''De Ronde van Frankrijk'' (''The Tour de France'') was a Belgian

gag cartoon A gag cartoon (also panel cartoon, single-panel cartoon, or gag panel) is most often a single-panel cartoon, usually including a caption beneath the drawing. A pantomime cartoon carries no caption. In some cases, dialogue may appear in speech bal ...

comic strip series by

Marc Sleen Marcel Honoree Nestor ( ridder) Neels (30 December 1922 – 6 November 2016), known as Marc Sleen, was a Belgian cartoonist. He was mostly known for his comic '' The Adventures of Nero and Co.'', but also created gag comics like '' Piet Fluwijn ...

, in which he made a comedic report of every daily tournament of the annual cycling contest the

Tour de France The Tour de France () is an annual men's multiple-stage bicycle race primarily held in France, while also occasionally passing through nearby countries. Like the other Grand Tours (the Giro d'Italia and the Vuelta a España), it consists ...

. Sleen drew the strip each year, from 1947 up until 1964, for the Flemish newspapers ''Het Vrije Volksblad'' and '' Het Volk''.

Concept

Each daily cartoon was a summarization of the tournament held the day before. Sleen drew caricatures of all famous cyclists and made

pun A pun, also known as paronomasia, is a form of word play that exploits multiple meanings of a term, or of similar-sounding words, for an intended humorous or rhetorical effect. These ambiguities can arise from the intentional use of homophoni ...

s on their names and typical cycling jargon. A

running gag A running gag, or running joke, is a literary device that takes the form of an amusing joke or a comical reference and appears repeatedly throughout a work of literature or other form of storytelling. Though they are similar, catchphrases are no ...

was the always losing Belgian team. He also gave famous politicians of the day a

cameo appearance A cameo role, also called a cameo appearance and often shortened to just cameo (), is a brief appearance of a well-known person in a work of the performing arts. These roles are generally small, many of them non-speaking ones, and are commonly ei ...

, including characters from his other comics series and the over-worked artist himself.

History

Sleen first drew the series in 1947. In 1948 he travelled along with the other journalists and the Belgian team leader

Romain Maes Romain Maes (; 10 August 1913 – 22 February 1983) was a Belgian cyclist who won the 1935 Tour de France after wearing the yellow jersey of leadership from beginning to end. Maes was the 13th child in his family. He started racing when he w ...

, but on all other occasions he remained at home, while listening to the live radio report. Often he drew the body of the winning cyclist of that day beforehand and waited with drawing the head until the winner was announced. When his cartoon was finished Sleen waited for a motorcyclist to pick up his drawing and drive back to the newspaper's office in

Ghent Ghent ( nl, Gent ; french: Gand ; traditional English: Gaunt) is a city and a municipality in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is the capital and largest city of the East Flanders province, and the third largest in the country, exceeded i ...

, so it could be published in the extra sports edition later that evening. The series was terminated in 1965, along with Sleen's other

gag-a-day A gag-a-day comic strip is the style of writing comic cartoons such that every installment of a strip delivers a complete joke or some other kind of artistic statement. It is opposed to story or continuity strips, which rely on the development of ...

comics, when he left ''Het Volk'' for the newspaper '' De Standaard''. Sleen also illustrated the cycling books ''Figuren uit de Tour'' and ''Humor en Tragiek uit de Tour'' by Jan Cornand and illustrated journalist Hubert Van De Vijver's reports.AUWERA, Fernand, en SMET, Jan, "Marc Sleen", Uitgeverij Edicon/Standaard Uitgeverij, Antwerpen, 1985, page 116-117 After Sleen left other artists tried to continue the series, but not with the same success.

Book compilation

In 1992 all the cartoons were compiled into Frans Lodewijckx' book ''De Grote Rondes van Marc Sleen''. Each chapter was enriched with commentaries of the newspapers' best reporters: Michel Casteels, Jan Cornand, Jérome Stevens, Willy Hofmans and André Blancke. Only the final installments of the 1948 and 1949 editions were lost and couldn't be retraced.

References

Sources

* AUWERA, Fernand, en SMET, Jan, "Marc Sleen", Uitgeverij Edicon/Standaard Uitgeverij, Antwerpen, 1985, page 116-117 * LODEWIJCKX, Frans, ''De grote rondes van Marc Sleen'', Uitgeverij Reinaert-Het Volk, Gent, 1992 {{DEFAULTSORT:Ronde van Frankrijk, De Belgian comic strips Belgian comics titles 1947 comics debuts 1964 comics endings Comics based on real people Gag-a-day comics Gag cartoon comics Satirical comics Cycling comics Comics by Marc Sleen Tour de France mass media Comics set in France Comics set in Belgium Works set in Flanders Comics set in the 1940s Comics set in the 1950s Comics set in the 1960s Cultural depictions of cyclists