'Jean-Marie Pfaff - De Held van München'.
F. Defossez is a Belgian comic artist whose entire career consists of the one-shot celebrity comic 'Jean-Marie Pfaff - De Held van München' ('Jean-Marie Pfaff - The Hero of Munich', 1984) about Belgian association football keeper Jean-Marie Pfaff.
Jean-Marie Pfaff - De Held van München
Nothing is known about F. Defossez. He created the celebrity comic in collaboration with K. Luyckx, who wrote the script, and H. Denkens, who colored the drawings. The book is a humorous version of Pfaff's life story with special focus on his football career. The mention of Munich in the title refers to the German association football club Bayern München, where Pfaff played between 1982 and 1988. He helped the team win quite some matches, even though his knowledge of the German language was downright laughable. In the introduction, Luyckx explains that the book is not intended as a realistic biopic, but still made for Pfaff's fans rather than his detractors.
'Jean-Marie Pfaff - De Held van München', depicting his wife Carmen and football players Paul Breitner and Dieter Hoeneß.
The book is indeed only loosely based on Pfaff's actual life story. Most events are treated with artistic license. Random cameos of Belgian Prime Minister Wilfried Martens, Minister of Finance Willy De Clercq and king Baudouin appear and halfway the book several press photographs are used as page filler. Some of them have humorous speech balloons added to them, making the book part photo comic too. Apart from Pfaff, other football icons are caricatured too, such as Raymond Goethals, Paul Breitner, Dieter Hoeneß and Johan Cruyff. Despite its amateuristic nature, 'Jean-Marie Pfaff - De Held van München' is obviously made with the outmost respect for Pfaff. On the penultimate pages several handwritten homages are printed by his colleagues and associates Jef Mermans, Jaak Roelandt, Wilfried van Moer, Rik Pauwels, F. Loos, Jan van Ussel, Marcel Dries, Ludo Coeck, Jan Peeters and Guy Thys.
While not much else is known about Defossez' further career, the comic book still holds some historical significance for being the first attempt to create a celebrity comic around Jean-Marie Pfaff, two decades before Ronald Grossey and Charel Cambré made 'De Pfaffs' (2003-2004), a comic series cashing in on the reality TV series based around Pfaff and his family.
'Jean-Marie Pfaff - De Held van München'.