2023-11-22 19:00:27
The Return of Lagaffe will have caused a lot of ink to flow. And not only because the pen will have been tampered with by Gaston… This new album of the adventures of the character created by André Franquin (1924-1997) was almost not published by Editions Dupuis, in conflict with the daughter and rights holder of the famous designer.
Isabelle Franquin had taken legal action in Belgium to have the album in question banned, invoking moral rights. his father «did not in any way want Gaston Lagaffe to be taken over by another designer after his death”, declared Isabelle Franquin. An arbitration rendered in May in Brussels resolved the dispute in favor of the publication of the comic strip, while reminding the publisher of the need to submit any project for a new album to the rights holder.
The saga of blunders has therefore resumed under the pencil of the Quebec cartoonist Marc Delafontaine, alias Delaf, screenwriter of the humorous series Belly buttons. In view of the first plates pre-published in the journal of Spirou, we expected the worst. The choice to remain very faithful to the context and to Franquin’s line left one wondering. In the era of teleworking and digital technology, what does the Gaston of the 1950s to 1970s still have to tell us? Aren’t the character and the situations totally out of fashion?
“Phone-in” gags, but neat “cuts”
The result surprises. Extremely faithful to Franquin’s line, Delaf clearly did not fall asleep on the master’s plates, unlike Gaston who keeps forgetting them here and there on the way to the printer. A nod to the genius of the Marcinelle school, of which Delaf studied the smallest boxes and undertook to archive all the postures and expressions of the characters.
Disturbingly resembling, the graphic recovery is as impressive as that ofAsterix by Didier Conrad. Delaf reconnects with the dynamism of Franquin’s drawing, all in movement and cartoonish exaggeration. It is in the most burlesque scenes that Delaf is the funniest: special mention to the G-Phone, a rotary phone fixed on a slide, which returns, once the conversation is over, to its place of origin automatically , but a little too quickly…
Other gags are more “telephoned”, but the falls are rather neat, especially those of Gaston’s bowling ball. The criticism of consumer society, pollution and individualism has aged rather well, but will it still amuse the young audience that this new publication, with a print run of 800,000 copies, also and above all targets? By reuniting with Gaston, we begin to dream of a more personal reinterpretation of this brilliant character of an unrepentant goofball.
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