Tag Archives: Barelli

A week ago or so, I stumbled on a small website for local sales and much to my surprise I saw someone offering a selfmade scrapbook of Bob De Moor‘s “Barelli à Nusa-Penida” (volume & & 2) newspaper clippings in black and white (without the heading unfortunately). The price was so low (8 euro to be exact) I couldn’t believe what I saw. I quickly decided to get hold of it and after a 2 weeks wait the packet arrived this morning.

The different text legends

Sadly enough the seller couldn’t provide more info on when or in what title it had been published (although it’s probably from Le Soir), plus there is no trace this Barelli story was ever announced with a separate drawing. The only thing that is sure is that it is from a french written newspaper and that each issue of the newspaper had 1 page of the Barelli double story (if anyone out there knows more, please let us know). Each story counts 30 pages, which corresponds with the Bédéscope / BD Must version, and not the extended version which Bob De Moor made in the eighties (1982-1983) for Le Lombard to fit the 44 page format Le Lombard requested. Due to the ’80s extension the original end of part 1 of the “Nusa Penida” story was replaced by ending the first volume on page 14 of the 2nd volume. It also doesn’t correspond with the slightly longer Tintin Journal or Rombaldi version (both counting 62 pages).

The missing page, or what is left of it

The “Nusa Penida” story has undergone quite a lot of re-cuttings from the original as Bernard De Gioanni already showed in his defunct Bob De Moor blog. The page as shown on the left was omitted from the versions as we know them. Note that only the last strip was witheld for publication, hence why the drawing is cut off. However, that page does appear in the pre-publication in the Tintin journal and in the Rombaldi album of Barelli (“Collection des meilleures histoires de Tintin” 1983) which you can actually still buy on Amazon. Be fast though, I guess that after reading this article several will want to get hold of it. You can find back a trace of this ‘découpage’ in this newly found version (and in the BD Must and Bédéscope version), namely on the 7th page of volume 2. There you can see that it’s numbered with a 39, whereas it should be 37 if it had followed the re-cut numbering.

To make it even more complicated, this black and white version shows at least one difference with the BD Must version too, and that is the case legend which is on page 1 of volume 2 of “Nusa Penida”. The version in the black and white version is longer and explains how both have been on the ocean for weeks – and not days like in the version from BD Must and Bédéscope.

So in total that results in:

The Tintin Journal: 62 pages with 3 special frontcover artworks for announcing the story

The Bédéscope version: 60 pages with different covers to the ones used in Tintin (you’ll notice for instance that the one with the sailing boat for Tintin was slightly re-designed from the original with inspector Moreau now watching towards the reader and not towards the boat, plus Barelli’s haircut was ‘upgraded’)

The Le Lombard version: 88 pages with new pages, other cover artwork for both volumes and original pages that are not included.

The Rombaldi version: 62 pages with 1 cover, namely the Le Lombard one with Barelli doing a Tarzan (yes, it does get complicated)

The BD Must version: 60 pages with 2 ex-Libris included and same covers as the Bédéscope ones

This black and white version: 60 pages with a different text case on page 1 of the second volume compared to the BD Must version.

We all know the pastiche pages made by Bob de Moor, you can find some examples here, here, here, here and here (and there are more to come of course), but de Moor also was ‘victim’ of pastiches. A first one we show here is a Barelli pastiche made by Roger Brunel. It was published in the 3rd volume in the “Pastiches” series at Glénat Publishing back in 1984.

Barelli also appears on the front cover of the album next to many others such as Ric Hochet, Lefranc, Quick & Flupke, Natascha, Spike and Suzy, Benoît Brisefer and so on.

Barille by Roger Brunel

In the humoristic/erotic page you see Barelli (here renamed Barille or ‘Keg’ in English) meeting up with a journalist who is actually his (girl)friend Anne Nannah in disguise… with a strap-on. The reason for the strap-on is explained by Anne Nannah (her name actually means pineapple in phonetically French): “I wasn’t sure about your sexual orientation so I made sure I was properly equipped for every situation”. You’ll also note Cori in the painting above Barelli‘s bed. Poor kid.

Roger Brunel (born 12 September 1944 in Valence, France) is a comic artist especially known for his pastiche albums with a humoristic/erotic side. He is also the artistic director at Glénat and also took care of the “Romans de Toujours”-collection which features well-known novels turned into graphic novels.

This Bob de Moor drawing was used as starting point for the fly-leaf (‘page de garde’ in french) of the hardcover versions of the Barelli albums. And it was also re-used in print ads, with and without extra characters added.