Clifton (comics)

Colonel Clifton
Cover to My Dear Wilkinson (1976, trans. 2005), the first album that was released in English.
Publication information
Publisher	Lombard Editions (French) Cinebook (English)
Format	Ongoing series
Genre	Humor
Number of issues	21 (in French) 6 (in English)
Creative team
Writer(s)	De Groot
Artist(s)	Turk
Creator(s)	Raymond Macherot

Clifton is a Franco-Belgian comics series in the humorous spy-genre, featuring the exploits of Colonel Sir Harold Wilberforce Clifton. It was created by Raymond Macherot in 1959, and has since passed on to other artists and writers. Over the fifty years of publication of the Clifton series, approximately twenty albums and twenty smaller stories have been published, totalling about 800 pages.

A British colonel, retired from MI5, though sometimes still active for the British government, Clifton functions as an amateur sleuth, and his phlegmatic approach to stress leads to humorous situations. Harold Clifton lives in Puddington, near London, supported by housekeeper Miss Partridge, who makes a prize-winning goulash. Clifton drives a red MG TD from the early fifties, which gets mangled in most stories, but is repaired regardless of cost. Clifton's hobbies include Boy Scouting (he's Boy Scoutmaster Singing Heron), cats, and collecting cigar wraps. He received a Knighthood in 1993 for saving a member of the Royal family.

Clifton's amateur sleuthing leads him to investigate many cases, often with the police or MI5. His main contact at MI5 is Colonel Donald Spruce who often calls on him to deal with delicate missions. Spruce is the sort of man who would be perfectly capable of handling the missions himself if not for a leg injury which has left him partly disabled.

Note: in later adventures it was established that Clifton served in the RAF as a fighter pilot during World War II. Thus his proper rank would probably be that of Group Captain.

It was originally Raymond Macherot who created the Colonel Clifton character, and the first story was published in the Franco-Belgian comics magazine Tintin on 16 December 1959. In preliminary studies, Macherot had used Colonel Horatio Amaory Crickett as a working name, but before the first story decided on Colonel Clifton instead. Clifton's first names Harold Wilberforce were not mentioned until the second story. After three stories, published in 1959-1960, Macherot went on to do other work, and eventually left Tintin for the competitor Spirou magazine, leaving behind his Tintin-owned work.Clifton was shelved for six years.