Largo Winch
| Largo Winch | |||
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The first book in the series, The Heir
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| Created by |
Philippe Francq Jean Van Hamme |
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| Publication information | |||
| Publisher |
Dupuis (French) Cinebook (English) |
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| Formats | Original material for the series has been published as a set of graphic novels. | ||
| Original language | French | ||
| Genre | |||
| Main character(s) | Largo Winch Nerio Winch John D. Sullivan Dwight E. Cochrane Simon Ovronnaz |
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| Creative team | |||
| Creator(s) |
Philippe Francq Jean Van Hamme |
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| Reprints | |||
| The series has been reprinted, at least in part, in Danish, Dutch, English, German, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish, and Serbian. | |||
| Largo Winch: Empire Under Threat | |
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_boxart.jpg)
PC cover art
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| Developer(s) | Dupuis |
| Publisher(s) | Ubi Soft Entertainment |
| Writer(s) | Jean Van Hamme, Philippe Francq |
| Series | Largo Winch |
| Platform(s) | Xbox, PlayStation 2, GameCube, Windows |
| Release |
PlayStation 2 & Windows
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| Genre(s) | Action-adventure |
| Mode(s) | Single-player, multiplayer |
Largo Winch is a Belgian comic book series by Philippe Francq and Jean Van Hamme, published by Dupuis. It has started as a series of novels by Jean Van Hamme in the late 1970s, but stopped due to a lack of success and the huge amount of work Van Hamme had in the meantime with his comic books (e.g. Thorgal). When artist Philippe Francq wanted to start a series with Van Hamme, he revived his old hero, and reworked the novels into the first albums of the comic series. Later, new stories followed.
Its principal character is Largo Winch; birth name Largo Winczlav, who was born in Yugoslavia. Other important characters include Nerio Winch (his adoptive father, though they share a great-grandparent), senior Group W executives John D. Sullivan and Dwight E. Cochrane, and his friend Simon Ovronnaz. In the first two volumes of the series, L'héritier and Le Groupe W, Largo, a young and handsome orphan, is propelled to the head of a business empire, Group W, after his adoptive father Nerio is murdered, and goes through a lot of troubles to preserve his inheritance and avenge Nerio. The following albums are more or less based on the same basic plot: someone is trying to harm Largo's company or to take control of it from him, and he has to fight that someone to ensure the survival of his holdings. Almost every story arc involves corrupt authority figures of a type which Nerio easily manipulated, but Largo confronts from the viewpoint of an "everyman".
All the stories of the series are published in two volumes, the first one being the one putting Largo in an impossible situation, and the second one letting him get out of it. In addition, both volumes share the same background color on the cover. The stories appear originally in French, and have been translated into various languages, including Croatian, Danish, Dutch, English, German, Polish, Portuguese, Serbian, Spanish, Swedish, Italian and Tamil. The series is among the most popular comics series in French, with annual sales of nearly 500,000 copies.
The birth of the character came in 1973, while Van Hamme was having lunch in New York City with Greg, chief editor of Tintin. The magazine sought to expand to the American market and Van Hamme was tasked with creating the comic character and genre interesting for American audience. He thus opted with an business-thriller idea about a young mysterious billionaire, which would allow him to demonstrate his knowledge of economics. John Prentice, noted for his work on Rip Kirby, was chosen as the artist, and he drew a couple of boards before withdrawing from the project that was soon abandoned. Van Hamme first revived the character in form of an airport novel in 1978, encouraged by huge popularity of Gérard de Villiers' SAS novels. The series lasted through 1985 when it came to a halt again. Finally, in 1990, being approached by Francq, Van Hamme used the character yet again in comic form, and it had instant success.
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Wikipedia