Champignac

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Champignac may refer to a fictional village (fully named Champignac-en-Cambrousse) often shown in Spirou et Fantasio in a region known for its prolific occurrence of mushrooms, or function as the short name of its most interesting inhabitant, The Count of Champignac. This fictional character created by André Franquin, first appeared in the album Il y a un sorcier à Champignac (There's a sorcerer in Champignac) in 1950, and has reappeared frequently since.

[edit] A brilliant, mad count

Pacôme Hégésippe Adélard Ladislas de Champignac is an old, castle-dwelling aristocrat without financial worries, and a mad scientist. Being a chemist, biologist and physicist, he works many fields, but most frequently creates chemical substances out of various mushrooms he finds in his castle's park. These experiments may cause extraordinary effects such as metal-softening properties, resisting water pressure, ageing, super-strength, or even turning people black. He is also a skilled engineer and has constructed, as well as numerous handy gadgets, incredible machines such as individual dolphin-like submarines. Sometimes, he is also a paleontologist, an astronomer or an astrophysician, and has even, in one instance, made contact with extraterrestrials.

Champignac is connected to a network of several other, near-equally eccentric scientists that frequently visit at the castle and bring with them new inventions and experiments that often come with troublesome consequences. Due to his brilliance, he has also been the victim of industrial espionage.

He has a nephew, Aurélien de Champignac, extremely similar in appearance, who appears in the album L'horloger de la comète, but no child of his own. A wife some time in the past has been mentioned, but why she is gone has never been explained.