Gil Jourdan

Felix, the adventures of a young bespectacled detective written and drawn by Maurice Tillieux, was among the casualties, but returned in Spirou magazine as Gil Jourdan, though without the glasses.

Jourdan made his first appearance in a rather original manner: in issue 962 of Spirou, the bungling police Inspector Crouton takes wisecracking burglar Libellule out of prison in order to proceed to a reconstruction of a theft for which he has been arrested.

Jourdan is a private investigator in need of a big break and he thinks that Libellule's burglary skills could be useful in exposing a gang of popaïne [sic] smugglers.

His main motivation was earning money and exposing a gang of drugs smugglers was really a means of obtaining a big break from which he profited in many ways.

Tillieux' death in a car accident in 1978 brought an end to the series, though a number of short stories by other artists were drawn and published in homage to him and Jourdan some ten years later.

Jourdan's early adventures were banned in France by the censor, who objected to the portrayal of the French police, represented by Crouton, as bungling, incompetent no-hopers.

It featured Jourdan and his colleagues in adventures written and drawn by other writers and artists, including several leading ones such as Pierre Seron, Turk, Éric Maltaite and Tillieux's former assistant Stephen Desberg.