La Patrouille des Castors (The Beaver Patrol) is a Belgian comics series drawn by Mitacq and written by Jean-Michel Charlier. 30 albums were published by Dupuis, all relating the adventures of a Scout patrol.
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This series, which was first published in Le Journal de Spirou on November 25, 1954, relates the fictional adventures of a Scout patrol. In the first album, the patrol consisted of six Scouts, although one of them, Lapin (rabbit) fast disappeared quickly after the team decided five main characters was a more suitable number for the series. The artist, Michel Tacq, had himself been a Scout during a large part of his life. He first thought about creating a series with Scouts as main characters, but he needed a script to fulfill the series, which was provided in 1954 by Charlier, already a very active scriptwriter. The publication in Spirou lasted from this year until 1979 but it knew a long interruption between the beginning of 1967 and April 1971, and the following publications were rarer than in the past, because Charlier was then very busy with the several other series whom he was the scenarist. Charlier was then replaced by Marc Wasterlain who wrote the scripts for two albums, and then, MiTacq took over as writer. Several albums only mentioned Mitacq as writer and artist, whereas in reality he was assisted either by Charlier, Wasterlain or his friend Jacques Stoquart.
The Beaver Patrol is a group of scouts who are taken in adventurous situations provided most of the time by their Scout camp during the holidays in foreign countries. As all Scouts, they make good and charitable actions, but have to face with some enigmas in each region they visit. Each character has a very distinct profile, which makes it possible for the patrol to have all the qualities needed in difficult situations.
As the series goes on, the graphic style evolves and the protagonists get older. They replaced their blue shirt (designed for 12 to 17 years-old boys) by a red shirt (made for Pioneers, 15 to 17 years-old scouts), according to the 1964 reforme applied for Belgian Scouts. If the Spirou Magazine is Belgian, as well as the two creators of the series, its audience was mostly French. However, the Beavers left fast their native country to fly in other continents. The Beavers travelled in various countries but also in several grounds, as they went through adventures taking place underground, on the sea and even underwater.
These series was parodied by the author himself on a scenario of Yvan Delporte with the series La Patrouille des Zoms.
The patrol is a built like an example of Scout troop, with each member having a totem and specific qualities:
All published by Dupuis:
All of these albums were collected in the collection Tout MiTacq, consisting of 14 volumes published between 1989 and 1996 by Dupuis.