Achille Talon
Achille Talon is a Franco-Belgian comics series featuring an eponymous main character, created by Greg. Starting publication in the Franco-Belgian comics magazine Pilote in 1963, the series presents the comic misadventures of an anti-hero.
The name derives from "talon d'Achille", the French term for an "Achilles' heel".
Publication history
The first Achille Talon gag was published in Pilote on November 7, 1963. After several years of gags and increasing popularity, Achille Talon got a dedicated magazine of its own, Achille Talon magazine, starting publication on October 1, 1975. Not achieving the intended success, the magazine ceased publication after one year, producing only six issues. The album series has produced 46 volumes. Achille Talon is presented in two quite different formats: there are album length stories such as Achille Talon et la main du serpent, a 44-page story, as well as albums with only gags that run one or two pages each. Regardless of format, Achille Talon would typically first appear a few pages at a time in the weekly magazine Pilote, then be collected later for hardcover or softcover books.Characters
Achille Talon is a bourgeois who likes to think he's an eloquent intellectual. He is vain to the extent that he builds a giant statue of himself in his front garden and desperately tries to get on the good side of the local gentry. That being said, Achille Talon is a gentleman, an intrepid traveler and an animal lover. He values etiquette and sometimes resorts to activism or inventions. He is often at odds with his neighbour Hilarion Lefuneste, who loves to argue too.A man in his forties, Achille is single and lives at home with his parents. His father, Alambic Dieudonné Corydon Talon, is a beer-fanatic, while his mother, unnamed but always "maman", is a strong, earthy, loving bourgeois housewife. He never tires of the attentions of the aristocratic Virgule de Guillemets, who brings sophistication to his life.
Achille Talon can be courageous and magnanimous, a protector of animals and ever vigilant guardian of proper etiquette, so much so that he fights with an author of an etiquette book — over which of them has the honour of giving the right of way. He is a patron of the arts and briefly a wise, though ostensibly tyrannical, head of state.
Device
On a page verbal and visual humor are usually mixed, although sometimes the humour is strictly visual, sometimes mostly verbal. The visual humor is often from exaggeration, however occasionally it is subtle and understated.The verbal humour usually consists of long rants, in which internal inconsistencies, puns and sheer nonsense are cleverly interspersed. Of course, Achille Talon is almost invariably proven wrong and ends up being the butt of the joke.
Typical quotes
- "Bof" or "Hop" are his favorite interjections, especially if things do not turn out as expected. "Bof!" is the verbal equivalent of the Gaulish shrug, rather like "Whatever!"
- "After careful consideration of the facts, I've decided to faint. It may not be very heroic, but it is relaxing. Therefore, zzzzz."
Translation into English
Television adaptation
A television series of fifty-two twenty-six-minute episodes was made for Canal+ in 1996 by Saban International Paris. Each episode is broken up into two short stories. It was broadcast in France for the first time on September 3, 1997, in the television show C + Cléo on Canal+.The animated series is very different from the original comic. In the animated cartoon, Talon is a very awkward superhero who offers his heroic services for hire, replacing such characters as Luke Skywalker, Zorro and Tarzan when they become indisposed. Talon manages to make justice triumph by pure luck. The series was renamed Walter Melon for English-speaking television. The English version was broadcast on the Fox Family Channel.
Albums
- Achille Talon cerveau choc
- Achille Talon aggrave son cas
- Achille Talon persiste et signe
- Mon fils à moi
- L'Indispensable Achille Talon
- Achille Talon au pouvoir
- Les Insolences d'Achille Talon
- Achille Talon méprise l'obstacle
- Les Petits Desseins d'Achille Talon
- Le Roi de la science diction
- Brave et honnête Achille Talon
- Achille Talon au coin du feu
- Pas de pitié pour Achille Talon
- Le Mystère de l'homme à deux têtes
- Le Quadrumane optimiste
- Le Trésor de Virgule
- Le Roi des Zôtres
- Coquin de sort
- Le Grain de la folie
- Viva papa
- Ma vie à moi
- Le Sort s'acharne sur Achille Talon
- Achille Talon et la main du serpent
- L'Âge ingrat
- L'Esprit d'Eloi
- L'Arme du crocodile
- Ne rêvons pas
- L'insubmersible Achille Talon
- La Loi du bidouble
- Achille Talon a un gros nez
- Il n'y a qu'un seul Achille Talon
- La Traversée du disert
- La Vie secrète du journal Polite
- L'Incorrigible Achille Talon
- Achille Talon à bout portant
- Achille Talon n'a pas tout dit
- L'Archipel de Sanzunron
- Achille Talon contre docteur Chacal et mister Bide!
- Talon pour les dames
- Achille Talon et le monstre de l'étang Tacule
- L'Appeau d'Ephèse
- Le Musée Achille Talon
- ''Le Maître est Talon''
Post-Greg era
- Achille Talon a la main verte
- Tout va bien!
- ''Le Monde merveilleux du journal Polite''
Translations into English