The cover of the first volume
Chlorophylle is a Belgian comic series created by Raymond Macherot in 1953 and published in the comic magazine Tintin until 1971.
The hero Chlorophylle is a dormouse living in an European countryside and fighting his Arch-Nemesis Anthracite the Black Rat.
In the middle of the series Chlorophylle discovers Coquefredouille, a Mediterranean-style island with a Mouse World full of Civilized Animals. He deals with predators and evil nobles before returning home.
The Coquefredouille arc would serve as a basis for an other Macherot (abrogate, then praised) series, Chaminou.
The series continued after him with other authors, such as Greg, Dupa and Bob de Groot.
Chlorophylle was adapted into a puppet TV series in 1992, where the animals are shown in a more nature-centered, less anthropomorphized environment, with a blatant Green Aesop message. The only characters from the comic who appear in the series are Chlorophylle and Anthracite. The show was localized in English as The Adventures of Grady Greenspace and Anthracite was called "Scuzzy".
Chlorophylle provides examples of the following tropes:
- The Alcatraz: Shark Island, where, despite being Tunnel King, it took more to Anthracite to manage Great Escape, like a subversion of a Sleeping Dummy where he was hidden in the dummy.
- Ambiguous Gender: It was unclear in the first issues if Torpille la Loutre (Torpedo the Otter) was male or female. As loutre is a feminine noun, Torpille is often referred as a "she" but lacks feminine characteristics such as eyelashes. From la Revanche d'Anthracite, Torpille is clearly female.
- That would be in the english translation; in the original Chlorophylle calls her 'ma vieille' ( 'old girl' ) from the start
- Anthropomorphic Shift: From Largely Normal Animal in "Val Tranquille" to Civilized Animal in "Coquefredouille". The animals end up all walking upright, wearing clothes, driving vehicles and living in regular human-style cities. Even their bodies seem to have adapted, with them gaining longer legs so they can wear pants, and animals like seals gaining hands.
- Arch-Enemy: Anthracite to Chlorophylle; both take their mutual opposition very clearly, and Anthracite makes it very clear he wishes nothing more than kill him.
- Aristocrats Are Evil: Duke Bihoreau de Bellerente, who wants to kill his king to take his place.
- Batman Gambit: Zizanion, unable to attack Mithron because of his guards, delivers a message announcing he will make the palace blow up at midday. Bouclette, as a precaution to protect the king, has him immediatly moved to a different, more isolated castle in the country. Turns out this is exactly what Zizanion expected them to do, as it makes it easier for him to place the bomb in this more isolated and unguarded castle before Mithron arrives. Fortunately, their car ends up with a damaged tyre and they arrive too late, causing the castle to blow up without them inside.
- Becoming the Mask: In the one-shot "Embrouilles à Coquefredouille", many years after Anthracite's death, a movie is being about Chlorophylle and Minimum's adventures. They meet a squirrel actor whose makeup making him look like Anthracite. By the end of the story, the squirrel actor has become attached to his character. He permanently altered his appearance to match Anthracite's and adopted his mannerisms.
- Big Bad: Anthracite, the man behind the murders in Les Croquillards.
- The Big Guy: Torpille is the largest ally of Chlorophylle and her physical strength often comes in handy.
- Bomb-Throwing Anarchists: So Zizanion seems to be... and Macherot himself for those who didn't really read the story.
- Carnivore Confusion: The sentient animal society has a criminal mastermind who consumes other sentient animals.
- Cats Are Mean: Célimène, who apparently likes to kidnap and ransom mice.
- Dastardly Whiplash: Anthracite is very similar to the stereotype. He is a bombastic conniving Classic Villain and wears an all-black suit with a top hat and cape. His whiskers could even qualify for a moustache.
- Ear Notch: Anthracite has one triangular notch in his left ear.
- Exact Words: Anthracite, having seized the BZ Bomb, approaches Mithron and threatens to use it to blow up Coquefredouille's capital if he isn't made the Police Chief. When Mithron understandably complies, Anthracite does keep his word and spare the city... but keeps the Bomb for himself, and uses it later as part of his Coup d'Etat.
- From Zero to Hero: Chlorophylle starts as an incredibly conceited idiot who has to be rescued repeatedly and appoints himself the leader of La Résistance. But when Anthracite's army of black rats attacks with overwhelming force, he proves to be a brave and resourceful leader.
- Furry Reminder: In this series, predator species can and do eat another animals.
- Good Angel, Bad Angel: Minimum's good angel appears sometimes. Anthracite's too... but obviously he's not in good form.
