"Il y a un lutin dans le Bois aux Roches!": Formes et sens du merveilleux dans la série Johan et Pirlouit de Peyo

This article examines the forms and functions of the medieval and medievalized marvelous in Peyo’s bande dessinée series Johan et Pirlouit. As the travels and adventures of Johan and his companion Pirlouit gradually reveal more fantastic creatures and landscapes, the occurrences of the marvelous constructed by Peyo evolve as well. Relying on tropes and topoï directly summoned from medieval literature, Peyo creates a medievalized version of the marvelous organized around the notion of transformation. This article argues that these metamorphoses not only affect characters, objects and systems but alter the diegesis of the series as well.