(This article is about the comic strip character. There is also Gaston, South Carolina.)

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Gaston Lagaffe (known by different names in translations, eg Guust Flater in Dutch; Viggo in Norwegian) is a fictional character invented by the Belgian cartoonist André Franquin (1924 - 1997) for a humorous comic strip, Gaston.

Gaston appeared in strip form in Spirou magazine from (1957) to Franquin's death in 1997. Most were republished in hardback "album" format, in several differently-numbered series. The Gaston character is an extremely popular pop culture icon in France, and since the 1980s appears on a wide variety of merchandise.

The strip started originally as single panels in Spirou magazine, which Franquin drew as a distraction from the more elaborate Spirou adventures. In the first years Gaston Lagaffe was a rather mischievous fellow with little or no personality who liked to play tricks on people or victimize them unintentionally by his blunders. As the years went by he stopped playing tricks, gained a rich personality as an inventive and tender slob, and became more often than not the victim of his own blunders. In other words, he became rather lovable. The name Lagaffe or La gaffe means "The Blunder" in French.

Need to mention: Le Gaffophone, the beat up old car, the alternative petrol (with the purple smoke) and a few other lunatic inventions.

In 1996 Franquin had the pleasure of participating in the inaugural ceremonies of his statue of Gaston Lagaffe, which had then found a permanent home on Boulevard Pachéco in Bruxelles.

See also: Franco-Belgian comics

External links

• Official site of Gaston Lagaffe http://www.gastonlagaffe.com/gaston/index.htm
• A page about Viggo http://www.stud.ifi.uio.no/~janl/ts/viggo.html
• A more detailed profile of him http://www.geocities.com/Paris/Cafe/2877/gaston/gaston.html