Marcel Gotlieb
Encyclopedia
Gotlib is a French
comics artist/writer and publisher. Through his own work and the magazines he co-founded, L' Écho des Savanes and Fluide Glacial, Gotlib was one of the key figures in the switch in French-language comics from their children's entertainment roots to an adult tone and readership. His series include La Rubrique-à-Brac, Gai-Luron, Superdupont, and Hamster Jovial. His trademark style fuses English-style nonsense, Jewish-American humour and French ribaldry, with a penchant for exaggeration of movements and sound effects.
n origin, was a house painter and his mother, Regine, a seamstress of Hungarian
descent. In 1942 his father was deported and died at Buchenwald after their building's concierge obligingly helped policemen to find him, a scene which made a strong impression on young Marcel. His mother sent him to hide for the rest of the war on a farm, where he was poorly treated.
at Opera Mundi, a French publisher which translated and published US strips. After his 28-months military service, Gotlib settled as a freelance letterer and illustrator. His first comics were accepted by Vaillant, a magazine for children later renamed Pif-Gadget. His one long-running series at Vaillant started as Nanar, Jujube et Piette, which was renamed Nanar et Jujube then Gai-Luron
for the supporting character who had by then taken centre stage. Gai-Luron is a dog heavily influenced by Tex Avery
's Droopy, who almost never laughs or displays any emotions and is incorrigibly somnolent.
In 1965 Gotlib also submitted strips to Pilote
magazine, and was greeted with open arms by its influential co-founder and editor, René Goscinny
of Astérix
fame. Together they created Les Dingodossiers, a series of mock lectures on random subjects which Goscinny wrote and Gotlib drew. In 1967, Goscinny, who worked on many strips simultaneously while also editing the magazine, asked Gotlib to continue the series alone. Gotlib instead launched a new one, Rubrique-à-brac, which was similar to the Dingodossiers in format but progressively acquired a more adult and less formal tone. Leftover pages from both series were later published in album form as Trucs-en-vrac.
Rubrique-à-Brac was a hit with Pilote's readers and made Gotlib famous. It introduced several signature Gotlib gimmicks, such as the extensive use of random running gags (Isaac Newton
getting hit on the head by random objects being the omnipresent one) and the presence of a miniature character, a ladybird mimicking the action, to make up for the absence of settings.
In 1971, Gotlib finally gave up the Gai-Luron series to his collaborator Henri Dufranne. He participated in a radio program with Goscinny, Fred
and Gébé, and collaborated with film director Patrice Leconte
, who made a documentary about him in 1974.
Gotlib also created another character, Hamster Jovial for music monthly Rock & Folk. Hamster Jovial (“Genial Hamster”) is an incurably naff boy-scout troop leader desperate to catch up with pop culture and impress his charges, two cubs and a girl guide.
with Claire Bretecher
and Nikita Mandryka
. The original aim was just to get stories unsuitable for Pilote – a magazine aimed at school-age readers - out of their system, but l'Echo des Savanes was a huge commercial success. However, the trio's complete lack of business training meant the magazine went deep in the red and they were forced to sell it to a publishing concern. Gotlib's own contributions to the magazine were published in album form as Rhââ Lovely (named after a rapist's line in Alfred Hitchcock
's Frenzy) and Rha-Gnagna. Those stories are mostly concerned with smashing taboos, and feature much sexuality and other bodily functions, as well as cod-psychoanalysis and pot shots at authority figures of all kinds including divinities.
Gotlib, Mandryka and Brétécher stopped working for l'Echo des Savanes after selling it, but Gotlib came to the conclusion that there was a strong market for adult comics, and decided to start a new publication and have it run more professionally. To do this, he enrolled childhood friend, Jacques Diament as administrator and another Pilote veteran, Alexis (comics)
to help with the creative direction , and founded Fluide Glacial
and parent publishing company Audie, a comically misspelled acronym of “Amusement, Umour, Derision, Ilarité Et toutes ces sortes de choses”. Fluide Glacial launched the career of a number of unknown or little-known cartoonists, most of whom were influenced by Gotlib in the first place: Edika
, Goossens, Binet, Thiriet, Dupuy & Berberian, Lelong… Belgian veteran André Franquin
also contributed his Idées Noires strip.
Alexis died of cancer in 1977, leaving Gotlib and Diament in charge, though he is credited to this day as “Director of conscience” of Fluide Glacial.
