As for the above, Mssr De MesMaeker is of course one of Spirou Magazine's most important clients, perpetually on the verge of signing lucrative contracts with office-boss Fantasio.

For those unfamiliar with this classic André Franquin series, it's a spinoff of Spirou et Fantasio, set in a cartoon depiction of the real-life Spirou offices in Brussels. The main character is "Gaston Lagaffe," a lazy, accident-prone, yet relentlessly inventive junior office worker who reports to Fantasio.

Unlike some of the longer narratives seen in S&F, this comic simply aims for light, familiar, amiable humor. It's not necessarily wickedly clever nor side-splitting, rather the pleasure mostly comes from seeing whatever lunatic scheme Gaston is working on, usually to someone's detriment.

Btw, these all come from Cinebook's Mind the Goof album, in which Gaston's name is translated to "Gomer Goof" for English-speaking audiences. To me that happens to sound ridiculous, but oh well.

Certainly, one of the first questions any reader will ask is: why the hell wasn't Gaston fired long, long ago? Or: is Fantasio the most patient, long-suffering boss in the world, with a natural immunity to cardiovascular events?

Gaston's *official* backstory is that one day he showed up in the mailroom, started working, and for whatever reasons got hired. But let's face it-- he's almost certainly a 'nepo-baby,' and the whole office is simply forced to put up with his antics, other than Miss Jeanne (seen above), who thinks he's a genius.

Haha. Gotta love it when the tables turn, as with these last two...