As a child, his favourite books were the works of
Charles Dickens,
Oscar Wilde,
Edgar Allan Poe, the Arabian Nights, and
Daniel Defoe's "Robinson Crusoe". He was also a big fan of comics: his favourites were "Mickey's Journal" (a French comic about Mickey Mouse),
Lee Falk's "Mandrake the Magician" and
E.C. Segar's "Popeye the Sailor".