Gotlib created two characters in Fluide Glacial: Superdupont
with Jacques Lob
and Pervers Pépère. Superdupont is a French and highly patriotic answer to US super-heroes who wears a vest and beret and fights a secret organisation called Anti-France. Gotlib mostly wrote or co-wrote Superdupont stories, though he drew a handful of them. The strip was successful enough to be made into a stage show by Jérome Savary
.
Pervers Pépère is a stereotypical mac-sporting dirty old man who appeared in one-page stories. The twist is that despite his appearance, his schemes and pranks are non-sexual and childish.
In the 1980s, Gotlib increasingly focused on running Fluide Glacial – in which he also wrote a column - and gradually withdrew from cartooning. However, he resuscitated Gai-Luron in 1986 when the back-catalogue was re-published by Audie and needed promoting, and drew enough new stories for a final album, La Bataille Navale. The old series had been given a new adult twist and riffed surreally on the non-sexual nature of cartoon characters by having Gai-Luron wear underpants with a massive bulge in them, while he has no visible genitalia while naked.
Festival
Grand Prix
and as per tradition chaired the jury of the next year's festival. . In 1993, he wrote an autobiography, J'existe, je me suis rencontré, focusing on his youth, and in 2006 a more thorough one with journalist Gilles Verlant: Ma Vie-en-Vrac.
In 1995, having taken a back seat for a couple of years, Diament and Gotlib sold Fluide Glacial and Audie to publisher Flammarion, and relinquished responsibilities, though Gotlib continued his column for some time. Fluide Glacial remains profitable and has outlived all its competitors such as Vaillant/Pif, Pilote and the Hara-Kiri stable.
Later, from his departure from Pilote in 1972, Gotlib style changed a lot, the scenario as well as the illustrations. The last tome of Rubrique-à-Brac is already marked by this evolution, but it became more obvious with the series published in L'Echo des Savannes and Fluide Glacial. These two comics magazine were created by Gotlib for an adult audience exclusively, and made it possible for Gotlib to express himself entirely freely, while censorship was present in Pilote, magazine made for a young public. Rhââ Lovely , Rhâ-Gnagna and Pervers Pépère are series exclusively dedicated to sex satire, but sexual matters are also present in Hamster Jovial.
Most of Gotlib's strips are background-free, with a large portion of the panels being occupied by elaborate dialogues. Also, the large majority of his series were black-and-white in their original publication. Gotlib's graphic style was much influenced by American and British magazines. In particular, the Dingodossiers and R.A.B. series had as a model the series published by the American magazine Mad
.
Footnotes
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
comics artist/writer and publisher. Through his own work and the magazines he co-founded, L' Écho des Savanes and Fluide Glacial, Gotlib was one of the key figures in the switch in French-language comics from their children's entertainment roots to an adult tone and readership. His series include La Rubrique-à-Brac, Gai-Luron, Superdupont, and Hamster Jovial. His trademark style fuses English-style nonsense, Jewish-American humour and French ribaldry, with a penchant for exaggeration of movements and sound effects.
Youth
Marcel Gotlieb was born on July 14, 1934 in Paris to Jewish parents. His father, Ervin, of RomaniaRomania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
n origin, was a house painter and his mother, Regine, a seamstress of Hungarian
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
descent. In 1942 his father was deported and died at Buchenwald after their building's concierge obligingly helped policemen to find him, a scene which made a strong impression on young Marcel. His mother sent him to hide for the rest of the war on a farm, where he was poorly treated.
Vaillant and Pilote
At 17, he left school to work for a pharmaceutical agency while taking art classes in the evening. This led to a job as a lettererLetterer
A letterer is a member of a team of comic book creators responsible for drawing the comic book's text. The letterer's use of typefaces, calligraphy, letter size, and layout all contribute to the impact of the comic. The letterer crafts the comic's "display lettering": the story title lettering and...
at Opera Mundi, a French publisher which translated and published US strips. After his 28-months military service, Gotlib settled as a freelance letterer and illustrator. His first comics were accepted by Vaillant, a magazine for children later renamed Pif-Gadget. His one long-running series at Vaillant started as Nanar, Jujube et Piette, which was renamed Nanar et Jujube then Gai-Luron
Gai-Luron
Gai-Luron is a French comics series featuring an eponymous character, created on July 12, 1964 by Gotlib. Originally published in the comics magazine Vaillant, the character joined Nanar, Jujube et Piette, which Gotlib had drawn since 1962, but eventually headlined a hit series of its own...
for the supporting character who had by then taken centre stage. Gai-Luron is a dog heavily influenced by Tex Avery
Tex Avery
Frederick Bean "Fred/Tex" Avery was an American animator, cartoonist, voice actor and director, famous for producing animated cartoons during The Golden Age of Hollywood animation. He did his most significant work for the Warner Bros...
