characters and forever change the landscape of superhero comics.

MY FAVORITE COMICS - Captain America #247-255

Imho, Roger Stern/John Byrne/Joe Rubinstein's run on this title is still the BEST Captain America EVER, full period.