Natacha (comics)
Natacha is a Belgian comics series, created by François Walthéry and Gos. Drawn by Walthéry, its stories have been written by several authors including Gos, Peyo, Maurice Tillieux, Raoul Cauvin and Marc Wasterlain.[1]
| Natacha | |
|---|---|
 Natacha, hôtesse de l'air (1971) | |
| Publication information | |
| Publisher | Spirou, Dupuis and Marsu Productions |
| First appearance | 1970 |
| Created by | Walthéry and Gos |
Synopsis
The series tells the adventures of Natacha, a young sexy flight attendant, and her clumsy, hot-tempered colleague and friend Walter.
Publication history
Natacha was first published in the Franco-Belgian comics magazine Spirou on February 26, 1970.[2] The series eventually ended serial publication in Spirou, leaving its publisher Dupuis, and began publishing albums only through Marsu Productions in 1989, starting with the album Cauchemirage.[3]
List of volumes
Albums by Dupuis
| French Title | Date of Publication | English Translation | Writer | Artist | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| "Natacha, hôtesse de l'air" | 1971 | Natacha, Air Hostess | Gos | Walthéry | |
| Natacha and Walter are taken on a charter flight to ferry a South American soccer team back home, along with a shipment of gold bullions. However, the soccer team has been secretly replaced by a team of gangsters, who hijack the plane and force it to land in the South American jungle. Separated from her crewmates when the plane crashes, Natacha must enlist the aid of a tribe of native headhunters to rescue them and thwart the gangsters before they can escape with the gold. | |||||
| "Natacha et le Maharadjah" | 1972 | Natacha and the Maharadjah | Gos | Walthéry | |
| In the South Asian nation of Kajasthan, despotic prince Mahmoud Zarrad has dethroned his older brother, Maharadjah Tchandar Abkar, who then fled into a mountain fortress which is impregnable except from the air. Zarrad intends to hire Fortemps, a world-class parachuting coach, to train paratroopers to conquer the fortress; when Fortemps refuses, Zarrad tries to kill him, only to be thwarted by Fortemps' students Natacha and Walter. The next day, when he discovers that Natacha and Walter are serving on the plane he's flying on, he exploits an emergency to have the aircraft land in Kajasthan, where he has them both arrested on trumped-up spy charges in order to have them "persuade" Fortemps. However, a band of Abkar loyalists enables their escape, and so Natacha and Walter flee towards Abkar's stronghold, hounded by Zarrad and his elite guard. | |||||
| "La mémoire de métal" | 1974 | Metal Memory | Étienne Borgers | Walthéry | |
|
La mémoire de métal: One night, Marty, a stewardess colleague of Natacha, knocks on the latter's door with a desperate plea for help. She and several of her colleagues have gotten involved in a diamond smuggling operation, but during her last assignment she damaged the container the gems were in, and for some unknown reason the organizers of the smuggling scheme seem awfully interested in the box. However, this now unwittingly gets Natacha targeted as well, and the smuggling caper is eventually revealed as an espionage case, forcing Natacha and a repentant pilot to fight for their very survival. Un brine de panique ("A Bit of Panic", written by Marc Westerlain): With Walter taking a hard-earned rest, Natacha must break in two new stewards on her next flight. When one of the newbies injures himself just before takeoff, Walter has to fill in. To make matters worse, their flight becomes the target of a vicious blackmailer. | |||||
| "Un Trône pour Natacha" | 1975 | A Throne for Natacha | Maurice Tillieux | Walthéry | |
|