's Droopy, who almost never laughs or displays any emotions and is incorrigibly somnolent.
In 1965 Gotlib also submitted strips to Pilote
Pilote
thumb|Cover of the first Pilote teaser issue, #0.Pilote was a French comics periodical published from 1959 to 1989. Showcasing most of the major French or Belgian comics talents of its day the magazine introduced major series such as Astérix le Gaulois, Blueberry, Achille Talon, and Valérian et...
magazine, and was greeted with open arms by its influential co-founder and editor, René Goscinny
René Goscinny
René Goscinny was a French comics editor and writer, who is best known for the comic book Astérix, which he created with illustrator Albert Uderzo, and for his work on the comic series Lucky Luke with Morris and Iznogoud with Jean Tabary.-Early life:Goscinny was born in Paris in 1926, to a family...
of Astérix
Asterix
Asterix or The Adventures of Asterix is a series of French comic books written by René Goscinny and illustrated by Albert Uderzo . The series first appeared in French in the magazine Pilote on October 29, 1959...
fame. Together they created Les Dingodossiers, a series of mock lectures on random subjects which Goscinny wrote and Gotlib drew. In 1967, Goscinny, who worked on many strips simultaneously while also editing the magazine, asked Gotlib to continue the series alone. Gotlib instead launched a new one, Rubrique-à-brac, which was similar to the Dingodossiers in format but progressively acquired a more adult and less formal tone. Leftover pages from both series were later published in album form as Trucs-en-vrac.
Rubrique-à-Brac was a hit with Pilote's readers and made Gotlib famous. It introduced several signature Gotlib gimmicks, such as the extensive use of random running gags (Isaac Newton
Isaac Newton
Sir Isaac Newton PRS was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist, and theologian, who has been "considered by many to be the greatest and most influential scientist who ever lived."...
getting hit on the head by random objects being the omnipresent one) and the presence of a miniature character, a ladybird mimicking the action, to make up for the absence of settings.
In 1971, Gotlib finally gave up the Gai-Luron series to his collaborator Henri Dufranne. He participated in a radio program with Goscinny, Fred
Fred (comics)
Fredéric Othon Theodore Aristidès, known by his pseudonym Fred, is a French comics artist and comic book creator in the Franco-Belgian comics tradition...
and Gébé, and collaborated with film director Patrice Leconte
Patrice Leconte
Patrice Leconte is a French film director, actor, comic strip writer, and screenwriter.-Biography:...
, who made a documentary about him in 1974.
Gotlib also created another character, Hamster Jovial for music monthly Rock & Folk. Hamster Jovial (“Genial Hamster”) is an incurably naff boy-scout troop leader desperate to catch up with pop culture and impress his charges, two cubs and a girl guide.
L'Echo des Savanes and Fluide Glacial
In 1972, Gotlib launched the comics magazine l'Echo des savanesL'Écho des savanes
L’Écho des Savanes is a French comics magazine founded in May 1972 by Claire Bretécher, Marcel Gotlib and Nikita Mandryka. It featured the work of French and international authors and graphic artists in mature-oriented comics over the course of 34 years, but temporarily ended publication in...
with Claire Bretecher
Claire Bretécher
Claire Bretécher is a French cartoonist, known particularly for her portrayals of women and gender issues. Her creations include the Frustrés, and the unimpressed teenager Agrippine.-Biography:...
and Nikita Mandryka
Nikita Mandryka
Nikita Mandryka is a French cartoonist of Russian origin.He started drawing in the Pilote magazine, then created L'Écho des savanes along with Claire Bretécher and Marcel Gotlib in 1973...
. The original aim was just to get stories unsuitable for Pilote – a magazine aimed at school-age readers - out of their system, but l'Echo des Savanes was a huge commercial success. However, the trio's complete lack of business training meant the magazine went deep in the red and they were forced to sell it to a publishing concern. Gotlib's own contributions to the magazine were published in album form as Rhââ Lovely (named after a rapist's line in Alfred Hitchcock
Alfred Hitchcock
Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, KBE was a British film director and producer. He pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres. After a successful career in British cinema in both silent films and early talkies, Hitchcock moved to Hollywood...
