[Harold Lloyd]

Rob-Vel, born Robert Pierre Velter, was a French comic-strip artist celebrated as the creator of Spirou: a mischievous, resourceful boy, red-haired “as a squirrel,” playing on the double meaning of the familiar Belgian word. After the Journal de Spirou was banned from publication in 1943, Rob-Vel decided to sell his character to Éditions Dupuis, who entrusted Jijé with taking over the strip. Franquin later succeeded him, with the success we know today.

Velter began his career in the 1930s: while working as a headwaiter aboard 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 strip caught the attention of the Belgian publisher-printer Jean Dupuis, who wished to launch a comics magazine for young readers in his country: the Journal de Spirou.

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