Rahan (comics)

"Rahan" is a French comics series about an intelligent prehistoric man, that appeared first as part of "Pif gadget", then published in albums of 2 to 4 complete stories. It was initially written by Roger Lecureux, and after his death in 1999, by his son, Jean-François Lecureux. Most of the artwork is drawn by Andre Cheret, as well as some other artists (Enrique Romero, Zam, DeHuescar).

Character

The character Rahan moves from land to land and tribe to tribe while spreading goodwill among those-who-walk-on-two-feet, and a powerful ethic of cooperation. With his open altruism often at odds with his powerful will to survive, Rahan's ethic is encompassed by the qualities represented by the bear-claw necklace he received from his dying adoptive father: courage, loyalty, generosity, tenacity, wisdom. Also, after he gets married, he receives a sixth claw, the claw of curiosity. That is well deserved, since in every one of the more than 100 stories spread over 30 years and 3300 pages of illustration (as of June 2005), Rahan uses the scientific method to pick up some bit of knowledge from nature and spin it to some useful purpose - for himself, for some human tribe or even to help some animals in distress.

The main character of this series is sometimes compared with Tarzan or Conan the Barbarian, though beyond the setting there are almost no similarities.

In 2006 a movie version was to be released, directed by Christophe Gans and starring Mark Dacascos in the title role but it has been postponed.

An insight along with a review:

It's really a shame that so many french cartoons have no comments or rating in IMDb. I guess that this is because the American audience have no chance to see most of these cartoons and probably the french guys have enough french sites and don't pay much attention to write reviews here. Anyway, I don't know how many people will read this one, but I want to make these french animations more popular, because they are really great, some of them a lot better than the American shows. And I do not mean only the old ones, but also these made nowadays. If you have a chance check out "Belphegor", "Chris Colorado", "Michel Vaillant", "Tchoupi et Doudou", "Pif & Hercules", "Spirou" and so on. Most of these are based on famous french comics (and we all know that the french comics are one of the best in the world and can compete even giants like Dark Horse, Marvel or DC) - you sure have heard of Asterix, Lucky Luke and so on. Rahan is also based on a french comic series. It is still very popular today after all these years. The story of the series takes us back in time, in the savage age of cavemen, tribes and prehistoric monsters. Our hero, Rahan, is raised by a wise chief of a tribe, who saved him as a baby after Rahan's parents have been killed by a saber-tooth. But one day the mountain that is near the village of Rahan and his people turns out to be volcano. And a sudden eruption kills everyone except Rahan. At his last hour the chief gives to Rahan a necklace of teeth, which is given from father to son for generations in his family. Each teeth represents a quality - bravery, wisdom, spirit, peace and so on. And Rahan has to find his quality and add a new one to the necklace. And Rahan takes on a long long journey. His dream is to find Sun's Home - the place where the Sun rests in the night. He finds his way by rolling his bone knife an a stone and the direction the knife shows when it stops is the direction Rahan goes. On his way he meets many new people and faces many dangers. Rahan becomes adventurer and explorer, and he helps the other tribes with his wisdom and knowledge. For instance there was an episode about the last Tyranosaur on Earth. The carnivore was accepted as a god by a tribe and they gave him humans as a sacrifice. But Rahan found bones of Tyranosaurs and showed to the men that this is an animal, but not an immortal godlike creature. And near the tribe's caves there was a hill, which they believed was haunted, because when there was a storm lightnings strike the peak all the time. Rahan went to the cursed place and found a metal spear, left there by an unknown hunter. And he found that it is the spear which attracts the lightnings (a prehistoric lightning-conductor). He took the spear and faced the giant monster. Rahan managed to stick the metal weapon in the Tyranosaur's head and when the storm came the lightnings killed the animal. The animation of the show is really very good, though nowadays we've seen fancy and colorful cartoons. If you've watched Ralph Bakshi's "Fire and Ice" and you like it - be sure that you'll also love Rahan.

Source:IMDB.com