Orphanimo

The main characters of the series. From top to bottom, left: Alice, Bruno, Trish, Minky. Right: Vic, Gri Gri, Sharp, Jayjay

Belgium comic book series, consisting of 2 series of 6 albums each. All albums follow a continuing story line, with each new album starting where the previous one left off.

The main plot is about an orphanage in the center of an unnamed city. It is owned by a lady named Alice Rosebud. After she lost the love of her life, Jim Jim, 30 years ago during a storm at sea (he was an environmentalist who was protesting against the illegal activities of an oil company), she turned her house into an orphanage. At the start of the series, only five orphans are still living with her: Victor, Stephen, Jan Jakob, Patricia and Grimelda (although they nickname themselves Vic, Sharp, Jay Jay, Trish and Gri Gri). They consider the orphanage to be their only true home, and Alice to be their mother. Therefore, they sabotage every attempt of her to find them adoptive parents.

The orphanage is threatened by a rich and powerfull industrial named Vallalkozo, who has already demolished almost the entire original city center and replaced all the buildings with sky scrapers. His latest plan is to build a colossal V-shaped building to top it all off, but he needs the ground the orphanage stands on to do so. Alice however wont’ sell her ground and the orphans are not afraid to mock or challenge Vallalkozo. The situation soon escalates, and Vallalkozo has the orphanage isolated from the outside world by digging away all the ground around it (which he already owned, leaving the orphanage on a small pile of ground suspended above a deep pit by the sewer pipes. When Vallalkozo and Alice first meet face to face, Vallalkozo instantly falls in love with her. This makes it harder for him to continue his attempts of buying the orphanage. Meanwhile, his assistand Hanz is secretly plotting to take over Vallalkozo's company behind his back.

At the end of the first series the orphans save the orphanage by attaching it to a giant air balloon (which Vallalkozo ordered in an attempt to move the house without demolishing it in an attempt to get on Alice's good side) and lifting it into the sky, planning to take it to someplace else. They also take Vallalkozo’s dog with them since she has fallen in love with their dog, Bruno. They don’t know however that the microchip containing the blueprints for the V-building is in her collar. Therefor Vallalkozo and Hanz go in persuit of the fleeing Orphans with the (unwilling) help of the rivaling brothers Orville and Wilbur Blériot and their hot air balloons. The second series is all about the attempts of the orphans to reach an island Vallalkozo has given to Alice. Along the way, Vallalkozo, Hanz and the Blériot brothers crash on an island and are presumed dead for a while, and the orphans accidently end up on the north pole. Once they reach their island, they are confronted with Z-Oil, the oil company that Jimjim was protesting against 30 year ago, and it's owner, Douglas Zemeckis. It turns out one of their drilling rigs is near the island. Moreover, there are some illegal activities going on on the drilling rig, as Z-Oil is secretly working on the creation of a luxuary resort on the planet Mars, using rockets powered by nuclear waste to get there. A plan that Vallalkozo's ex-wive Ursula has a hand in as well.

List of albums:

Inpakken en Weg Wezen! (Get out of Town!)
Oost West, Kluit Best! (Pat Sweet Pat)
Het Witte Album (The White Album)
Te Land, ter Zee en in de Vlucht! (Soil, Sea and Sky)
Steen op Steen, Plank op Plank (Brick on Brick, Planc on Planc)
Bye Bye, Kluit! (Bye Bye, Pat!)
De Wezen van de Wind (Orphans in the Wind)
De Zoon van Vallalkozo (The Son of Vallalkozo)
Banzaï potvis! (Banzaï Whales!)
Nu nog Witter! (Can't Get any Whiter!)
Het Zwarte Album (The Black Album)
Wees de Mijne! (Be Mine!)

