La Belette (The Weasel)

The King Baudouin Foundation has been given the original artwork for the comic strip La Belette (The Weasel) by Didier Comès. The brother and two sisters of the Belgian artist donated his work in 2013 to prevent it being dispersed.

Published in the review (A suivre) between 1981 and 1982, this initiatory story tells the tale of a family of city dwellers who move to live in the village of Amercoeur. The Valentin family comprises Gérald and his pregnant wife, Anne, as well as their son Pierre who is autistic and mute. A witch, called Belette (Weasel), quickly takes Pierre under her wing and initiates him and his mother Anne into an ancient and mysterious cult. The arrival of the Valentin family awakes old stories in the village.

Silence, Comès’s previous story, had marked an important stylistic turn in the artist’s work and in La Belette, Comès continues his exploration of the infinite possibilities of masses of Indian ink.

As in Silence, Didier Comès sets the intrigue in a village in the Belgian Ardennes, the region where he was born.

In this work, the artist also confirmed his attraction to marginal characters, a common theme that would follow him throughout his work after Silence. La Belette has vulnerable heroes: a pregnant woman and an autistic child. They are characters who are disparaged and who have difficulties in communicating yet move the story along. In so doing, Didier Comès gives them dignity and normalcy.

In 1983, La Belette was awarded the Grand Prix Saint-Michel.