Plot
Nero (comic book character) suffers from sleeping sickness and looks for a more peaceful environment to stay. When meeting a fortune teller, Madame Blanche, he is informed that Detective Van Zwam will be in danger when he enters a castle named "The Rat's Castle" in Erps-Kwerps. Indeed, at that same time Van Zwam and his dog Tito are in the vicinity of said castle and hear that several people who once entered there never came back alive. A local farmer advises Van Zwam to ring the clock in the castle's bell tower in case of danger. The story then returns to Nero who enters the castle in fear that Van Zwam is in danger (unbeknownst to him Van Zwam didn't enter). Inside Nero encounters a huge rat, whom he manages to scare off, but is captured by the mad scientist Dr. Ratsjenko, who tries to murder him. Since Nero keeps dozing off he is an easy victim. Just when Ratsjenko wants to murder Nero the rat accidentally rings the bell tower clock, alarming everybody outside. Unfortunately for Nero the farmers don't come to his aid at all, but just run off. However, Zwam happens to hear the bell and enters the castle where he finds Nero. Ratsjenko has fled, but while Van Zwam and Nero try to find him they suddenly see a colossal rat of about two metres high. They panic and run away, while the reader discovers it was just Ratsjenko in a rat suit. Meanwhile, Nero and Van Zwam get back to their senses and re-enter the castle, destined to find Ratsjenko. They discover his secret hiding place, but are captured and tied up as Ratsjenko plans to trepan them for a brain transplant, where he wants to put human brains inside a rat's head. When Ratsjenko reaches for his chloroform he accidentally puts himself to sleep. At that precise moment Ratsjenko's rat happens to quarrel with his wife. She is opposed to Ratsjenko's plans, scares her husband off and gnaws Nero's ropes loose. As Nero prepares to untie Van Zwam he falls asleep again, while Ratsjenko awakes again. He prepares Nero for the operation and gives him some extra chloroform, which has the opposite effect on him. Now fully awake Nero knocks Ratsjenko unconscious and frees Van Zwam, but the evil doctor manages to escape yet again, taking Van Zwam's dog Tito with him.
As Nero and Van Zwam go out to look for Ratsjenko they stumble upon their good friend Jef Pedal and his family. The three men burrow their bikes and chase after Ratsjenko. Then Pedal, Van Zwam and Nero accidentally crash into Madame Blanche's covered wagon. Blanche is angry, but does help them finding out where Ratsjenko is hiding, namely in Louvain. Pedal, Van Zwam and Nero decide to enlist in the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven because Ratsjenko presumably hides there. One day Nero discovers Rasjenko is his medics professor and chases him, but is hindered by student riots and jailed for public disturbance. As Van Zwam and Pedal are thrown out of their apartment by their rent lord they suddenly hear Tito barking inside a building. Van Zwam manages to enter, but Pedal is caught by the police and put in the same cell as Nero. Once again Van Zwam is captured by Ratsjenko and prepared for a brain transplant operation. Ratsjenko's rat has already received a human brain, stolen from the university lab. Now hyper intelligent the rat orders all the other rats to educate themselves and rise against humanity.
The wife of Ratsjenko's rat is still around however and helps Nero and Pedal to escape. She leads them to Ratsjenko's hide-out. When Pedal and Nero break in Ratsjenko jumps inside a refrigerator and has his rats attack the intruders. Only when the female rat punishes her husband into obedience does the rat uprising fall apart. Ratsjenko, now completely frozen due to being inside the refrigerator for so long, is taken to the police department and sent off to an insane asylum.
Political and cultural references within the story
The story makes reference to several things that were current when this story ran in the newspaper, including rationing cards in strip 2. In strip 47 Ratsjenko insults his rat's wife for being a "collaborator". The then current Louvain student riots are also referenced. [4] At the time the University of Louvain was predominantly French, despite also having a lot of Dutch-language students. In the 1960s riots by Flemish students for education in their own language became so fierce that the university was split into a Dutch-language university in Louvain and a French department in Louvain-la-Neuve. In the story Nero gets beaten up during student riots and Madame Blanche's covered wagon is stolen by Flemish students in strip 125, "because she writes her name in French".
In strips 7 and 10 two of Sleen's colleagues can be recognized, namely journalist Jan De Spot and Alfred Raport, head of De Standaard. [5]
Nero tries to chase away a rat in strip 42 by throwing books by author Louis Piérard at the creature's head.
In strip 151 the rats educate themselves and quote several famous authors and scientists, including Aristotle, Hamlet 's "To be or not to be" speech, the Lebesgue integration, Ivan Pavlov's test and the quote "The strongest are most powerful when they are alone" from Friedrich Schiller's play William Tell .
When battling the rats Jef Pedal quotes a line from Hendrik Conscience's The Lion of Flanders and Van Zwam tells his friends to think of the Six hundred Franchimontois.
The Adventures of Nero or Nero was a Belgian comic strip drawn by Marc Sleen and the name of its main character. The original title ranged from De Avonturen van Detectief Van Zwam in 1947 to De Avonturen van Nero en zijn Hoed in 1950, and finally De Avonturen van Nero & Co from 1951. It ran in continuous syndication until 2002. From 1947 until 1993 it was all drawn by Sleen himself. From 1992 until 2002 Dirk Stallaert took over the drawing while Sleen kept inventing the stories.
