Wars and instabilities punctuate our daily lives but that has never been a good reason to forget to smile. Let’s focus on two ideal publications to escape the ambient gloom. Starting with the anniversary album of the famous “journal d’Umour et Bandessinée” created by Gotlib (1934-2016) on April 1, 1975: Fluide Glacial, 50 years of covers (Ice Fluid, €34.90). Retracing the history of the magazine through fifty covers, each highlighting an author and a nuance of humor, such is the challenge of Jean-Christophe Delpierre, its former editor-in-chief.
Subversion, shift, insolence, derision, absurd… Gotlib’s key words have been respected by the cohort of cartoonists who we see appear over the years and whose portrait Delpierre paints: Kurtzman, Goossens, Franquin, Edika, Solé, Foerster, Lelong, Binet, Maëster, Dupuy & Berberian, Tronchet, Coyote, Larcenet, Gaudelette, Blutch, Ju/CDM, Ferri, Sattouf, Chauzy, Margerin & Thiriet, Lindingre & Larcenet, Reuzé, L’Abbé, Boucq… Note the presence of only two women, Isa and Maud Chalmel, within this schoolboy company.
Divided by decade, the superb album happily presents the most suggestive covers of the monthly, Superdupont from Solé to Bidochon of Binet, of Sister Marie-Thérèse inflating a Christ on the cross by Maëster in “Guess where I’m calling you from?” of the two naked movers signed Gaudelette. With, as a bonus, some back covers that don’t bite cockchafers and the summary (in small format) of all the front pages. Smiles guaranteed.
He does not appear in this anthology, but like Gotlib, he worked with Goscinny… It is Sempé (1932-2022), of course, Sempé the eternal. It was also shortly after Little Nicholas that he published, in 1962, his first album, Nothing is simple, long unavailable and now reissued by Denoël. A work that smacks of its time with its omnipresent automobiles, its angry shrinks, its mismatched couples, its ludicrous street demonstrations. At the age of 30, the child from Bordeaux, in turn a sociologist, humorist, philosopher and poet, already demonstrated an unfailing sense of observation and benevolent derision. One more breath. In this regard, the City of Paris paid tribute, Thursday, December 11, to the illustrator of the Little Nicholas by giving the name of this first album, Nothing is simple, the promenade of the Allée du Séminaire-Jean-Jacques-Olier, near Saint-Sulpice, in the 6th arrondissement. Finally, note the exhibition “Sempé and the engravings”, at the Galerie Martine Gossieaux (56, rue de l’Université, Paris 6th) until January 25. Sempé forever !