Tropes used in Orphanimo include:

Abnormal Ammo: What about shooting a gun with pencils, dropping wrecking balls out of a bomber plane or shooting a cannon with loaves of bread?
Absurdly Long Limousine: and Vallalkozo is proud of it.
Adventurer Archaeologist: Uncle Archibald.
The Alcoholic: one of the Friends Of The Ocean is permanently drunk.
Amusing Injuries for most of the kids' enemies.
Animal Talk: the animals in Orphanimo can all talk to each other, but not to humans. Bruno lampshades this in the last album when the talks to a group of gorilla’s in what he calls “global animal language”.
And There Was Much Rejoicing: Ursula's reaction to Vallalkozo's assumed demise? "Champaign!"
Artistic License Geography: Vallalkozo's shareholders are a bunch of National Stereotypes, so it's easy to see where they are from. When it's about midnight in Vallalkozo's city (no place given), it's noon somewhere in Africa, and dawn in Scotland.
Ax Crazy: Roger Harris, the housebreaker.
Badass Bookworm: Grimelda spends half the series reading Uncle Archibald's diaries, but she isn't afraid to get into the action either.
Bald Women: Alice, though she wears wigs most of the time.
The Baroness: Ursula
Battle Cry: Orphanimo, the title of the series, is also a battle cry used by the orphans. It’s an portmanteau of “Geronimo!” (Jimjim’s old battlecry) and Orphan.
Berserk Button: Don't insult Alice in front of the orphans or vice versa. Don't mock Jimjim in front of Alice.
Beware the Nice Ones: Praline (mostly Dog in Distress growls at Raspoetin once. Everyone gets scared.
Big Beautiful Woman: Alice.
The Big Bad: Vallalkozo during most of the series, and Douglas Zemeckis during the later part.
Big Damn Heroes: FOTO and the sea police. They rescue Alice from Z-oil and later on they take over the oil rig. Also Gregorz Vallalkozo to Jimjim.
Big Red Button: To launch the rocket to mars. Unsurprisingly, Ursula gets knocked into it.
Bilingual Bonus: Vallalkozo is Hungarian for 'contractor'.
Blackmail: Ursula blackmails Hanz. And Vallalkozo's parents blackmail Zemeckis.
Blondes Are Evil / Blond Guys Are Evil: played straight with Ursula, the reception lady, the mayor, Hanz and Douglas Zemeckis. Averted with Jayjay and Alice (she is blond in her flashbacks).
Bound and Gagged: The kids are rather good at doing this. They manage to catch a large part of Zemeckis's crew this way.
Cassandra Truth: The orphans need to draw their home at school. When they draw the pat, they have to write lines about not lying to the teacher.
Cats Are Mean: Raspoetin, Ursula's cat.
Cats Have Nine Lives: Raspoetin counts them. At the end, he only has one left.
Chair Entrance for Vallalkozo, though we get to see him even in the first album.
Childhood Memory Demolition Team: Not exactly a team, but Vallalkozo does hire a demolition expert named Roger to destroy the orphanage, even though he doesn't own it yet. His attempts to do so get more extreme over the course of the series, but are stopped every time.
Children Are Innocent: When the kids discover a closet full of BDSM gear in Hanz's room, Trish just says "I didn't know he was a lion tamer." Also a bit of Foreshadowing as he uses his whip to defend against an angry dog a few albums later.
Christmas Episode: It isn't explicitely stated it's Christmas, but it snows during 'The white Album' and the kids sing 'Bruno the rednose reindeer'. It also appeared in December. But the next album in the series is the Halloween Episode...
Civilized Animal: Bruno can cook, clean the house and drive cars.
Comic Book Fantasy Casting: Agent Andrea is a well-known Flemish actress, who plays a similar role in the series Flikken. And the kids in the orphans' class in the second album are Flemish TV presentators on a kids' channel.
Cool and Unusual Punishment: The villains get sent to Mars in a rocket that was actually designed to send a group of monkeys there as a first test to see if people can survive in the domes Z-Oil is building on Mars. Ursula and Douglas are in one spacesuit and Hanz and Raspoetin in another.
- Which could actually be Fridge Horror if you consider the fact that not only do they spent over a year trapped in a small spaceship, but (since the whole Mars project is still in an early stage) they most likely have no way to return to Earth and thus will die slowly when their oxygen and food supplies are used up
Corrupt Corporate Executive: Vallalkozo. Later on, Hanz Zemeckis and his father.
Cranial Eruption: Both Orville Bleriot and Hari Vallalkozo get one.
Disney Death: Jimjim
Drives Like Crazy: Quite a few characters, but mostly Bruno.
Edible Ammunition: Bruno's bread is used as cannonballs. Though the bread wasn't really edible to begin with...
Empathic Environment: When Alice finally decides to sell the orphanage, it immediately starts to rain. And a storm starts just as every character (except Trish and Minky, who seem to have drowned) is on Zemeckis's oil rig.
Five-Man Band:
- The Hero: Vic
- The Lancer / The Smart Guy : Sharp
- Action Girl: Gri Gri
- Kid Appeal Character: Jay Jay
- The Chick: Trish
- Team Pet: Bruno and Minky (Trish’ stoat)
