| Starter | |
| Date: | 1952 |
| Main Char Team: | Starter Pipette |
| Genre: | Humor |
Starter is a Franco-Belgian comics series created by André Franquin (drawings) and Jidéhem (drawings and scripts) in Spirou.
It originated in from a similarly titled periodical column about automobiles, written by Jacques Wauters in Spirou from 1952 on.[1] In 1956 André Franquin started illustrating these columns and drew a little mechanic named Starter.[2] One year later, his workload for the magazine had become massive, and he left the illustration work to Jidéhem, who had a notable talent for drawing automobiles. Jidéhem wrote and drew the column until 1978. Starter collected more than 700 episodes, full with beautiful technical drawings and technologically correct information.[3]
The column was originally just text, with a few illustrations. Eventually it evolved into an adventure comic around Starter the mechanic. One of the side characters, Sophie, was introduced in 1964 and would eventually receive her own spin-off named Sophie.[4]
Since, several books have been published with info and art from the Starter Columns.