Blake and Mortimer

Mortimer, left, and Blake, right.

Blake and Mortimer (1946-) is a Belgian comic created by Edgar P. Jacobs, a friend and collaborator of Hergé (the creator of Tintin). The comic, which mixes traditional mystery and espionage stories with Science Fiction elements, stars two middle-aged Brits: Captain Francis Blake, head of the MI 5; and Professor Philip Mortimer. Another important character is the duo's Arch Enemy, the devious Colonel Olrik, whose appearance was based on Jacobs in his younger years.

After the death of Jacobs in 1987, the comic has been continued by other authors and artists, including Jean Van Hamme, the creator of Thorgal and XIII, Yves Sente and André Juillard.

Tropes used in Blake and Mortimer include:

• Action Girl: Jessie Wingo in The Strange Encounter
  • Interestingly, women were almost entirely absent from the series while the original author was alive, and those few there were never had action-oriented parts. It was a man's world, and then some.
  • Jacobs had included female characters in Le Rayon U. The reason he did not do the same for Blake And Mortimer was that publication laws for youth-oriented series had become stricter after World War II: it was implicitly forbidden to draw attractive women in comics for kids.
• Adaptation Distillation: The animated series.
• Advanced Ancient Acropolis: Atlantis.
• Affably Evil
• Affectionate Parody: The Adventures of Phillip and Francis by Pierre Veys and Nicolas Barral, published by Dargaud, the same publisher as the original books. Published albums include The Empire Under Threat, The Machiavellian Trap and the (supposedly) upcoming The Yellow "M" vs. Godzilla
• Ancient Egypt: Mystery of the Great Pyramid, obviously.
• Anonymous Ringer: It's obvious that the hostile superpower in SOS Meteors is the Soviet Union, but the country is never mentioned by name.
• Arch Enemy: Olrik (Incidentally, his look was based on Jacobs himself)
• Atlantis
• Back from the Dead: Basam Damdu
• Beard of Evil: Averted with Mortimer, played straight in The Atlantis Enigma with the Big Bad (apparently, Jacobs's beard of evil is black and pointy).
  • And the Traitor in The Time Trap (who also sports a pointy black beard).
• Best Served Cold: It takes Septimus decades to take his revenge.
• Big Bad:
  • The Secret of the Swordfish: Basam Damdu.
  • The Yellow M: Dr Septimus.
  • Atlantis Mystery: Magon.
  • SOS Meteors: Professor Miloch Georgevitj as well as the general.
  • The Time Trap: Miloch again, even though he was already dead at that point.
  • The Francis Blake Affair: Deloraine.
  • The Voronov Plot: Dr Voronov.
  • The Strange Encounter: Basam Damdu and Dr Z'Ong.
  • The Sarcophagi from the Sixth Continent: Acoka.
  • The Curse of The Thirty Denarii: Reiner von Stahl/Belos Beloukian
• Brainwashed and Crazy: Olrik in The Yellow M.
• Break Out the Museum Piece: In The Time Trap, the rebels of the 51st century have armed themselves with ancient weapons from the 20th and 21st centuries found in underground stockpiles.
• Chekhov's Gunman: Dr. Ramirez in "The Strange Encounter.
• Clear My Name: Blake in The Francis Blake Affair.
• Cool Plane: The Swordfish.
• Covers Always Spoil: The cover of The Curse Of The Thirty Denarii (Volume 1) is the last panel of the book.
• Crapsack World: The future in both The Time Trap and The Strange Encounter is not a nice place.
• Curse of the Ancients: "By Jove!"
• Damsel in Distress: Agnès in The Time Trap is a quintessential damsel in distress--a medieval maiden in need of rescue from rampaging peasants.
• Dead Man Writing: Miloch sends Mortimer a letter like this.
• Dirty Communists: Voronov.
  • Arguably, Miloch as well. It's not said in so many words, but he's obviously on the payroll of the Soviet Bloc.
• Discreet Drink Disposal: Mortimer discreetly pours on the floor a cup of sake that he (rightly) suspects of being drugged in Professor Sato's Three Formulae.
• Distinguished Gentleman's Pipe: Both heroes.
• The Dragon: Olrik, when he's not working alone.
  • Olrik himself often has a dragon of his own - Sharkey is the most notable.
• The Emperor: Basam Damdu, Acoka as well.
• The Empire: The Yellow Empire in The Secret of the Swordfish.
• Funetik Aksent: "Condouisez ploutôt oune brouette" quoth S.O.S. Meteors.
• Genius Bruiser: Mortimer.
• Gentleman Thief: Olrik in The Necklace Affair.
• Good Smoking, Evil Smoking: The heroes smoke pipe, Olrik uses a cigarette holder.
• Gratuitous English
• Great Britain Saves The Day: How ends The Secret of the Swordfish.