- The Good King: Mithron XIII is despicted as a benevolent ruler, a Reasonable Authority Figure, a very nice person and is adored by his people. When an attempt is made on his life in Zizanion le Terrible, it is a shock for both him and the population that someone would want him dead.
- He Knows Too Much: Anthracite gets two minions killed to ensure they will not tell anybody that he ordered them to bring predator animals into Coquefredouille.
- Heroic Bastard, In the one-shot "Embrouilles à Coquefredouille", king Mithron XIII has one illegitimate daughter. When the King secretly ask his aide to find the mother, he reported finding several more illegitimate daughters.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Anthracite tried to get rid of Chlorophylle by tying him up to a firecracker rocket. But he got himself caught on the rocket and couldn't apparently jump before it explodes.
- Horrible Judge of Character:king Mitron. He doesn't once suspect his kinsman Bihoreau to be Zizanion; when Anthracite takes power in Coquefredouille, he expects the great and good to resist him - they rush to grovel before Anthracite; and when Anthracie manages to lose his all-destructive bomb, the chief of his bodyguards arrests him - Mitron is moved by such loyalty and makes him chief of HIS bodyguards…
- Human Like Hand Anatomy: Is usually the case with the animal characters. While this is usually easily done with land mammals who normally have paws with digits, some other animals like a seal have such humanoid hands with defined fingers.
- Humans Are Bastards: Humans have this vicious tendency to create a lot of things dangerous to animals.
- Inspector Lestrade: Commissaire Bouclette. In Zizanion le terrible, he rejects out of hand the heroes' suspicions, and the start of the book shows he's more concerned with finding "a culprit" than the truth.
- Intrepid Reporter: Chlorophylle and Minimum in Zizanion le terrible. Zizanion exploits it by phoning their newspaper with a bomb threat.
- Joker Immunity: Anthracite has been apparently blown up on a firework, imprisoned several times, including in a high security jail, but he always finds a way to come back.
- La Résistance: Serpolet the rabbit and Bitume the raven, then joined by Chlorophylle and Torpille.
- Latex Perfection: Anthracite impersonates an attractive lady cat with such a disguise, and several males find "her" attractive.
- Moral Guardians: They complained that Macherot depicted, in stories for children, terrorist attacks on a King, fun presumably made of labor unions, and a woman wearing hair curlers. It was already controversial to depict seductive females, but strangely, because Célimène was a cat, it seemed to pass legal.
- Nice Mice: The protagonists, Particule and her family... are good-natured and even heroically-minded mice.
- One-Word Title: The comic is named after the main character.
- Reptiles Are Abhorrent: the viper is willing to trade Chlorophylle with Anthracite against ten other mice, knowing how much Anthracite values his enemy. Anthracite doesn't trust him.
- Reverse Psychology: In one book, Anthracite starts a fight with a prisonner who is about to be freed next morning. When the Warden is about to punish him for being hit by a rock Anthracite threw, the latter begs him to not see said prisonner again, and the Warden of course decides to have them share a cell. Turns out Anthracite wanted this to happen: the prisonner is his accomplice, and this allows them to plan an escape for him.
- Sidekick: Minimum is Chlorophylle's.
- She's a Man in Japan: Chlorophylle is female in all ex-Yugoslav translations.
- Sleeping Dummy: Anthracite uses a dummy to escape from Shark Island. In a subversion, he was hidden in the dummy.
- Swarm of Rats: The black rats invade Val Tranquille (the Quiet Vale) after they've been chased away from an old mill.
- Those Two Guys: Escalope and Fricandeau. Chlorophylle and Minimum, as well.
- Took a Level in Dumbass: Minimum started as a fairly competent sidekick to Chlorophylle, and showed skills such as acting talent in his first appearance. However, as time went on, he turned more and more into a bumbling Butt-Monkey sidekick.
- Vile Villain, Saccharine Show: Anthracite is a surprisingly vicious character for a light-hearted, colorful story involving talking animals. His crimes include frequently murdering his own accomplices once they are of no more use to him, bringing predator species into Coquefredouille, and eventually becoming a dictator.
- Villain Episode: Zizanion le Terrible has the eponymous villain hog all the screen time.
- Wham Episode: Les Croquillards, which contains the shift from normal-sized environments to a Mouse World.
- Wicked Cultured: Anthracite is one while living in Coquefredouille.
- Wrongfully Attributed: Macherot was inspired by André Franquin and sometimes his work is confused with Franquin's.
- You Dirty Rat!: Anthracite the Black Rat is a nasty, murderous criminal and would-be dictator.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Anthracite kills his mooks Escalope and Fricandeau so he can pass himself off as a hero. He also gets the mooks who helped him bring two predators into Coquefredouille blown up with a bomb so they can't talk.
