It was in 1995, Jean-Bernard Pouy created the character of Gabriel Lecouvreur, known as “The Octopus”, published by Baleine. The Octopus? An anti-SAS, neither a cop nor a private detective, a good guy with a big heart who spends part of his days sipping beer in a Parisian bistro, destined to be used by the greatest crime writers – a first for this appropriation of a character by several authors.
At the time, Pouy presented his collection of popular detective novels as follows: “A stupid title, a colorful cover, a price that doesn’t exceed 40 francs: Octopus, that’s it.” And that says it all. The little rider has coffee, Stop tiling, A tranny named desire, Parkinson’s Bell, The Feet of the Dog Lady… Until the beginning of the 2010s, there were some 250 titles drawing on political and societal news by Patrick Raynal, Serge Quadrupani, Didier Daeninckx, Franck Pavloff, Maurice G. Dantec, Gérard Delteil, Marc Villard, Thierry Jonquet…
A committed young woman
And now Lecouvreur is resurrected through his “daughter”, Gabriella, 24 years old this year – a girl with an Octopus style, supervised since her release from Bolivian jails by her second “adopted father”, Gabriel! At the helm of this new collection, entitled “La Fille du Poulpe” and coordinated by Serguei Dounovetz, Antoine de Kerversau, a former member of the late Baleine publishing house, and Jean-Christophe Lopez, creators of Moby Dick editions (for the wink eye) who will also reissue several volumes of Octopus historique, including, in around ten days, The Belgian and the Beast by Bruce Mainz.
The “bible” of “La Fille du Octopus”, to which 35 authors (half men, half women) have already subscribed, wants Gabriella to be a committed young woman, anti-globalizationist and environmentalist, (“a reasoned and not forced ecology”) who advocates the right to equality for women and fights fiercely against her opponents, helped in this by a Gabriel Lecouvreur more or less reluctantly. After two first titles in June, The Passes of the Americas by Thomas Cantaloube and Don’t take street children for wild assholes by Maryssa Rachel, Clicks and slaps by Dominique Sylvain comes out on October 31 (at the price of €9.90), while Neighborhood nursing home by Mr. Pouy is announced at the beginning of January 2025. Long live Gabriel/Gabriella!
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