Blue (Hawk), Whie (Archer), Red (Mask)
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Blue (Hawk), White (Archer), Red (Mask): An Historical Overview of French Super-Heroes by Jean-Marc Lofficier
[Unless noted, all art accompanying this article has been provided by the author.]
In the Beginning: Rocambole
The first French super-hero ever was Rocambole, the creation of writer Pierre-Alexis Ponson du Terrail. The saga of Rocamabole, ou Les Drames de The French Tricolor flag came to life in some of that nation’s greatest Paris [The Dramas of Paris] was heroes and villains. L’Epervier Bleu (The Blue Hawk) battled pirates of the stratosphere—Jean-Yves Mitton’s L’Archer Blanc (The White initially serialized in chapters Archer) was a manhunter with a bow and arrow, and Masque A new universe? A new publisher? which appeared in the pages of Rouge (Red Mask) apparently conducted of his dirty work in the daily Parisian newspaper Le No, just some of the names of superpre-World War I skies. [L’Epervier Bleu art ©2003 Sirius/Dupuis; Matin, and was later collected in heroes that have appeared in the pages of other art ©2003 the respective copyright holders.] approximately a dozen volumes, French comic books and pulp magazines published between 1857 and 1870. since the 1940s, following a pulp literary tradition that began in the The last serial was, in fact, left uncompleted due to the untimely death of 1850s! This article will provide an historical overview of some of the its author. best-known or most interesting of them, as well as the publishing context in which they evolved. Rocambole, whose origins remained shrouded in mystery, was an adventurer who did good, but was often on the wrong side of the law, like Leslie Charteris’ Saint. Foreshadowing Doc Savage, Rocambole Before the medium of comics (in French, “bandes dessinées”) was gathered around him a group of trusted assistants, selected from various invented by Swiss writer-cartoonist Rodolphe Töpffer (whose first slices of society. And, like The Shadow, Rocambole had mastered the graphic story, Histoire de M. Vieuxboix [The Story of Mr. Vieuxbois], famed skills of the Orient and inherited the secrets of an ancient Tibetan was published in Geneva in 1827), super-heroes were to be found, in civilization. He was more than a mere man; his ability to escape from France as in America, in popular literature serials published first in daily any kind of deadly trap led to the French coining the adjective “rocamnewspapers—hence the label “roman feuilleton,” feuille (leaf) being a bolesque” to label any kind of fantastic, outrageous adventure. term for a newspaper page—before being collected in what we would The amazing Rocambole. The elusive Fantômas. The Nyctalope. Mad Doctor Cornelius. Judex. Fantax. Satanax. Salvator. Zembla. Wampus. Photonik. Homicron.
recognize as “pulps.” As is the case today, there was a distinction between those forms of popular entertainment and more highbrow literary works with more respectable cultural aspirations.
Rocambole’s sometimes lover, sometimes rival, was the beautiful Baccarat, a former courtesan who was a fearless shooter, rider, and swordswoman. Baccarat is perhaps the first modern female super-hero in the history of pulp literature. Rocambole’s arch-enemy was his former master, the satanic Sir Williams, who, like Doctor Doom, had a sense of