Imaginary airplanes from the "Blake and Mortimer" comic books

[Michel Van]

I found a very good autobiography on Jacobs , in form of a comic !
called « Edgar P. Jacobs : le rêveur d’apocalypses » by Philippe Wurm and François Rivière.
it honest and sometime unsparingly on life and career of this genius

German edition.

In there revelation that Blake and Mortimer almost not were made !
Originally Jacobs planned a Comic called Roland le Hardi about adventure of medieval Knight in 14th century.
But Hergé refused the project, demand exciting nowadays Story based reality of 1946.

Jacobs came up with WWIII senario with Scottish nuclear physicist and MI5 officer
with help of his friend Jacques Van Melkebeke, who provide him all kind of background information needed for his work.
(Next Jacobs, Van Melkebeke provide also Hergé and Paul Cuvelier with Data.)

Jacobs model Mortimer after Jacques Van Melkebeke including him smoking pipe.

 

[Dupont et Dupond]

Always saw them as a mix of
- Bf-109 for the mass production (35 000)
- He-162 for mass produced jets (volks jagger)
- FJ-1 Fury for the nose intake and straight wings.
- "Naval-jet-with-a-tailwheel" sounds like Supermarine Attacker.
But a bit more sleeker.
E. P Jacobs published this story in 1945-46 at a time when jets were fast evolving.

It has a bit of Mitsubishi Zero in there too, especially given the role of "Tibet" and being the Empire's ubiquitous fighter with land-based, carrier-based, and floatplane versions.
Float-plane Zero