Zantafio

Few villains in Franco-Belgian comics carry quite the menace and dark charisma of Zantafio, who slithered onto the pages of Spirou #814 in 1953, conjured by the legendary André Franquin and Maurice Rosy for Dupuis. A creature of the postwar Golden Age, he has cast a shadow across the beloved world of Spirou and Fantasio for an remarkable 65 years, from the early 1950s all the way to 2018. His catalog of appearances places him squarely in the orbit of some of the most iconic figures in European comics — Spirou, Fantasio, the irrepressible Marsupilami, and others — which tells you everything about the weight this antagonist carries in that universe. For any collector serious about the rich heritage of Dupuis and the Spirou legacy, Zantafio is one of those essential, irreplaceable presences who defines what a great comics villain can be.