many many cool choices, I'll check them out! :) thanks! well, I was somewhat aiming at "classic" authors, J. Rudiš is a modern author (there are actually many great new Czech comic book artists, but the writing is usually not my cop of coffee...)

If i remember well, this was an inspiration for Dellamorte Dellamore, or something ?

Oooh wait. I was talking of the movie. I thought there was a drect connection with Dylan Dog.

So you say that the connection is with the author, and the movie is the adaptation from a separate comics series directlly called Dellamorte Dellamore ?

This would make more sense indeed. I don't know Dylan Dog well, but the connection I assumed with it seemed rather loose... :-/

The film you're refering to is an adaptation from a novel (with the same name) by Dylan Dog's author.

Okay. Thanks for the clarification. I thought it was adapted from a comic book.

There is also a pc game of Dylan Dog and Martin Mystere.

Yep! don't want to give too much away but Alan Moore is one of the few famous people from my entire county!

plus Jamie 'Tank Girl' Hewitt of course, he did a series called Hewligan's Haircut in 2000AD IIRC, as well as drawing Damon Albarn's solo project 'The Gorillaz' of course!

Simon 'The Biz' Bisley and his awesome eye for b00bs too!

*edit* should have said that Tank Girl's original home was a large format comic book/music mag/style mag called 'Deadline' which was cool and anarchic and awesome and the embodiment of everything that was good about the 90s!

Switzerland's most famous comic book series is Globi. Globi is an epic humanoid blue parrot whose adventures are shown in 6 black & white comic panels per page accompanied by the story written in verse on the opposing page. Collected all the book when I was a kid, true classic!

Weren't they promotional comics for the Globus malls ?

Also I was only seeing these in german switzerland. In the french part, "Titeuf" by Zep is a big thing. It's humoristic stories about a kid in school and his friends, but, while childish, it's attempting to be modern and trash and real. That is, unlike Calvin and Hobbes or Peanuts universe, it does deal with obsessive curiosity for girls and sexuality, etc.

I don't find it good (at all, actually) but it's a huge huge success. They have then used this irreverant character for educational sexual comics in schools, which is a good thing I suppose. Still, the overhype of this series, predictability of the jokes, and unlikeablke characters (from my point of view) does annoy me.

Asterix and Obelix is one EU series that I know of. I think they were originally published in French but we have the German translations.

Yes indeed, Globi did in fact start out as an advertising mascot (as apparent from his name) but he soon leveled up to become something much more powerful, second only to William Tell if you ask me. Globi is our national parrot hero!

Though his name is always used in a slightly condescending way, you know when someone calls you 'en huere globi' = big goof.

As for Titeuf, I'm not a fan either, mainly because I don't get this type of humor and perhaps my French isn't good enough to catch on all the subtleties but I respect the illustrator's drawing ability.

and this one?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kajko_i_Kokosz

We have a lot of comic book artists here in Portugal, most of them doing underground, artsy graphic novels and comics. They're pretty much unknown outside the country, but in the right circles some of them are highly lauded and acclaimed.

As of now, out of all the major artists out here, I'd highly recommend checking José Carlos Fernandes, especially his series A Pior Banda do Mundo (lit. "the worst band in the world") -- French edition cover pictured.

We also have this recent amazing series called Dog Mendonça & Pizzaboy, written by Filipe Melo, a Portuguese musician, with art by Juan Cavia, an Argentinian artist. Dog Mendonça is fast paced, amazingly written and superbly drawn, takes place mostly in Portugal but with scenes across some other European countries as well. It has been enjoying moderate success, being published in the U.S. by Dark Horse Comics, and with John Landis, Tobe Hooper and George Romero providing prefaces to the books. Be sure to check this one out.

[EDIT] Well, if any of you fine people reading this would care, be sure to browse Stuart Carvalhais, a late XIX-early XX centuries Portuguese cartoonist that was not only a precursor of the cartoon medium over here, but worldwide, as well, and tends to be forgotten in most -- if not all -- cartoon/comics histories and studies around. He has a Portuguese Wikipedia page, that's all I could find, if you're interested just use some reliable web translator to understand it.

Well I wouldn't say national. More swiss-german. The french area is pretty much totally oblivious of Globi (especially compared to Tell). It's one element oif distinction between the germanophone and francophone swiss cultures.

Strangely, the big children series here was the danish Petzi series. Much more known and widespread than Globi, at least when I was a kid.

If I'm not mistaken, even Globus shops are pretty much globi-free, in Geneva and Lausanne (though I'll have to check next time, as I'm more in a manor/coop/migros area).