The Scrameustache is a fictional character in a science-fiction Franco-Belgian comics series of the same name. He was created by the Belgian artist Gos. Gos has written and drawn all the Scrameustache's adventures since 1972. Since the mid-1980s he has been assisted by his son Walt. Another son, Benoit has contributed as colourist. It is a popular, ongoing series. Background Premise The adventures of the Scrameustache first started in issue 1806 of Spirou magazine in November 1972 under the title Khéna et le Scrameustache (Khena and the Scrameustache). The story tells of how Khena, a young Peruvian boy living in Europe, meets a cat-like alien who has come to Earth in his own flying saucer. Khena lives with his adoptive father Uncle Georges in the small town of Chambon-Les-Roses and the Scrameustache moves in with them. What made it a little different from most Earth-kid-meets-alien stories was that a certain amount of mystery surrounded Khena himself. As a toddler he had been found in the remains of an earthquake in Peru. He was then adopted by Georges Caillau, a European scholar, archaeologist and ethnologist. Some ten years later, Khena met the Scrameustache and proved himself resistant to the alien's (non-lethal) weapons and other technology. This resistance made the Scrameustache curious and he stuck around hoping that time would provide an explanation. Title and Names Khena's name was later dropped from the title of the series which is now just called Le Scrameustache. He does however remain a leading character, some of the stories looking at his development from a boy in his early teens to an actual teenager. The name "Khena" is taken from the word Quena which is an Inca flute. The name Scrameustache does not appear to be based on any puns or wordplays. Gos claims that he simply came up with strange names as part of a game with friends. The same could be said about the Smurfs, or Schtroumpfs, created by Peyo, and which Gos worked on for a while. However, in D'où viens-tu, Scrameustache, p. 12, it seems that Scrameustache is a backronym for Sujet Créé par Radiations Artificielles et Manipulations Extra-Utérines Sans Toucher Aux Chromosomes Héréditaires Endogènes (Subject created by artificial radiations and extra-uterine manipulations without touching to hereditary endogenic chromosomes). Khena's adoptive father is Uncle Georges Caillau. "Caillau" sounds like "caillou" which is the French for "stone". In Le dilemme de Khéna (Khena's