's Frenzy) and Rha-Gnagna. Those stories are mostly concerned with smashing taboos, and feature much sexuality and other bodily functions, as well as cod-psychoanalysis and pot shots at authority figures of all kinds including divinities.
Gotlib, Mandryka and Brétécher stopped working for l'Echo des Savanes after selling it, but Gotlib came to the conclusion that there was a strong market for adult comics, and decided to start a new publication and have it run more professionally. To do this, he enrolled childhood friend, Jacques Diament as administrator and another Pilote veteran, Alexis (comics)
Alexis (comics)
Alexis was the pseudonym of Dominique Vallet, a French comics artist, best known for his work on the series Al Crane and Superdupont.-Biography:...
to help with the creative direction , and founded Fluide Glacial
Fluide Glacial
Fluide Glacial is a monthly French comics magazine and a publishing house founded on April 1, 1975 by Marcel Gotlib and Jacques Diament. During its years of publication it has featured the work of French and international authors and graphic artists such as Jacques Lob, Édika, Claire Bretécher,...
and parent publishing company Audie, a comically misspelled acronym of “Amusement, Umour, Derision, Ilarité Et toutes ces sortes de choses”. Fluide Glacial launched the career of a number of unknown or little-known cartoonists, most of whom were influenced by Gotlib in the first place: Edika
Edika
Édika is the nom de plume of Édouard Karali, a French comics artist, born December 17, 1940 in Heliopolis, Egypt, who is renowned for his distinctively absurd style...
, Goossens, Binet, Thiriet, Dupuy & Berberian, Lelong… Belgian veteran André Franquin
André Franquin
André Franquin was an influential Belgian comics artist, whose best known comic strip creations are Gaston and Marsupilami, created while he worked on the Spirou et Fantasio comic strip from 1947 to 1969, during a period seen by many as the series' golden age.-Franquin's beginnings:Franquin was...
also contributed his Idées Noires strip.
Alexis died of cancer in 1977, leaving Gotlib and Diament in charge, though he is credited to this day as “Director of conscience” of Fluide Glacial.
Gotlib created two characters in Fluide Glacial: Superdupont
Superdupont
Superdupont is a French comic strip created in 1972 by Marcel Gotlib and Jacques Lob, with the collaboration of Alexis. It is a parody of both Superman and French national attitudes ....
with Jacques Lob
Jacques Lob
Jacques Lob was a French comic book creator, known for several Franco-Belgian comics creations, but most famously Superdupont.-Biography:...
and Pervers Pépère. Superdupont is a French and highly patriotic answer to US super-heroes who wears a vest and beret and fights a secret organisation called Anti-France. Gotlib mostly wrote or co-wrote Superdupont stories, though he drew a handful of them. The strip was successful enough to be made into a stage show by Jérome Savary
Jérôme Savary
Jérôme Savary is a French theater director and actor. His work has democratized and widened the appeal of musical theater in France, drawing together and blending such genres as opera, operetta, and musical comedy.- Biography :...
.
Pervers Pépère is a stereotypical mac-sporting dirty old man who appeared in one-page stories. The twist is that despite his appearance, his schemes and pranks are non-sexual and childish.
In the 1980s, Gotlib increasingly focused on running Fluide Glacial – in which he also wrote a column - and gradually withdrew from cartooning. However, he resuscitated Gai-Luron in 1986 when the back-catalogue was re-published by Audie and needed promoting, and drew enough new stories for a final album, La Bataille Navale. The old series had been given a new adult twist and riffed surreally on the non-sexual nature of cartoon characters by having Gai-Luron wear underpants with a massive bulge in them, while he has no visible genitalia while naked.
Later years
In 1991, Gotlib received the AngoulêmeAngoulême
-Main sights:In place of its ancient fortifications, Angoulême is encircled by boulevards above the old city walls, known as the Remparts, from which fine views may be obtained in all directions. Within the town the streets are often narrow. Apart from the cathedral and the hôtel de ville, the...
Festival
Angoulême International Comics Festival
The Angoulême International Comics Festival is the largest comics festival in Europe. It has occurred every year since 1974 in Angoulême, France, in the month of January.The four-day festival is notable for awarding several prestigious prizes in cartooning...
