It comes from a Belgium cartoonist named A. Franquin and the character on the left is called Gaston (or Guust Flater in Dutch). I really really loved reading that comic book series as a teenager and still can lol reading some of it nowadays.
Gaston is a bit of a clumsy dreamer that invents silly stuff all the time. Some in an office setting of the actual publisher of the comic series (= Dupuis) where he works. Well, he does a lot of things there but seem to never actually work.
Franquin was just a brilliant cartoonist with a beautiful sense of humour (IMO).
Well, blahiah.. (um, little intro there)
Also in the series of 18, I thought, books.. he and the copper are clashing quite regularly. Coppa goes strictly by the book and Gaston in all his innocence has little a clue what he did wrong most of the time.
Well, to make fun of policemen is perhaps a global phenomenon but in Belgium (and also in southern parts of the Netherlands) it was and still is something folks do a lot. The unreasonable stubbornness, the arrogance that sometimes goes with the outfit and in particular the stupidity shown at times is target for ridicule on a quite regular basis.
For me the copper stands for authority in general and how they arrogantly dare to break laws themselves in the city I live in now. It's very on-Dutch-like 'Italian' here. No kid ya but basically this city is stuck in medieval ignorant catholic moral and is ruled by a very corrupt alderman (and his army of cowardly followers).. and tjah, I, a made into persona non grata here, writing a lot of stuff down on paper.
(um, an attempt there.. )