Natacha catches the eye of the king of the African country of Thénia, and he invites her to his embassy with designs to marry her. This fits in conveniently with the National Security Service, and they hire Natacha for a clandestine investigation against Colonel von Tripp, a dangerous conman who has gained the king's confidence and is part of his entourage travelling to Belgium for an important treaty. Natacha and Walter, who is hired on as a cook, discover that von Tripp is conducting a secret smuggling operation right under the unknowing king's nose - but their discovery puts them right into von Tripp's crosshairs. Note: This story features comic artists Fournier and Hubinon as truckers; von Tripp is patterned after cartoonist Sirius (Max Mayeu); the National Security chief is a caricature of Thierry Martens; and one of the NS agents is based on Sammy Davis Jr.. | |||||
| "Double vol" | 1976 | Double Flight | Mittéï & Walthéry | Walthéry | |
|
L'étoile du berger ("The Evening Star", written by Gos): While waiting for Walter to celebrate Christmas Eve together, Natacha is ambushed and tied up by a duo of gangsters, one of whom takes her uniform and place on the next flight to steal a fable gemstone. Un tour de passe-passe ("A Sleight of Hand", script by Lemasque): While transporting a number of conjurers, all passengers suddenly fall asleep, one of them ends up murdered, another disappears, and the crew is informed of a dangerous spy hiding aboard. | |||||
| "Le treizième apôtre" | 1978 | The Thirteenth Apostle | Maurice Tillieux | Walthéry | |
| For their vacation, Natacha convinces an archeologist to allow her and Walter to accompany him to Turkey, where the professor is looking for the lost tomb of Jesus' fabled thirteenth apostle. However, a former assistant of the professor, dismissed for illegally selling artefacts on the black market, and her henchman are deternimed to line their own pockets with such a sensational find - and will not stop at anything, including murder, to claim their prize. | |||||
| "L'hôtesse et Monna Lisa" | 1979 | The Hostess and Mona Lisa | Mittéï | Walthéry & Pierre Seron | |
|
In the first part of the album, Natacha and Walter reminisce about the time Natacha's museum conservator grandmother (also named Natacha) and Walter's pilot grandfather (also named Walter) first met in the Roaring Twenties while transporting the famed Mona Lisa, only to be ambushed by sky pirates hired by the director of the airport the flight started from. The second half deals with Natacha's flight, a transport of a crowd of famed comic artists, getting kidnapped by a pair of little girls and their guardian to the private island of Katoukikas, the girls' father and a notorious arms dealer. Katoukikas wants the artists to create an exclusive comic collection for his daughters, but while they will be paid, they will not be allowed to leave. In order to free her friends and the artists, Natacha is forced to adopt drastic measures - in the form of a team of heavyweight boxers. Note: The second story, Natacha et les petits miquets ("Natasha and the Little Mickey Mouses", script by Walthéry and Mittéï), co-stars various famous European comic artists and writers of that era, including Berck, Cauvin, Deliège, Delporte, Devos (Raymond Devos), Fournier, Francis (Francis Bertrand), Franquin, Hausman, Hubinon, Jidèhem, Jijé, Lampil, Leloup, Macherot, Mittéi, Morris, Peyo, Piroton (Arthur Piroton), Roba, Sirius (Max Mayeu), Tacq, Tillieux, Vittorio, Wasterlain (Marc Wasterlain), Will, and (naturally) Walthéry and Gos themselves. | |||||
| "Instantanés pour Caltech" | 1981 | Snapshots for Caltech | Étienne Borgers | Walthéry & Jidéhem | |
| On their way to New York for a well-deserved break, Walter and Natacha spot a mysterious glowing object in the sky. Making a hasty snapshot of it, Walter takes his discovery to Caltech, where one of its professors, Andrew Warring, identifies the object as a genuine UFO. With this proof, Warring intends to make contact with the "aliens"; but he, Natacha and Walter face opposition from the FBI, who try everything in their power to keep Warring's discovery away from the public. They manage to track a UFO landing, but are kidnapped by the vessel's occupants. Walter escapes from their captors, only to discover that they are not aliens, but androids with the ability to control minds, while Natacha and the mindwiped Warring are sent back to Caltech with an android minder to erase any trace of the UFO's existence. | |||||
