Biggles is Back!

BIGGLES, THE great British ace-fighter pilot hero of World War I created by Captain W.E. Johns can now be read in graphic novel format.

WHEN I was a little boy my Great Aunt Rene and Uncle Bill gave me two Biggles books for either Christmas or a birthday. They had smashing painted covers, but, you know, I wasn't that interested in war stories back then, and they were pretty thick books, so, although I meant to, I never got round to reading them. Still haven't. But I've still got them, somewhere up in the loft, and I may just get round to reading them now.

Captain W.E. Johns, those initials stood for William Earl, had fought in the Great War himself, and he took those experiences and elaborated on them to create to the adventurous fighter pilot James Bigglesworth, better known as Biggles, whose first printed tale appeared in Popular Flying Magazine in 1932 under the title The White Fokker. There must have been plenty more serialised in its pages as the first Biggles collection, The Camels are Coming, was published in the same year.

From the sources I've read, the Captain's chief concern was to entertain the youth of his time, but ensured he paid attention to historical detail, and, although I may be incorrect here, didn't shy away from the fact that not all battles were glorious and people did die in them.

Time moved on, and the character's adventures took place during World War II also, and his popularity continued to grow with books now having bneen translated into 26 countries, in 17 different languages. Yes, I know, I really should get round to leafing through those ones my relatives kindly gave me all that time ago. But in the meantime, I can read the graphic novel adaptations.

Cinebook is publishing the Biggles books in comic book format. And guess what, Britain's first flying ace had his stories adapted overseas by a Frenchman!

Francis Bergèse got his pilot's licence at seventeen, enlisted in the French army where he flew reconnaissance missions, then at 23 began a career as a comic book artist. This was back in 1963 and the following decades found him a busy though not necessarily famous artist. Come the 1980s his work began to focus increasingly on the war genre, in 1983 he took over Buck Danny, after Victor Hubinon passed away. Then, from 1990 to 1994 he began adapting Biggles.

On the continent Bergèse is now acknowledged as the leading comic book artist of aviation stories, and from the work I've seen so far, it's pretty easy to see why.

In Biggles Book 1: Spitfire Parade, Bergèse introduces us to the titular hero as he lands at an airbase in Kent, during the summer of 1940. It transpires Biggles has been sent there to put a crack squadron together, using characters Johns used previously in other books alongside some new ones.

For one minute it begins to feel like some precursor to the class Seven Samurai film but then we get a comedy moment as a hunting hound chases a cat across Biggles' desk, followed by a new lieutenant, by the name of Lissie, dressed ready to get on a horse and chase some foxes. Us Brits and our quaint ways, eh. What must the thousands of Europeans who've read these Biggles adaptations already think of us I wonder.

Anyway, the story develops as Biggles gathers his band of flying aces and hones them into a crack team, the story interspersed with comic moments involving a pig called Hermann and other such jolly japes.

If I have a problem with the story, I guess it veers towards that privileged middle-class smug middle-RAF act a little dangerously, the same way that old black and white movie about Douglas Bader's life starring Kenneth More makes me embarrassed to watch it despite me knowing the real pilot was a war hero.

However, despite a few too many of those silly moments there is still some good humour in it, and, let's face it, it is the action that most comic book readers will be picking this up for and there are some rip-roaring furious air battles to be seen.

Bergèse not only knows his subject matter he knows how to make it thrilling, and that's pretty hard to do with planes that fly at great speeds but can only be captured in a handful of panel frames. Design comes into play there too. It's not just the aviation work that's top notch though, both figure work and natural landscapes are well defined too. These blooming foreigners sure know how to draw! (You do know I'm being ironic there, I take it!?).

Biggles has come onto the English speaking graphic novel market at just the right time. The last few years have found British bookstores, comic shops, department stores and Amazon alike doing good business selling collections of classic comic strip stories from D.C. Thomson's Commando and Fleetway/IPC's War Picture Library.

For more information on cinebook visit: cinebook.com

For more information on Biggles visit: www.biggles.info