Grand Prix
Grand Prix de la ville d'Angoulême
Every year, the Grand Prix de la ville d'Angoulême is awarded during the Angoulême International Comics Festival to an author for his body of work and/or for his achievement in the evolution of comics....
and as per tradition chaired the jury of the next year's festival. . In 1993, he wrote an autobiography, J'existe, je me suis rencontré, focusing on his youth, and in 2006 a more thorough one with journalist Gilles Verlant: Ma Vie-en-Vrac.
In 1995, having taken a back seat for a couple of years, Diament and Gotlib sold Fluide Glacial and Audie to publisher Flammarion, and relinquished responsibilities, though Gotlib continued his column for some time. Fluide Glacial remains profitable and has outlived all its competitors such as Vaillant/Pif, Pilote and the Hara-Kiri stable.
Graphic style
Gotlib's first series were made in a very humoristic tone. Each story consisted of two to four strips drawn in white and black. Rubrique-à-Brac and Les Dingodossiers consisted of didactic dossiers of short unrelated strips, drawn in black and white. They revisited an extremely wide range of subjects and dealt with stereotypes and clichés in a caricatural way. Gotlib used caricature and parodies to depict the everyday life, and greets it with extreme derision. In Cinemastok and Gai-Luron, the same technique was used, although these series were presented in a different manner.Later, from his departure from Pilote in 1972, Gotlib style changed a lot, the scenario as well as the illustrations. The last tome of Rubrique-à-Brac is already marked by this evolution, but it became more obvious with the series published in L'Echo des Savannes and Fluide Glacial. These two comics magazine were created by Gotlib for an adult audience exclusively, and made it possible for Gotlib to express himself entirely freely, while censorship was present in Pilote, magazine made for a young public. Rhââ Lovely , Rhâ-Gnagna and Pervers Pépère are series exclusively dedicated to sex satire, but sexual matters are also present in Hamster Jovial.
Most of Gotlib's strips are background-free, with a large portion of the panels being occupied by elaborate dialogues. Also, the large majority of his series were black-and-white in their original publication. Gotlib's graphic style was much influenced by American and British magazines. In particular, the Dingodossiers and R.A.B. series had as a model the series published by the American magazine Mad
Mad (magazine)
Mad is an American humor magazine founded by editor Harvey Kurtzman and publisher William Gaines in 1952. Launched as a comic book before it became a magazine, it was widely imitated and influential, impacting not only satirical media but the entire cultural landscape of the 20th century.The last...
.
Awards
- 1976: Best French comical workAngoulême International Comics Festival Prize for Best Comic BookThe Prize for Best Album , also known as the Golden Wildcat , is awarded to comics authors at the Angoulême International Comics Festival....
at the Angoulême International Comics FestivalAngoulême International Comics FestivalThe Angoulême International Comics Festival is the largest comics festival in Europe. It has occurred every year since 1974 in Angoulême, France, in the month of January.The four-day festival is notable for awarding several prestigious prizes in cartooning...
for Gai-Luron - 1991: Grand Prix de la ville d'AngoulêmeGrand Prix de la ville d'AngoulêmeEvery year, the Grand Prix de la ville d'Angoulême is awarded during the Angoulême International Comics Festival to an author for his body of work and/or for his achievement in the evolution of comics....
- 2007: Grand Prix Saint-MichelPrix Saint-MichelThe Prix Saint-Michel is a series of comic awards presented by the city of Brussels, with a focus on Franco-Belgian comics. They were first awarded in 1971, and are the second oldest comics award in Europe still presented, behind the Adamson Awards...
, BrusselsBrusselsBrussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the capital of Belgium and the de facto capital of the European Union...
, BelgiumBelgiumBelgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
-
- nominated for the Prix Saint-Michel Press Prize for Gotlib 1: Ma vie en vrac
Sources
- Gotlib, Marcel with Verlant, Gilles, 2006. Ma vie-en-vrac, Flammarion. ISBN 978-2-0806-9071-5.
- Gotlib publications in Vaillant, Pilote, L'Écho des Savanes and Fluide Glacial BDoubliées
- Gotlib albums Bedetheque
- Marcel Gotlib in Pilote Coffre-à-bd
Footnotes
External links
- Gotlib official site
- Gotlib official art gallery
- Gotlib biography on LambiekLambiekLambiek is a comic book store and art gallery in Amsterdam, founded in 1968 by Kees Kousemaker .It has held exhibitions of art by comic creators, including Robert Crumb, Daniel Clowes, Erik Kriek, André Franquin, Tanino Liberatore and Chris Ware...
Comiclopedia - "Le cas Marcel Gotlib"
- Another dossier
- Interview on L'Express magazine website