Review by Frank Plowright

André Franquin’s cover to Twenty-One Goof Salute economically encapsulates the essence of Gomer Goof. There’s the genial, if slightly loopy personality, the enthusiasm, the office surroundings, his pet cat and tame seagull, a bizarre invention whose purpose isn’t immediately apparent and the old taxi he drives, subject to numerous experimental modifications. Only the boat has no apparent purpose, but then whimsical inclusions are stock in trade for Franquin, as seen by the visually inventive signatures for each strip, every one pertinent to the content.

The cover to Goof-Off at Gomer Corral featured parking officer Longsnoot, and he’s the victim of so many pranks and unfortunate incidents here. In fact Franquin’s annoyance at parking problems combined with a school art class visit reawakened his enthusiasm for another run at Gomer Goof in the early 1980s, three years after the previous collection.

His cartooning has become ever more stylised, complex and fiddly, but remains gloriously capable of defining motion and feelings. However, the jokes lack the sheer inspiration of earlier volumes. There are a fair few good laughs, but little consistency. For every strip that features inspired madness like Gomer skipping rope on a bicycle there’s one contingent on Prunelle’s anger for the punchline. Also very apparent is Franquin’s increasing concern for the wider world, or at least Spirou allowing him to feed these concerns into the strips. One features a ecological protest, there’s Gomer heading off to another, and a couple of strips are Gomer’s fantasies about dealing with whaling ships.

It’s also worth noting Franquin conceiving inventions for his strips that later came about, including solar panels.

Franquin might have rediscovered his enthusiasm for an album’s worth of material, but it rapidly evaporated again until a surprise revival fourteen years later in 1996. That’s perhaps the content of next Cinebook album His Goof is Cooked, or the five earliest Gomer Goof collections haven’t yet been translated.