Clifton (comics)

Clifton is a Franco-Belgian comics series in the humorous spy-genre, featuring the exploits of Colonel Sir Harold Wilberforce Clifton. It was created by Raymond Macherot in 1959, and has since passed on to other artists and writers. Over the fifty years of publication of the Clifton series, approximately twenty albums and twenty smaller stories have been published, totalling about 800 pages.

Character
A British colonel, retired from MI5, though sometimes still active for the British government, Clifton functions as an amateur sleuth, and his phlegmatic approach to stress leads to humorous situations. Harold Clifton lives in Puddington, near London, supported by housekeeper Miss Partridge, who makes a prize-winning goulash. Clifton drives a red MG TD from the early fifties, which gets mangled in most stories, but is repaired regardless of cost. Clifton's hobbies include Boy Scouting (he's Boy Scoutmaster Singing Heron), cats, and collecting cigar wraps. He received a Knighthood in 1993 for saving a member of the Royal family.

Clifton's amateur sleuthing leads him to investigate many cases, often with the police or MI5. His main contact at MI5 is Colonel Donald Spruce who often calls on him to deal with delicate missions. Spruce is the sort of man who would be perfectly capable of handling the missions himself if not for a leg injury which has left him partly disabled.

Note: in later adventures it was established that Clifton served in the RAF as a fighter pilot during World War II. Thus his proper rank would probably be that of Group Captain.

Publication history
It was originally Raymond Macherot who created the Colonel Clifton character, and the first story was published in the Franco-Belgian comics magazine Tintin on December 16, 1959. In preliminary studies, Macherot had used Colonel Horatio Amaory Crickett as a working name, but before the first story decided on Colonel Clifton instead. Clifton's first names Harold Wilberforce were not mentioned until the second story. After three stories, published in 1959-1960, Macherot went on to do other work, and eventually left Tintin for the competitor Spirou magazine, leaving behind his Tintin-owned work. Clifton was shelved for six years.

In 1969 Jo-El Azara and Greg revived the series, collaborating on the story Les lutins diaboliques, and in 1975, with the story Le mystère de la voix qui court, the duo of Turk and De Groot began a long-lasting collaboration of Clifton volumes.

There followed another change in 1983 as Bédu took over the artwork from Turk and worked with De Groot until the 90s. In 1991 Bédu became responsible for both artwork and scenario with the story Le clan Mc Gregor, the last story serialised in French Tintin, and continued to work alone for the following two stories published directly to albums.

In 2003, after a long inactive period, Rodrigue collaborated with Bob de Groot who returned to write Clifton scripts, and two volumes have been published since.

Timeline of major stories

 * *Denotes original year of publication until Tintin ceased to be published, and Clifton no longer serialised

Publications in magazines and other media
The cartoonists worked with original French language stories, whereas all were published simultaneously in French and Dutch, the two main Belgian languages, in the weekly magazines Tintin / Kuifje (French / Dutch edition of the same magazine), Junior (French) and Ons Volkske (Dutch), all published by Lombard Editions in Brussels. Clifton also ran in other magazines, across Europe such as the German publications Zack and YPS.

Beside French and Dutch, the stories have been translated into Finnish, Portuguese, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, English and German (where in most publications Clifton is named Percy Pickwick).

In 1984, a six minutes long Clifton theatrical animated short film was made by Belvision Studios as one of the studios' final productions in the 1980s, the film department of Lombard. The cartoon was based on the short story "Un pépin pour Clifton" (French) / "Onder Cliftons Paraplu" or "Pech voor Clifton" (Dutch) (Lit. "Bad luck for Clifton"/"Under Clifton's umbrella") by Turk and De Groot. The animation was produced by Michel Leloupe, with Anthony Hamilton voicing Clifton.

English translations
The series have been translated into English by Cinebook Ltd, a British publisher specializing in Franco-Belgian comics. So far, six books have been translated.

1. My Dear Wilkinson, 2005, ISBN 978-1-905460-06-9

2. The Laughing Thief, 2005, ISBN 978-1-905460-07-6

3. 7 days to die, 2006, ISBN 978-1-905460-08-3

4. The Black Moon, 2007, ISBN 978-1-905460-30-4

5. Jade, 2008, ISBN 978-1-905460-52-6

6. Kidnapping, 2009, ISBN 978-1-905460-87-8