A year later, however, the school was forced to close down because of the war and Franquin was then hired by Compagnie belge d'actualités (CBA), a short-lived animation studio in Brussels.

During this time, Morris and Franquin were coached by Joseph Gillain (Jijé), who had transformed a section of his house into a workspace for the two young comics artists and Will.

The inspiration for the Marsupilami's extremely long, prehensile tail came from imagining an appendage for the busy tramway conductors Franquin and his colleagues often encountered on their way to work.

Following Jijé's lead in the 1940s, Franquin coached a younger generation of comics artists in the 1950s, notably Jean Roba and Jidéhem, who both worked with him on Spirou et Fantasio.

This led to the creation of Modeste et Pompon, a gag series which included contributions from René Goscinny (of Astérix fame) and Peyo.

Franquin later returned to Spirou, but his contractual commitment to Tintin meant that he had to contribute to both magazines, an unusual arrangement in the comic industry.

In 1957, Spirou chief editor Yvan Delporte gave Franquin the idea for a new figure, Gaston Lagaffe (from the French la gaffe, meaning "the blunder").

Soon, Franquin was considered an undisputed master of the art form, on par with the likes of Hergé and his influence can be seen in the work of nearly every cartoonist hired by Spirou up until the end of the 1990s.

Early comic fanzines from around 1970 featured Franquin's Monsters, individual drawings of imaginary beasts highlighting his graphical craftmanship.

"Dark Thoughts"), first for the Spirou supplement, Le Trombone Illustré (with other cartoonists like René Follet) and later for Fluide Glacial.

Drawn entirely in black and white, Idées Noires is much more adult-oriented than Franquin's other works, focusing on themes such as death, war, pollution, and capital punishment with a devastatingly sarcastic sense of humour.

Starting in the 1970s, Ibáñez made extensive use of ideas and designs from Franquin's works, adapting them to his own universe, but also importing many graphic and narrative solutions.

Even one of his characters, "El Botones Sacarino", can be easily identified as a hybrid of Spirou (he is a bellboy) and Gaston Lagaffe (he works in a publishing company and is the source of never-ending disasters), whom he resembles physically.