Infectious diseases through some major western comics

Infectious diseases played a key role in public health development during the 20th century and well-known western comics such as Asterix, The Adventures of Tintin and Lucky Luke are of major significance to the local collective imagination. The purpose of the present review is to establish how infectious diseases were addressed in Goscinny, Hergé and Morris's comics by systematically gathering all references to infectiology throughout the series. It emerged that many allusions to transmittable diseases could be found in The Adventures of Tintin whereas Asterix and Lucky Luke, whose historical frameworks differ from the ones of the authors, rarely mention any contagious diseases.