• Hammer and Sickle Removed For Your Protection: in SOS Meteors, where the bad guys are obviously the Soviets, yet they're never specifically named.
• Heterosexual Life Partners: Philip Mortimer and Francis Blake share a house and go on holiday together.
• He Who Fights Monsters: The Ashoka that Mortimer encountered as a teenager may qualify for this trope.
• High-Class Glass: Olrik is very fond of his monocles.
• Hijacked by Ganon: Kind of. Olrik turns up working with almost every villain Blake & Mortimer face, but he's more usually The Dragon than The Man Behind the Man.
• Idiot Ball: Mortimer at the beginning of The Time Trap.
• If It Swims, It Flies: The Swordfish.
• Immortality Through Legacy: Ashoka.
• Infant Immortality: Averted in The Sanctuary of Gondwana, the child-character dies a pretty horrifying death.
• Japan Takes Over the World: The Yellow Empire is a Tibetan expy of Imperial Japan, with soldiers wearing Japanese-like uniforms and using German weapons. They even manage to conquer most of the world in the beginning of the story.
• La Résistance: The Diabolical Trap has this in the distant future.
  • In The Time Trap, the insurgents against the totalitarian rule of the Supreme Guide.
  • The Free World Resistance in The Secret of the Swordsfish. Their main secret base is situated underwater, in the strait of Hormuz.
• Lesser Star: Although the series is called Blake and Mortimer, most stories involve Mortimer as the main protagonist, with Blake sometimes barely even showing up at all. This was deliberately corrected years after Edgar P. Jacob's death by The Francis Blake Affair, which makes him the main protagonist for a change.
  • Curiously enough, SOS Meteors, where Mortimer is captured early in the book and Blake does most of the actions, was subtitled "Mortimer in Paris" in some editions.
• Mad Scientist: Septimus, Miloch, Voronov and Z'Ong all qualify.
• Master of Disguise: Olrik is an expert of this trope. Blake is pretty good at it as well.
• Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: Ashoka in The Sarcophagi of the Sixth Continent: while we learn that the "present" Ashoka is the daughter of her predecessor, we never learn who said predecessor was. Plus, the giant albino monkeys (which apparently have survived for 30+ years and can be summoned with a puff of smoke) are never explained.
  • Nothing of what Sheikh Abdel Razek does in The Mystery of the Great Pyramid is ever explained either.
• Mind Control Device: The Mega Wave in The Yellow M.
• The Mole: Doyle-Smith in The Francis Blake Affair.
• No, Mr. Bond, I Expect You to Dine: The dinner-scene between Olrik and Blake in The Francis Blake Affair.
• No One Could Survive That: The Francis Blake Affair.
• Not My Driver: Happens to Duranton in The Necklace Affair.
• Omnidisciplinary Scientist: Mortimer. Archeology, aeronautics, nuclear physics, you name it.
• Only Fatal to Adults: The alien virus in The Voronov Plot.
• Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: Mr. Henry in S.O.S. Meteors.
• Shout-Out: In the second "Thirty Denarii", Olrik is wearing the distinctive Captain Haddock sweater.
• Shown Their Work
• Significant Anagram: Capitaine Ilkor.
• Slipping a Mickey: Mortimer is served a drugged cup of coffee in Mystery of the Great Pyramid.
• Somewhere a Paleontologist Is Crying: The Time Trap. The scene was an homage to one of Jacobs's favorite movies, a stop motion dinosaur flick of the beginning of the 20th century...
• Stiff Upper Lip
• They Called Me Mad: Septimus.
• Those Wacky Nazis: in the latest book. We even learn that there was a secret pact between them and the Yellow Empire.
• Throw-Away Guns: In The Yellow M, Mortimer fires 4 shots at the intruder, realizes that they have no effect, and throws the gun at him.
• Time Travel: The Time Trap.
  • Which leads to Time Travelers Are Spies : happens in the Middle Ages and in the far future for Mortimer.
• Video Phone: Their adventure "The Time Trap" depicts a dystopian far future in which communication takes place via camera-equipped wrist phones, for those who can afford them anyway.
• Villain Opening Scene: In The Secret of The Swordfish, Olrik is the first character to appear on stage.
• Weather Control Machine: The secret weapon of the USSR that hostile superpower to the East in SOS Meteors.
• Who's Laughing Now?: Septimus turned evil after his theories were ridiculed by other scientists. Then he brainwashed them into believing he was their god.
• Yellow Peril: The Yellow Empire of Basam Damdu, whose capital is in Lhasa.