But Magritte insisted that his most famous work wasn’t about nonsense or nihilism: Ah, the famous pipe. How people reproached me for it! And yet, could you stuff my pipe? No, it’s just a ...

Between 1911 and 1913, a pop phenomenon revolutionised the French publishing world: Fantomas, a series of pulp novels about a terrifying villain who committed spectacular and obscene crimes. A ...