Like other adventures of Blake and Mortimer, The Yellow Brand was first published in the Journal of Tintin plank weekly, back cover, then as an album in 1956. It has been a hard 33 laps and then a series on Radio France Inter , published last album in sound and adapted into a cartoon.

Synopsis

A mysterious criminal commits a series of spectacular robberies signed with the Greek letter surrounded by a circle drawn in yellow chalk. The series culminates in the theft of the crown in the Tower of London. No one can stop this elusive character, can stun people without touching them. Blake will be loaded by MI5 to help the Chief Inspector Glenn Kendall of Scotland Yard to solve the case, which does not prevent to spend a pleasant evening with friends ( Mortimer , Leslie Macomber, editor of the Daily Mail, Sir Hugh Calvin, J., Professor Raymond Vernay, a physician and Professor Jonathan Septimus , psychiatrist) at the Centaur Club. The same evening, Vernay is removed, then it is the turn of Macomber. There is then no doubt that Calvin and Septimus are the next targets, they disappear too, despite police protection.

Mortimer then conducts the investigation on its side and discovered another link between the four victims: a case dating back to 1922. At that time, the mysterious Dr. Wade had published a book called The Mega Wave explaining that the brain was directed by waves that could be controlled. Vernay and Macomber had then launched a violent diatribe against Wade, respectively in the Lancet and the Daily Mail , and it was found that Septimus to defend him. The book's publisher had then filed a defamation suit against Vernay and Macomber, who won the trial judge through Calvin, deeply opposed to the theses of the book. While Mortimer discovers this, La Marque Jaune request an appointment with Blake at Limehouse Dock, where it agrees to surrender. Meanwhile, Mortimer finds a copy of The Mega Wave and learns the whole truth by traveling. He then went by taxi to Limehouse Dock where La Marque Jaune just attempted to kill Blake. When Mortimer arrived in La Marque Jaune Mortimer fled and started to pursue him. He finally arrives at the lair of the public enemy number 1, nothing else ' Olrik controlled by Septimus himself. Captured, while Mortimer is revealed by the teacher: he was the mysterious Dr. Wade, who had written this book revolutionary. Outraged by the reception of his theories and the death of his publisher, he was gone in northern Sudan as a doctor stationed to forget the whole affair.

Only thirty years later that his past resurfaced when he met a crazy man wandering in the desert without knowing it was Olrik, the dangerous criminal who had just had the mind erased by Sheik Razek. He thought that this man's personality was the ideal person failing to put into practice the ideas he expressed in The Mega Wave. Returned to London he built in his cellar tlcphaloscope the machine can monitor brain waves. Olrik in a costume appropriate for misdeeds committed while some train then took the real targets to accomplish the revenge of Septimus and his master himself to cover their tracks. Septimus is brainwashed Vernay, Macomber and Calvin then connects to tlcphaloscope to force them to apologize. Meanwhile, research began to find Mortimer and thanks to the taxi driver who brought Mortimer Limehouse Dock, Kendall Blake and Mortimer found the jacket of the book and thus allowing them to discover the truth. The police began to force the armored door of the cellar of Septimus. Meanwhile, Mortimer remembering the magic sentence Razek launched Olrik face and destabilized, a "For Horus remains" and Septimus, rage, destroyed inadvertently tlcphaloscope control station. Freed, Olrik turns against his master and sprayed with machine flash of energy that Septimus was developed to accomplish his revenge and execute his prisoner. When Olrik turns against Mortimer, men do give the Yard gate, thereby escape the dangerous criminal.

Comments

The Yellow Album is considered emblematic of the series. So after Claude le Gallo, author of "The World of Edgar P. Jacobs'" The Yellow Mark is the heart of the work jacobsienne the crossroads of his world "...

It is in this album that the authors of the first two albums written and drawn after the death of Edgar P. Jacobs : The Case of Francis Blake and the Machination Voronov will draw most of their references.

The signing of the Yellow Mark resembles the letter M, but it is the Greek letter Mu , which means the mega wave. In describing this signature, Jacobs also speaks of "prophetic sign" or "yellow mark" instead of letter M.

The "Mu" with which the Yellow Mark signs his crimes is an explicit reference to the film M le maudit of Fritz Lang. On one of the thumbnails in fact Blake was surprised to discover a drawing of a "Mu" on the back of her raincoat, clear back to the scene of a gangster movie where mark an "M" back of the coat for the Murderer designate his pursuers.

The work contains an error in chronology. Professor Septimus tells Mortimer that he met one he did not know Colonel Olrik be wandering in the desert and brought him to London "before the war." But the events that led to Olrik mad, recounted in The Mystery of the Great Pyramid , are after the war in question, told in The Secret of the Swordfish. Moreover, London was destroyed in this first episode seems absolutely intact in La Marque Jaune.

The album also contains an error on the events that occurred in the previous album (The Mystery of the Great Pyramid). Mortimer is for Olrik through the door of his cell to try to make him regain his memory, he said: "Remember the great pyramid! Sheikh Abdel Razek! Chamber of Horus !!!.." Yet Mortimer is supposed to believe that these events are a dream, as he and Blake were mesmerized by Sheikh Abdel Razek at the end of the story of "The Great Pyramid".

The piece is worked from sketches and contemporary photographs of the action, which gives it its totally unrealistic. In this regard, one may consult "The world of Edgar P. Jacobs," by Claude le Gallo, published in 1984 by Editions du Lombard. This book contains, in a chapter devoted to this album, many of these pictures taken by the author of the series, during preparatory extensive explorations, including the London docks. Jacobs, however, has repeatedly misled by designing vehicle interiors, putting the wheel on the left. Blake is the wheel right out Park Lane, left on arriving in Limehouse Docks and right again by joining Tavistock Square.

This album has inspired numerous parodies and is also the subject of many tributes or winks in the albums of other authors by the presence of references to it are drawn. So is it a copy of the sequence on the night tour of London by Gilles Chaillet in his album "Curses" the adventures of Vasco taking place, they, in the middle of the fourteenth century. One can also cite the first two pages of the album No. 9 "L'Ami is not the Monk" of Ulna.

The album cover is one of the most famous lovers of Franco-Belgian comics and is regularly parodied (for example: The Cat , Roger Bismuth, The red mark, his glasses, pink brand, Ulna, ... )

Many references to the London of Blake and Mortimer can be found in the album of the adventures of G. Lefranc "London at risk" by J. Martin.

A publication of the planks in the original format in black and white was done in 1977 in an album published by PHIGS.

An English version, "The Yellow M", was published in 2007 by Cinebook.

A German version, "Das gelbe M", is published successfully since 1979 published by Carlsen Comics.

Labor editions appeared in 1989 in the collection "a book / work" the book "The Yellow / EP Jacobs"

Note SpotBD in the 1987 article by P. Bronson "The Yellow. File" and "In the footsteps of La Marque Jaune" by Francis River in Issue 30 of the comic books.

Blake and Mortimer
Comics	The Secret of the Swordfish The Mystery of the Great Pyramid Brand yellow The Enigma of Atlantis SOS Meteors The Demon Trap The Affair of the Necklace The 3 Forms of Professor Sato L'Affaire Francis Blake The Machination Voronov The Strange Rendezvous The Sarcophagus of the 6th continent The Sanctuary Gondwana The Curse of the thirty pieces of silver
Authors	Edgar P. Jacobs Bob de Moor Jean Van Hamme Ted Benoit Yves Sente Andr Juillard Ren Sterne
Characters	Francis Blake Philip Mortimer Olrik
Animated series