Biggles au pays de la soif (Biggles in the land of thirst) is the 19th in the Biggles Artima/Aredit comics series. It was published in April 1967, drawn by Roger Melliès.
Synopsis[]
In 1951, a French translation of Biggles Sweeps the Desert had been published by Presses de la cite with the title Biggles dans le désert. However, when Aredit published the comic strip adaptation in 1967, it could not use the same title as it had already been used in the previous issue for an album containing three Biggles short stories none of which dealt with deserts! Why this should have happened is not known. Hence three months later, the comic strip adaptation of Sweeps the Desert was published as Biggles au pays de la soif.
The album also includes a short non-Biggles comic strip of seven pages entitled Iwoshima about U.S. marines in the Battle of Iwo Jima.
The cover artwork depicts Biggles fighting with a number of tribesmen, all holding rather ancient rifles. There is a burning aircraft in the background. It might have been a event at Wadi Umbo but this scene was not drawn in the comic strip nor in the plot of the original.
Plot[]
Note: The sections below contain spoilers. In particular, the plot subpage (click here) has an extended summary of the narrative in the book
Characters[]
All the characters in the original novel are depicted except perhaps Taffy doesn't seem to have been mentioned. Tex takes over most of his roles.
Aircraft[]
- Supermarine Spitfire
- Messerschmitt Me 109
- Armstrong Whitworth Whitley
- De Havilland Dragon - in the original there was both a Dragon and a Dragon Rapide. In this adaptation, all the transports are Dragons but, as drawn, they do not look like Dragons at all.
- Messerschmitt Me 110
- Boulton Paul Defiant