L'oncle Paul


Les Belles Histoires de l'oncle Paul, and later Les Plus Belles Histoires de l'oncle Paul, is a Belgian comics series of historical stories created by Jean-Michel Charlier and Eddy Paape and published in the Franco-Belgian comics magazine Spirou from 1951 to 1982.

Theme

The series consists of various short stories relating the historical character's life, an invention, an historical event, or a story taking place in the past. A wise and learned man, the uncle Paul, use a pretext to tell a story to his two nephews, most of the time following a foolish remark or deed of the nephews. The purpose of the series was entirely educational and didactic, and served as a kind of illustrated history lessons for the young Spirou readers.

Publication history

The first strip appeared in the issue 668 of Spirou at the beginning of 1951, named Cap plein Sud. The series was first drawn by Eddy Paape, who at that time was drawing the series Valhardi. In 1952, Octave Joly became the main writer of the series. This series, very popular, made it possible for a lot of newcoming authors to hone their skills and make themselves well-known, among them Paape, Attanasio, Jean Graton, Mitacq, Hermann and Gérald Forton. Several albums grouping the strips were published between in the 1950s. In the 70s, the series appeared less frequently, and finally disappeared in the 80s. L'oncle Paul was parodied many times in Spirou as well as in other magazines. An album of parodies was published.

Albums

Les Histoires vraies de l'Oncle Paul is a series of comics albums published by Dupuis grouping the Belles Histoires de l'Oncle Paul stories previously published in Spirou.
In 1986, Les Histoires merveilleuses de l' Oncle Paul were published by Vents d'Ouest and EDS. This was a pastiche and hommage album, featuring stories by a.o. Yves Chaland, Will, Frank Pé, Dany, Serge Clerc and Philippe Bercovici.
Many stories were later republished by Dupuis and other publishers, either as thematic albums or by author in anthology series.