Troll of Troy

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Troll von Troy (French original title: Trolls de Troy ) is a French comic series by Scotch Arleston and Jean-Louis Mourier , a prequel to his comic series " Lanfeust von Troy ".

action

All kinds of beings live in the world of Troy , but the most dangerous from a human point of view are the trolls. One day Rysta Fuquatou, the Reverend von Eckmulen, decides to enslave the trolls as servants - and only because in their culture they see people mainly as food and decoration. He creates a phalanx of troll hunters who have terrible magical powers. Teträm from the village of Palomp and his adopted daughter Waha set out to save their enchanted and kidnapped family ...

In ever new situations, the trolls grapple with the intrigues of the Revered Rysta Fuquatou and successfully defend their little troll village against various threats from outside.

main characters

  • Teträm , grandfather of the troll Hébus from the comic series "Lanfeust", is a typical troll: red-brown-haired, surrounded by the flies that accompany him (he knows everyone by name), always rowdy and always hungry. His favorite dish is Stilled Farmer and he loves a good barrel of Klostoper wine with it. Teträm is an exemplary family man and very proud of his adopted human daughter Waha. He's not afraid of anything or anyone ... except water (like all trolls). In dangerous situations, Waha thinks and plans for him, since Teträm's standard tactic - "OK, we'll go out now and cut everything short and sweet" - does not always lead directly to success.
  • Puitepée is Teträm's loving, faithful wife, an excellent cook and very skilled in decorating the common house, using only biological (mostly human) materials. She has three children: the little Gnondpom, who wants to become a real troll, like his father, and shows good approaches, and the as yet nameless twins.
  • Waha is the adopted human daughter of Teträm and Puitepée. Who her real parents are and how and why she was accepted by the Trolls is explained in Volume 14. She loves and adores her "P'pa Teträm" and feels and acts like a real troll. But if you ask her about her slight hair deficit , she reacts according to the instructions of her adoptive father. Like everyone else in the world, Troy has a special magical ability - and hers is more special than most: it's a random ability that has a different effect every time. Sometimes only soap bubbles appear, sometimes a house falls from the sky and another time there is a deluge. Waha is always depicted in a skimpy fur dress or later only with a very short blouse and a strip of fabric in the pubic area. She stands in sharp contrast to the unattractive trolls, especially the troll women. Even so, she is considered attractive by trolls (at least by Pröfy).
  • Gnondpom , the biological son of Teträm and Puitepée and brother of Waha, and Tyneth , the daughter of the village chief Haïgwépa, are inseparable friends when they accompany the other trolls on their adventures. You are brought up to be anti-authoritarian and like to play with people (or their body parts).
  • Pröfy is half troll (on his mother's side), half human (on his father's side) and originally comes from another village. He is not necessarily intelligent (which is to be seen as an advantage among trolls), but he is a loyal and reliable companion on the side of Teträm and Waha when it comes to averting disaster in the village. He is madly in love with Waha and wants to marry her. There are only three problems: Although Waha loves him, in their eyes he does not come close to “P'pa Teträm”, secondly, Teträm thinks Waha is still too young to marry and thirdly, a troll must have a house for the future one before marriage Build family. As a running gag , Pröfy tries to do this in every story, and his brilliant ideas always end in catastrophe. When he finally manages to build a stable domicile, it is destroyed again by the activities of the other trolls at the housewarming party, whereupon Pröfy falls into a catatonic depression, through which he can only be cured by the psychotherapist Sigismond LaJoie, by the Profy finds his long-missing father.
  • Haïgwépa is the head of the village of Palomp (Phalompe), which means officially he is the person in the village who has proven during the election process that he can strike the hardest.
  • Roken is the village's black sheep . As a troll, he has no virtues: he is mean, cowardly and deviously intelligent. He too has a weakness for Waha, but since she bit his ear off in a fight at school, he always wears a head bandage to cover his shame.
  • The old magician Waderëh lives alone, not far from the village, in a dilapidated city in the swamps. As a wise man, he prepares potions and preserves knowledge of troll magic, which is different from that of humans. Since he no longer has teeth, he uses a man-sized mortar in which he grinds his prey before he eats it as food with a straw. At the beginning of the story, he already had Waha in his mortar once, but only briefly.
  • Rysta Fuquatou , the Reverend von Eckmül, is the head of the University Conservatory of Eckmül, the chairman of the council and the most powerful man on Troy. In all his attempts to become even more powerful, the trolls keep getting in his way, which he therefore fights with ever new strategies - in vain.

Comic series

The series conceived by Scotch Arleston and drawn by Jean-Louis Mourier currently consists of twelve volumes; in Germany it is published by Carlsen Verlag .

