[Charlie Chaplin]

Rob-Vel, real name Robert Pierre Velter, was a French comic-strip artist, celebrated for creating the character Spirou: a mischievous, resourceful boy, red-haired like a squirrel, a nod to the double meaning of the familiar Belgian word. After the ban on publication that struck the Journal de Spirou in 1943, Rob-Vel decided to sell his character to Éditions Dupuis, who entrusted Jijé with taking over the series. Franquin later succeeded him, with the success we all know.

He began his career in the 1930s: while working as a headwaiter on an ocean liner, he met the American illustrator Martin Branner, who noticed his drawing skill during a transatlantic crossing. It proved to be a one-way ticket: Velter became his assistant on the Winnie Winkle strips and launched his career under the pseudonym Bozz. He returned to France in 1934 and began sketching fashionable writers, actors and performers, before creating the character Subito for Le Petit Parisien. This comic strip caught the attention of the Belgian publisher-printer Jean Dupuis, who wanted to launch a comic-strip magazine for young readers in his country: the Journal de Spirou.

These drawings, mementos of his American period, are rare and constitute early testimony to his beginnings.