Marcel Honoree Nestor (ridder) Neels, 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 en Bolleke, De Lustige Kapoentjes, Doris Dobbel, Oktaaf Keunink and De Ronde van Frankrijk.
Jozef "Jef" Nys was a Belgian comic book creator. He was best known for his comic strip Jommeke.
The Bronzen Adhemar is the official Flemish Community Cultural Prize for Comics, given to a Flemish comics author for his body of work. It is awarded by the Flemish Ministry of Culture during Strip Turnhout, the major Flemish comics festival, once every two years.
Merho, is a Belgian comic-book writer and artist, best known for creating the comic strip De Kiekeboes.
The Arkprijs van het Vrije Woord is a symbolic award created in 1951 by Herman Teirlinck and the editorial team of the Nieuw Vlaams Tijdschrift to counteract ideologically driven restrictions on the freedom of expression.
Notable events of 1947 in comics.
Adhemar is a Flemish comic book character. He is the son of Nero in the eponymous Belgian comic strip series The Adventures of Nero by Marc Sleen and one of the main protagonists. He is a child prodigy who is both a professor as well as an inventor. His full title is doctor professor Adhemar. He is easily recognizable due to his mortarboard and tuxedo.
Nero is a Flemish comic book character and the main protagonist in Marc Sleen's long running comic book strip series The Adventures of Nero (1947–2002). He is one of the most recognizable comic book characters in Belgium and comparable to Lambik from the Suske en Wiske series by Willy Vandersteen.
Ricardo is a Flemish comic book character and the main antagonist in The Adventures of Nero series by Marc Sleen. He is a ruthless maffiosi who hates Nero with a passion. Together with Geeraard de Duivel and Matsuoka Ricardo is Nero's most frequent opponent, appearing in at least 24 albums, even surviving several seemingly deaths.
Abraham Tuizentfloot, in full Oscar Abraham Tuizentfloot, is a Flemish comic book character from the Belgian comic book series The Adventures of Nero by Marc Sleen. He is a crazy little man who dresses up as a pirate and has a tendency to attack people. In the series he is one of Nero's personal friends.
Piet Fluwijn en Bolleke was a Belgian gag-a-day comic strip series drawn by Marc Sleen from 1944 until 1965. It was continued by artists Hurey and Jean-Pol until 1974.
De Lustige Kapoentjes was a long-running Flemish comic book series, which existed under different titles and was drawn by different artists, among whom Marc Sleen and Willy Vandersteen are the most well known. The series was published in 't Kapoentje, the youth supplement of Het Volk, and in Ons Volkske, the youth supplement of De Standaard. They were the mascots of 't Kapoentje from 1947 until the magazine's demise in 1985.
Madam Pheip is a character from the Flemish comic strip The Adventures of Nero by Marc Sleen. In the series she is one of Nero 's personal friends and married to Meneer Pheip, with whom she has one child, Clo-Clo. Madam Pheip also adopted two children, Petoetje, and Petatje.
Meneer Pheip is a Flemish comic book character from the Belgian comic strip The Adventures of Nero by Marc Sleen. In the series he is part of Nero's personal circle of friends, despite often being up in arms with him. He is the husband of Madam Pheip, father of Clo-Clo and adoptive father of Petoetje and Petatje.
Bert is a Belgian comic strip, written and drawn by Kamagurka, which appeared exclusively in the Flemish magazine HUMO since 1977. The cartoons have also been published in the Dutch magazine Vrij Nederland, the French magazine Charlie Hebdo and the US magazine RAW. The series' protagonist, Bert, is Kamagurka's most recognizable character.
The Geeraard de Duivelsteen is a 13th century gothic architecture building in Ghent, Belgium. It served as defense of the Portus Ganda, the city's port.
Het Rattenkasteel was a 1984 opera adaptation of the comic book album Het Rattenkasteel from The Adventures of Nero series by Marc Sleen. It was directed by Arne Sierens, composed by Johan De Smet and under musical direction of Vincent D'Hondt.
Detective Van Zwam is a Flemish comics character in the Belgian comics series The Adventures of Nero by Marc Sleen. He is a brilliant detective and able to find clues from even the tiniest of evidence.
Wij, Heren van Zichem was a Flemish TV drama series, originally broadcast between 1969 and 1972 in 26 episodes on the BRT. The program was based on several novels by Ernest Claes, who died just a few months before the show first aired. All episodes were shot in the Flemish village Zichem. At the time it was one of the most popular TV series in Flanders, attracting almost 2,960,000 viewers which is about 3/4 of all Flemish people. Tourism to the village boomed, while it hardly had enough bars, let alone restaurants to accommodate the tourists. In a 2004 interview with Het Nieuwsblad actor Fons Exelmans remembered that tourists were often confused because certain houses and buildings were located less close to each other than in the series. The actors were also invited to appear during annual festivities as promotional stunts.
