The Belgian Comic Strip Center - Museum Brussels

Olivier Schwartz is on the trail of the Golden Age with his drawings that are inspired by the great masters of Belgian semi-realist comic strip art. He has joined forces with his Brussels born and bred partner-in-crime to create an exciting detective series in the same vein as Gil Jourdan. Just like the latter, Atom, a law student, is eager to set up his own private detective agency working hand in hand as a trio with the heavyset Jojo la Toupie and the impertinent Mimi-Pinçon, a young woman who likes to smoke, but who certainly has other qualities too.

Comic strip fans who feel nostalgic about the good old days will love the dynamic script which is full of comical-satirical references that are so typical of Yann, and they will be pleased to find all the vital ingredients that have helped to make the great classics of comic strip art.

Jean-Claude De la Royère, Belgian Centre of Comic Strip Art

A new series by Yann and Schwartz featuring a hero worthy of the greatest adventure classics.

The story is set in the summer of 1949 in post-war France. Atom Vercorian, the son of a policeman, who dreams of becoming a private eye, decides to step in the shoes of his police inspector father to investigate the disappearance of the Begum jewels. Om Habibeh, the incredibly wealthy wife of Prince sultan Aga Khan III, has just become the victim of a hold-up, which not only happened at lightning speed, but was also highly dramatic. This famous news item did indeed hit the headlines in the early 1950s. The readers will be plunged in the retro ambiance of the end of the 1940s with drawings that are studded with little veiled messages and intricate detail.

Olivier Schwartz

As a self-taught comic strip artist working in a retro-futurist style marked by the neo-clear line of Yves Chaland, Olivier Schwartz, together with Yann, the scriptwriter, joined Spirou and Dupuis, on account of their Spirou & Fantasio adventures: Le Groom vert-de-gris [The Bellboy in Verdigris] and La femme-léopard [The Leopard Woman]. These comic books abound with comical-satirical references and tongue-in-cheek drawings.

Yann

He is the man-of-all-trades scriptwriter and he is an ace at finding just the right word. All his work brims with pithy dialogue. He sometimes indulges himself by doing some drawing, but then quickly resumes his writing. In doing so, he has added punch to the work of Frank Le Gall (‘Yoyo’ and one episode of ‘Théodore Poussin’ [Theodore Chick]), Henriet (‘Dent d’ours’ [Bear Tooth]), Batem and André Franquin (‘Le Marsupilami’ [The Marsupilami]), Olivier Neuray (‘Nuits blanches’ [Sleepless Nights]»), and Morris (‘Lucky Luke’). Yann is without a doubt one of those all too rare scriptwriters who are absolutely indispensable to the profession.

Published by Les éditions Dupuis

With the support of the Brussels-Capital Region