Flash Back: every album contains flashbacks of Alice's and Jim Jim's live 30 years ago, in reversed order. The first album shows Jim Jim getting lost at sea, and every album following the first one shows a previous moment of their lives together untill finally, in the second last album, we get to see how they first met.
Foreshadowing: Roger's bombing plane was too cool to not use it.
Funny Background Event: every now and then.
Gadgeteer Genius: Sharp
George Jetson Job Security: Vallalkozo fires people for any mistake. Even Hanz is not safe from this, but he manages to get re-hired every time.
Gold Digger: Ursula. She married (and divorced) Vallalkozo and tries to marry Zemeckis only for their money. She even complains to her cat that Zemeckis should be spoiling her.
Green Aesop
Halloween Episode: Te land, ter zee en in de vlucht.
Heel Face Turn: Vallalkozo After he falls in love with Alice, he becomes less and less evil until eventually he is willing to give up everything to be with her
Hoist by His Own Petard: Roger, twice. First he manages to saw his own truck in half when he wants to scare the police away. Later, when he uses his wrecking ball bomber, he gets hit by his own wrecking balls and crashes on Easter Island.
Honest John's Dealership: Beauregard knowingly sells Vallalkozo a cruiseship that was used to dump nuclear waste and an island that will be blown up by the launch of a spaceship.
Human Popsicle: in the tenth album, the orphans end up on the north pole. There they find the frozen body of Alice’ ancestor Archibald. When they thaw him out, it turns out he is not dead but was only in Suspended Animation. Later, he and his mammoth pet fall through the ice again, but the orphans leave him because he didn't like the 21st century.
Improbable Age: the orphans seem to be capable of things you don't except from children their ages (they appear to be somehwere between 8 to 10 years old, although Jay Jay is stated to be 3 years old in the first album).
Incredibly Lame Pun: quite a few.
Initiation Ceremony: When Jayjay gets accepted in the club, he needs to put his handprint on a roof beam and promise to never leave Alice (and thus help to sabotage every atempt of Alice to find foster parents for them)
Laser-Guided Amnesia: Vallalkozo/Jimjim
Like Father, Like Son: Hanz and Douglas Zemeckis are both a Corrupt Corporate Executive without the slightest bit of conscience. They really look like each other, too.
Love At First Sight: Bruno and Praline, Vallalkozo for Alice, Jimjim and Alice.
Luke, I Am Your Father: Inverted: it's Ursul who tells Vallalkozo he's his son. Averted later on, as Ursul is just a midget actor.
Luminescent Blush: When characters are angry (and they are a lot of the time), they get a luminescent red color around their eyes.
Male Gaze: The first album starts with the boys using a teleguided zeppelin to spy on showering girls.
Mega Corp: Z-oil and Vallalkozo inc.
McGuffin: The plans of the V-building, stored on a chip, implanted in Praline.
The Napoleon: Orville Blériot is smaller than Jayjay, but has a terrible temper and a even more terrible ego.
Never Found Jimjim's Body, and as long as they don't, Alice refuses to believe Jimjim's dead.
No Plans, No Prototype, No Backup: Vallalkozo has only a single copy of the blueprints for his V-Building, which is on a microchip implanted in his dog. Both Hanz and Ursula criticize him for not having more copies of such an important document.
Not the Fall That Kills You: you can safely jump from a flying house or a skyscraper, as long as you have a rope around your waist, nothing will happen.
Orphanage of Love: the orphanage where the series is set. It’s small and humble compared to the big skyscrapers surrounding it, but to the orphans it’s their only true home.
Overly Long Name: Grimelda Atamutanmutamor
Painting the Medium: You can see how people feel by looking at their text balloons: red means angry, pink irritated, green scared. Also, the text balloons for the animal characters are always yellow rather than white to indicate the fact that they speak in "animal language" which the human characters cannot understand.
Perky Goth: Trish wears dark clothes and sleeps in a room decorated with spiders and the like, but she's still a sweet girl.
Plot Allergy: Hanz is allergic to cats. Ursula owns one...
The Power of Love: Vallalkozo's falling in love with Alice marks a turning point in his evil carreer.
Recycled in Space / What Could Have Been : had the series continued, the characters would eventually have visited Mars. This is even lampshaded by Hanz when his father is about to call his security and have Alice, Vallalkozo and the Orphans arrested (he states he had rather locked them in the rocket and send them to Mars, but that would have been a different story).
Reports About Hari Vallalkozo's Death Were Greatly Exaggerated
Running Gag:
- Two smoking cleaning ladies (who don't seem to do much cleaning), work for Vallalkozo. Every time they are talking about talking to a certain 'Irma'. We never get to see Irma or hear more about her than the mere fact the cleaning ladies like to talk to her.