Volume (year) French title German title Note / pun
1 (1997) Histoires Trolles Troll stories Histoires drôles ⇒ Funny stories
2 (1998) Le Scalp du Vénérable The honorable one’s scalp
3 (1999) Comme un Vol de Pétaures The flight of the petaurs
4 (2000) Le feu occult Occult fire Le Feu au Cul ⇒ fire in the buttocks
5 (2001) Les Maléfices de la Thaumaturge The plot of the miracle worker
6 (2002) Trolls in the Brume Trolls in the fog Allusion to gorillas in the fog
7 (2004) Plume de Sage The wise man's pen
8 (2005) Rock'n Troll Attitude Rock'n'Troll Rock 'n' Roll and the Rolling Stones
9 (2006) Les Prisonniers du Darshan (I) Trapped in darshan
10 (2007) Les Enragés du Darshan Trouble in darshan
11 (2008) Trollympiades Trolly Olympiad Timed to coincide with the
Summer Olympics in Beijing
12 (2009) Sang Famille (I) Family ties Sans Famille ⇒ Without a family
13 (2010) La Guerre des Gloutons (II) Wolverine's war
14 (2010) L'Histoire de Waha Waha's story
15 (2011) Boules de Poils (I) Fur balls (I) The French Title means both fur balls and - in Argot - hairy testicles
16 (2012) Poils de Trolls (II) Fur balls (II)
17 (2013) La Trolle Impromptue (Le Mariage de Waha) Swap women
18 (2014) Profy blues Pröfi has the blues
19 (2014) Pas de Nöl pour le Père Grommël A fur-raising winter fairy tale
20 (2015) L'Héritage de Waha Waha's inheritance
21 (2016) L'Or des Trolls Not yet published in Germany
22 (2017) À l'École des Trolls Not yet published in Germany

Depiction of violence

The detailed depiction of violence is an element of the series. The drawn people, animals and fantasy beings are eaten alive, grilled, burned, skinned, tortured, crushed, trampled on and killed or injured in other ways. Often violence or murder happens on the sidelines or is presented as completely natural and incidental, without empathy of the trolls (or the human Waha) towards other beings (except their own troll family).

According to the assessment of the Federal Testing Office for Media Harmful to Young People , the comic is approved for children aged 12 and over.

Running gags

Several running gags run through the episodes. Examples are:

  • Pröfys unsuccessful house building;
  • the trolls' fear of water - and how they try to deal with that fear;
  • the (collective) praise of (one's own) intelligence or the intelligence of others when extremely brutal solutions have been found to challenges.

background

Human vs. Troll

The comic delivers ironic swipes at human behavior: while human women beautify their homes with plants (flowers), troll women prefer arrangements of body parts and organs of mammals - especially humans - for the same purpose . Another important distinguishing feature is that people in the series always aim for enrichment or gain in power with complicated plans and ulterior motives, while the trolls always act very spontaneously, unreflectively and brutally and have no remorse or empathy towards other beings.

Name meaning

So you can read this comic series like a rough, black-humored adventure story. But as with the Asterix volumes, there is a second level that is hidden at first glance. The names of all actors are encrypted terms (some examples from the around 50 decryptions so far):

  • Fydelkass (the bearded village teacher) ⇒ Fydelkass Troll ⇒ Fidel Castro
  • Haïgwépa (the village mayor ) ⇒ Haïgwépa Troll ⇒ Highway Patrol (German: highway patrol )
  • Hébus (Lanfeust's troll friend) ⇒ Troll Hébus ⇒ Trolley Bus (German: bus with overhead line )
  • Pröfy (the would-be fiancee of Waha) ⇒ Pröfy Troll ⇒ profiteroles (interpreting .: small (!) Puffs )
  • Rysta Fuquatou (the Honorable von Eckmül) ⇒ Fuquatou Rysta ⇒ fuck a Tourista (German: sleep with a tourist)
  • Soychantruit Le Bourgmestre (the mayor of Eckmül) ⇒ Le Bourgmestre Soychantruit ⇒ Le bon Mai '68 (German: the good '68 May)
  • Tëtram (foster father of Waha and grandfather of Hébus) ⇒ Troll Tëtram ⇒ Drôle de Drame (German: funny drama )
  • Waderëh (the old magic troll) ⇒ Waderëh Troll ⇒ (Latin) Vade retro ⇒ back off

Graphic implementation

If you look at the very detailed drawings with a magnifying glass , you can discover other hidden gags (the first picture of the first volume is a good example: look into the window!) And find references to films, other comics or their illustrators. In fantasy fonts or flag patterns (after turning 90 °) and on tiny documents in the panels, there are short texts or questions. The speech bubbles themselves contain shaken or rearranged advertising slogans , film quotes or sayings from politicians that have been adapted to the action .

Many of these elements are lost in the German translation.

Comparison with Asterix and Obelix

In the French comic scene it is pointed out that Trolls de Troy has several parallels with Asterix and Obelix : In both series people eat, drink, beat and laugh a lot and with great pleasure; Friendship and solidarity among the villagers are high virtues ; and difficult adventures - mostly on long journeys and against powerful opponents - have to be overcome, but which one passes brilliantly with humor , magic and brute diplomacy . The basic ideas of some running gags also show parallels.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Trolls de Troy: Dix ans, toutes ses dents, et quelles dents! July 13, 2007 ; Interview with Didier Tarquin and Christophe Arleston (French)

Web links