'Pinocchio in de Ruimte' (Kuifje, 1965).
Willy Lateste was a Belgian animator and occasional comic artist. He created a couple of historical comics drawn in a realistic style for the comic magazine Ons Volkske. As an employee of Belvision he was animator and script supervisor for two 'Astérix' animated features, 'Asterix the Gaul' (1967) and 'Asterix and Cleopatra' (1968), as well as the box office flop 'Pinocchio en Espace' (Pinocchio In Space', 1965). He adapted the latter film into a comic strip, serialized in Tintin magazine.
Life and career
Willy Lateste was born in 1930 in Ostend. In the late 1950s he created several historical comics for the Flemish magazine Ons Volkske. Among them were 'Vader des Vaderlands' (1957-1958) about William the Silent, AKA the Prince of Orange, and 'Michiel de Ruyter' (1958), about the Dutch admiral Michiel de Ruyter.
Pinocchio In Space
In the 1960s Lateste went into animation, working for Studio Belvision. Belvision was founded by Raymond Leblanc, publisher of the comic magazine Tintin and owner of publishing house Le Lombard. Up until 1965 the studio had mostly made animated shorts for television, but that same year they released their first full-blown animated feature, 'Pinocchio Dans l'Espace'/'Pinocchio In De Ruimte' ('Pinocchio in Space', 1965), directed by Ray Goossens. Loosely based on Carlo Collodi's novel 'Pinocchio', the little puppet now finds himself in a science fiction context, where he has to defend Earth from a whale travelling through space. To promote the picture, Lateste drew a comic strip adaptation, which ran in Tintin magazine that same year. Nevertheless the film was a huge critical and commercial disaster. This also explains why the 'Pinocchio in Space' comic has never been made available in comic book format.
'Michiel de Ruyter' (1958).
Asterix films
Belvision quickly embarked on another animated feature, 'Astérix Le Gaulois' ('Astérix The Gaul', 1967), based on René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo's popular comic series 'Astérix'. This was consequently the first time the invincible Gaul was adapted to the big screen. The picture did well at the box office, though Goscinny and Uderzo took legal action since they weren't involved in the project. A settlement was reached and by the time the next 'Astérix' film, 'Astérix et Cléopâtre' ('Astérix and Cleopatra', 1968), came out the authors were directly involved. Vastly superior to its predecessor thanks to Goscinny's creative input, the picture became a classic. Lateste animated and wrote the screenplay for both pictures, but never saw the release of 'Astérix and Cleopatra', as he passed away in 1967.
Family connections
Lateste's brother, Eddie Lateste (1929) joined Belvision in 1960. He was a scriptwriter and animation supervisor for 'Astérix and Cleopatra' and would later direct two other comics-based animated features for Belvision, namely 'Le Temple du Soleil' ('Prisoners of the Sun', 1969), based on Hergé's 'Tintin' album, 'Tintin et le Lac aux Requins' ('Tintin and the Lake of Sharks', 1972), which he also co-produced, and 'La Flûte à Six Schtroumpfs' ('The Flute with the Six Smurfs', 1976), based on the 'Smurfs' album by Peyo. In 1971 he co-animated on Goscinny and Morris' 'Daisy Town' (1971), based on the series 'Lucky Luke'.
'Pinocchio In De Ruimte', Dutch-language version (Kuifje #29. 1965).