"Dus ik zeg, Irma, zeg ik, luister goed..."(So I say, Irma, I say, listen well...)

- As the foundations' pit for the V-building is dug, the Underground that turns out to be there becomes, well, aboveground. Every time it goes through the pit, something (nearly) hits it and gets dragged along, be it Vic on a rope, a car/sled,... or something else happens, like the tunnel being closed or the rails gone. At the end of Banzaï Potvis, the tram driver even lampshades it, when the 'thing' is Ursula in a limousine:

Station master:"Okay, ik heb het door. Hoe noemen ze zoiets? (Okay, I understand. How do you call something like that?)
Waiting passenger:"Een running gag?"

Saving the Orphanage: the main plot for the entire series.
Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale: Averted. Even with the advanced, nuclear powered rockets from Z-Oil, a trip to Mars still takes at least 500 days.
Selective Magnetism: When Roger is tasked to get the sewer pipes out of the pit, he uses a giant magnet, but accidently turns it on while driving through the city towards the pit. As a result, he attracts about all metal, including cars, telephones and street lamps, but when he leaves, only the pipes are on his truck. All other metal things lie in the pit.
Sibling Rivalry: Between Orville and Wilbur Blériot. If you even mention cooperating when they are present, expect a fight.
Sleepwalking: Both Bruno and Alice do this at the same time while dreaming of their loved ones. Hilarity Ensues when they run into each other.
Soft Water: Happens several times. The risk of drowning is still real, however.
The Starscream: Hanz to Vallalkozo. He starts as a rather clumsy sidekick that dreams of one day owning his own company. When Vallalkozo slowly turns into a good guy, Hanz more and more seizes this opportunity to overthrow Vallakozo and take over his company
Swallow the Key: played with. Vic tries to lure a cop named Andrea to their house so they can prove it realy is on a pat suspended on sewer pipes. To force her to come along, he handcuffs himself to her and pretends to swallow the key (which he keeps hidden in his mouth), but in the heat of the action he accidently does swallow it.
Tap on the Head: What causes Jimjim's amnesia, and later changes Vallalkozo back to Jimjim. However, not just any tap is good, as he gets several unconsciousness-inducing taps on the head before the right one happens.
Token Minority: Gri Gri is the only black character among the protagonists.
Tomboy and Girly Girl: Grimelda and Patricia
Too Good to Last: the series was supposed to continue for a third set of 6 albums, but got cancelled.
Trademark Favorite Food: Chocolate spread for Jayjay, shrimp for Minky.
Traveling At the Speed of Plot: escpecially in the second storyarc, both the heroes and the villains travel around the world at remarkable speed. A few examples; The balloon that carries the orphanage travels from the nameless city to Easter Island in less than a day, and drifts off to the north pole overnight. Vallalkozo is able to travel from the nameless city to his parents in the south seas and back in a matter of hours.
Twist Ending: in the final album, it is revealed that Vallalkozo is in fact Jimjim, who has been suffering from amnesia ever since the accident at sea 30 years earlier
Vague Age: the orphans. Jayjay is the only one who's age is mentioned; he's 3 years old. The other kids are clearly older, but how much is never stated.
Walking Techfix: Jayjay is even better with machines than Sharp.
Weasel Mascot: Minky
"Well Done, Son" Guy: Douglas Zemeckis to Hanz.
What Happened to the Mouse?: a few minor plot points are not resolved, most likely because the writers didn't get permission to create a third series, so they had to bring the story to an end sooner than originally expected.
Why Did It Have to Be Ghosts? To show Ursul Vallalkozo isn't real.
You Gotta Have Blue Hair: Alice's hair is pink, Trish's is purple. Alice's hair is actually a wig, so that is rather justified. And since no one else has technicolor hair, Trish's hair is most likely dyed.