| "Les machines incertaines" | 1983 | The Uncertain Machines | Étienne Borgers | Walthéry & Jidéhem | |
| While Natacha is forced to help undo Warring's lifetime discovery, Walter escapes the ship after it lands, only to run into a group of humans who have formed a resistance movement against the androids. He learns that the androids are actually time travellers; he is now stuck in the year 2484, where the androids, originally servants of mankind, have covertly subjugated their former masters. To return back to his own time, Walter must organize his ragtag band of allies into a fighting force using the weapons the androids have collected in their investigative time quests about their origins. | |||||
| "L'ile d'outre-monde" | 1984 | The Island Beyond the World | Marc Wasterlain | Walthéry & Will | |
| Due to a chain of unfortunate circumstances, an insane pyromaniac boards the flight Natacha and Walter are serving on and sets the plane on fire, causing a crashlanding in the midst of the Pacific Ocean. Separated from the other passengers by a storm, Natacha and Walter are swept up on a lonely island, where they end up stuck for months trying to survive. It is only then that they discover that they have a murderous monster as a cohabitant. | |||||
| "Le grand pari" | 1985 | The Big Bet | Mittéï | Walthéry & Laudec | |
| "Les culottes de fer" | 1986 | The Iron Panties | Mittéï | Walthéry & Laudec | |
| "Les nomades du ciel" | 1988 | Sky Nomads | Mittéï | Walthéry & Laudec | |
Albums by Marsu Productions
| French Title | Date of Publication | English Translation | Writer | Artist | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| "Cauchemirage" | 1989 | Nightmare | Mythic | Walthéry & Mittéï | |
| "La ceinture du Cherchemidi" | 1992 | The Chercemidi Belt | Peyo | Walthéry & Mittéï | |
| "L'ange blond" | 1992 | The Blonde Angel | Maurice Tillieux | Walthéry & Georges Van Linthout | |
| "La veuve noire" | 1997 | The Black Widow | Michel Dusart | Walthéry & Georges Van Linthout | |
| "Natacha et les dinosaures" | 1998 | Natacha and the Dinosaurs | Marc Wasterlain | Walthéry | |
|
Note: This album borrows many elements about dinosaur behavior from Jurassic Park. | |||||
| "La mer des rochers" | 2004 | The Sea of Rocks | Peyo | Walthéry & Georges Van Linthout | |
| "Atoll 66" | 2007 | Atoll 66 | Guy d'Artet | Walthéry & Di Sano | |
| "Le Regard du Passe" | 2010 | The Gaze of the Pass | Martens | Walthéry | |
| "L’Épervier bleu" | 2014 | Blue Hawk | Sirius (Max Mayeu) | Walthéry | |
Publications in magazines
- Natacha, hôtesse de l'air (written by Gos), in Spirou n°1663 (February 26, 1970) - 1690 (March 3, 1970)
- À un cheveux de la catastrophe (written by Gos), in Spirou n°1682 (July 9, 1970)
- L'étoile du berger (written by Gos), in Spirou n°1706 (December 24, 1970)
- Natacha et le Maharadjah (written by Gos), in Spirou n°1747 (July 7, 1971) - 1765 (February 10, 1972)
- Un brin de panique (written by Marc Wasterlain), in Spirou n°1834 (7 juin 1973) à 1840 (19 juillet 1973)
- La mémoire de métal (written by d'Étienne Borgers and François Walthéry), in Spirou n°1849 (September 20, 1973) - 1860 (December 6, 1973)
- Natacha et la science-friction (written by J. Baert), in Spirou n°1860 (December 6, 1973)
- Un trône pour Natacha (written by Maurice Tillieux), in Spirou n°1893 (July 27, 1974) - 1912 (December 5, 1974)
- Double vol (written by Mittéï), in Spirou n°1928 (March 27, 1975) - 1937 (May 29, 1975)
-->
Sources
- Natacha publications in Spirou BDoubliées (in French)
- Natacha albums Bedetheque (in French)
- Footnotes
- Lambiek Comiclopedia. "François Walthéry".
- BDoubliées. "Spirou année 1970" (in French).
- BDoubliées. "Natacha" (in French).
External links
- Natacha on Les Belles des bédés (Cartoon Beauties) (in French)
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.