French Cartoon Characters and Monocles

So, tonight I'm going to go right off the rails here and talk about something a bit obscure.  Tonight the topic of conversation is some cartoons that I watched when I was younger which I have just absolutely cherished.  Their common theme is that they are all three products of the french speaking world - two from Belgium, one from France.  Also, monocles have inadvertently played an important role, oddly enough.  That aside, since Tintin is in theatres and is therefore currently and en vogue, I'll start with him, but there are a couple others that I'd like to have fun with tonight.  Now strap yourself in and get ready for some really, really cool stuff.


Grab your coat and lovable furry companion cause the shit's about to get real.

 So, like, when everyone was kids they all wanted to be cool things like farmers and prime ministers, but not me.  No sirree. I wanted to be an explorer!  I looked through all the encyclopedias at all of the of the flags of the different countries, marveled at how Antarctica was just ice all year round, looked at pictures of the Sahara Desert in amazement, and wondered what it must have been like to have tagged along with Marco Polo.  Well, watching Tintin when I was a kid was like the next best thing.  Tintin in Tibet!  The Cigars of the Pharaoh!  King Ottokar's Scepter!  Tintin seemingly went everywhere and did everything.  It was so amazing!  There was just something that struck me with awe seeing a red haired kid go exploring all over the world finding adventures in planes, trains, and automobiles, chasing after smugglers and mad scientists.  It was like this wonderful, fantastic world that I saw every week.  I loved it.

Roberto Rastapopoulos: Arch-villain.  You can tell he's the bad guy by the monocle.  For without it, he becomes...

...the delightful David Suchet!  It's kind of like a Clark Kent transformation thing.

There really wasn't much that I didn't like about the show or the characters' exploits.  I suppose in hindsight some of them had some pretty funky names (Cpt. Haddock, Prof. Calculus, Gen. Tapioca, et cetera ad nauseum) and were pretty blatant stereotypes (cranky old sea captain, absent minded professor, carribean strongman dictator, et cetera ad nauseum), but that was really besides the point.  This was one of those experiences where the sum was greater than that of the individual parts and what you were watching was just pure adventure on the screen.  It was, and is, amazing stuff.

Now the next subject that I'd like to look at is the one, the only, the legendary Arsène Lupin.

You know how sometimes the Japanese can take a really cool idea and beat it to death?

No, not that clown.  I mean the original!  This guy right here.


Do you miss the days when crooks were classy?  I'd love to see a dude in a top hat knock over a 7-11.

 But specifically, I mean this.

The archetypal gentleman thief.  Even moreso than Bo and Luke Duke.

 Oh, um.  Hold on.  Before I go any further, I have to reconcile something.  You know how earlier on I said that you can tell the bad guy because he's wearing a monocle?  Well, I take that back.  This is a good guy and he wears a monocle.  Only he's not really a good guy.  Well, he sort of is.  More of a neutral guy.  Sort of.  Well, I guess he poses as a bad guy, so I guess the rule still holds.

ANYWAY!

I couldn't tell you how long I've spent watching Nighthood on YTV when I was a kid.  A long time.  I saw every single episode and just fell in love with this guy.  He was like Robin Hood only way cooler.  This guy was, like, cat burglar, escape artist, acrobat, race car driver, disguise artist, and martial arts expert all rolled into one.  He was like this evil genius, only he wasn't really evil at all.  He just did everything that bad guys did, but only better so that he could rip them off and make them look bad and-

Ocean needed eleven.  Often more.  Ford only needs five.

YEAH!  Just like that!  Sorta.  Gee, no wonder I like that show so much...  No, but what makes Lupin cool was that he was this amazing anti-hero that was the equal to Sherlock Holmes.  Yeah, you see that in the french-speaking world, Lupin is just as popular as Holmes is in the english-speaking world, and really when you think about it the two are kind of similar characters that are just on the opposite sides of the mirror.  What makes Lupin special (and, by the way, the show Nighthood kind of gives you a bit of a skewed version of the ideal Lupin character) is that he is essentially an anarchist.  Unlike Robin Hood or Leverage or the A-Team...

Ah, chauvinism.  You know, chauvinism means both zealous patriotism AND sexism.  It's true!

.., he didn't really rob from the rich and give to the poor, he robbed from the rich and gave to himself.  He's the prime example of a literary character that walks up to a big, nasty, evil dude and says, "Hey you!  Yeah you.  Let me tell you a secret.  On Thursday night at 11:00 pm, I'm going to steal your watch.  See you then."  And then he goes and steals it!  Right out from under their nose.  It's great!  Totally amazing stuff.  I have to order his books sometime soon in the new year.  I keep meaning to read them all, but I never get around to it.

Now, on to one of my favourite dynamic duos.  Who are they?  Why, they are...

I've only ever known one person to smoke a pipe.  Incidentally, he was also a professor.

...and they are here to save the free world.  From who, you ask?

How to be a cartoon bad guy step 1: look like this.

A bad guy with a monocle!  So, who are Blake and Mortimer?  Well, Captain Blake is a pilot of Welsh origin who's also a bigshot in MI5.  Think of him as a cross between James Bond and Hastings, to keep the Poirot/Belgian theme going.  He's the straight man in the operation that cruises in to save Professor Mortimer when he finds himself in trouble.  And who is Mortimer?  A brilliant Scottish physicist.  These two unlikely partners met in Colonial India and have remained friends ever since.

There are some twenty-minutes-into-the-future elements in each of these three concepts (Tintin on the Moon, The Von Luppo Affair), but as far as taking you to some REALLY fantastic places, Blake and Mortimer take the cake.  Atlantis.  Time travel.  You name it.  This is the kind of thing that could really take your imagination and run with it.  I suppose you could look at it as a sort of a spectrum where on one side you have super thief Lupin grounded more or less in reality, on the other side Blake and Mortimer going out there and having epic adventures with jet fighters, chemical warfare, and lost civilizations, but then in the middle you have Tintin who kind of sits comfortably between the two extremes.

Oh, and by the way, as a parting shot for Blake and Mortimer, consider this: the pilot episode of the Venture Brothers.

Please don't ask me what a "Rusty Venture" is...

This hip and cool daddy-o contemporary Adult Swim show heavily references all kinds of adventure type comics from James Bond to Jonny Quest, the Hardy Boys, Scooby Doo, the Justice League, and on and on and on.  But the pilot episode is about the "Oo-Ray" that Rusty shows off at the UN.  Well, the "Oo-Ray" is a direct reference to Blake and Mortimer's "U-Ray".  So, there you have it.  Blake and Mortimer are not nothing.

And so there are the three really cool cartoons that I've really enjoyed over the years.  All three french, all three involve monocles.  Mission accomplished.  Now, since I touched upon the Venture Bros. earlier, I would now be totally remiss if I did not include Dr. Girlfriend into the conversation.

Fantastic!  Well, that's all the time we've got for this edition.  Thank you for reading and stay warm as we descend deeper into winter.  Oh, and Happy New Year, too!  Good night!