[Buster Keaton]

Rob-Vel, whose real name was Robert Pierre Velter, was a French comic artist celebrated as the creator of Spirou: a mischievous, resourceful boy with red hair, playing on the double meaning of the familiar Belgian word. After publication of the Journal de Spirou was banned in 1943, Rob-Vel decided to sell his character to Éditions Dupuis, who entrusted Jijé with continuing the series. Franquin later took over, with the success that is well known.

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 during a transatlantic crossing. It proved to be a one-way ticket: Velter became Branner’s 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 weekly for young readers in Belgium: the Journal de Spirou.

These drawings, mementos of his American years, are rare and early testimonies to his beginnings.