Gaston (comics)
Gaston Lagaffe is a comic strip originally created in 1957 by the Belgian cartoonist André Franquin in the comic strip magazine, Spirou, and named after its main character. The series, focuses on the every-day life of a lazy and accident-prone (his surname means "the blunder") office junior. It is very popular in large parts of Europe (especially in Belgium and France), but except for a few pages by Fantagraphics in the early 90s (as Gomer Goof), there is no English translation.
Gaston Lagaffe goes by different names in various languages, such as Guust Flater in Dutch, Tomás el Gafe in Spanish, Sergi Grapes in Catalan, Gastono Lafuŝ in Esperanto, Viggo in Norwegian, Vakse Viggo in Danish, Viggó Viðutan in Icelandic, Niilo Pielinen in Finnish, Gaša Šeprtlja in Serbian, Şapşal Gazi in Turkish and simply Gaston or (very briefly during a syndication) Jo-Jo in German.
Since the 1980s Gaston also appears on a wide variety of merchandise.
History
André Franquin who was then in charge of Spirou et Fantasio, the star series of Le journal de Spirou, first introduced the character Gaston in issue #985, published February 28, 1957.[1][2] The intial purpose was to fill up empty spaces in the magazine and offer a (comically artificial) glimpse of life behind-the-scenes at the paper.[3] His arrival was carefully orchestrated with a teasing campaign over several months, based on ideas by Franquin, Yvan Delporte and Jidéhem, with mysterious blue footprints in the margins of the magazine.
For the 1000th issue cover, Franquin drew 999 heads of Spirou, and one of Gaston, and the first full-page gag was featured in a supplement.[4][5][6] The man behind the footprints, Gaston, finally turned up for a memorable job interview, telling the bemused Fantasio that he didn't remember with whom or for what he had been called. Fantasio subsequently announced in a formal communiqué that Gaston would be the first "Hero-without-a-job".
From issue #1025, the single-panel gags ceased, and Gaston strips began running at bottom of the editor's pages, with the signatures of Jidéhem and Franquin.[7][8] This lasted until 1959 when Gaston acquired a weekly half-page, which lasted until the mid-60s when Gaston's gags grew to be full-paged.[9]
Spirou adventure appearances
Gaston's first cameo in a Spirou adventure took place in issue #1014, as he graced two frames of Le voyageur du Mésozoïque. He is first seen "on the streets of the capital", riding his bicycle while reading a newspaper, obliviously littering papers, and then seen two frames later, bruised and presumably the victim of police brutality.[10]
His second cameo, this time bicycling with a goose, running a red light and very nearly getting hit by Spirou and Fantasio's speeding Turbot I occurred in the early panels of the Spirou adventure Vacances sans histoires (later included in the album Le gorille a bonne mine), and then in the final panels, getting hit by a Turbot II and announcing his new job at Spirou.[11]
Gaston was given a larger part in the following Spirou adventure, La foire aux gangsters (included in Le nid des Marsupilamis). Here, Gaston acts naïvely foolish and chooses some bad company, which leads him to spend time in a jail cell. In the story's final frame he is released from a police station, to scornful glances by the nearby public.[12][13] Gaston would not be seen in a Spirou adventure again until his appearances in the two final stories of Franquin's Spirou authorship, in Panade à Champignac. He is featured in the opening pages of the title story, and plays a central role in Bravo les Brothers.[12][13]
Focus on Gaston
For a period, Franquin had groomed his assistant Jidéhem to take over the strip in due time, but Jidéhem felt no affinity with the character and stuck to drawing the backgrounds.[14] Franquin inversely grew tired of Spirou et Fantasio (a series he had not created) and decided in 1968 to give it up and concentrate on the increasingly popular Gaston.[15] Gaston's antics appeared in Spirou from 1957 to 1996, near Franquin's death in 1997, although new material appeared only sporadically after the early 1980s.[16]
Format and appeal
Gaston Lagaffe follows the classic "gag" format: one-page stories (initially half-a-page) with an often visual punchline, sometimes foreshadowed in the dialogues. The humour mixes slapstick, puns and running gags. Franquin's style is characterised by extremely nervous characters and action and very quotable dialogues. The series is much loved not only for its perfectly timed comedy, but also for its warm outlook on every day life. Although Gaston works at Spirou Magazine and one of his colleagues is a cartoonist, the series satirises office life in general rather than the publishing or comics business. (It should be noted that Franquin himself worked at home).
Characters
Gaston Lagaffe
Gaston is employed as office junior at the Journal de Spirou office (the real-life publication the strip appeared in) after wandering in in a state of confusion. The strip usually focuses on his efforts to avoid doing any work, and to indulge instead in hobbies or naps while all around him are panicking over deadlines. Initially, Gaston was an irritating simpleton, but he developped a genial personality and sense of humour. Common sense however always eludes him, and he has an almost supernatural ability to create disasters ("gaffes") to which he reacts with his catchphrase: "M'enfin!" ("What the...?"). Gaston's age is a mystery and Franquin confessed that he didn't know or indeed want to know it. Although he has a job, a car and his own place, he often acts like a young teenager. He is invariably dressed in a tight polo-necked green jumper and blue-jeans, and worn-out espadrilles.
Gaston alternates between phases of extreme laziness, when it is near impossible to wake him up, and hyper-activity, when he creates inventions or plays with the office furniture. Over the years, he has experimented with cookery, music, decoration, chemistry and many other hobbies, with equally impressive (i.e. catastrophic) results... His Peter Pan-like refusal to grow up and care about work makes him very endearing, while ironically his antics account for half the stress experienced by his unfortunate co-workers.
The office co-workers
Fantasio of Spirou et Fantasio is the main supporting character of the early series, and a sort of irritable father figure to Gaston. Franquin ackowledged with regrets that he had totally destroyed the original clown-like personality of the character by using him in this role. In Gaston, instead of having adventures and doing some reporting, Fantasio has an editorial role in the magazine and as such has the impossible task of trying to put Gaston to work. By the time of Bravo les Brothers (nominally a Spirou et Fantasio story effectively highjacked by Gaston) it was time for Fantasio (and Spirou's occasional cameos) to go away. When Fournier took over Spirou et Fantasio in 1970, Fantasio disappeared from Gaston to be replaced by...
Léon Prunelle, an editor at Spirou. The bearded Prunelle is even more short-tempered than Fantasio, from whom he has inherited the twin tasks of making Gaston work and signing contracts with De Mesmaeker (see below). Initially optimistic about this, Prunelle slowly realises that he cannot win, but refuses to give up. Perpetually off his hinges, running around and barking orders, Prunelle turns a nasty reddish purple when disaster strikes, and utters his trademark outburst "Rogntudjuuu !" (a mangled version of "Nom de Dieu", roughly the equivalent of "bloody hell", then not acceptable in a comic mostly read by children). Occasionally, he manages to turn the tables on Gaston and shows that he is not without a sense of humour.
Yves Lebrac, an in-house cartoonist, is fairly laid-back. He has a tendency to lose work tools such as erasers, pencils, India ink etc..., something with which Gaston or his cat frequently have something to do. Although he gets on with Gaston better than Prunelle, he occasionally loses his temper too when deadline fever strikes and Gaston interferes. He frequently makes passes at the secretaries, without success, and is also fond of puns, to Prunelle's annoyance.
Monsieur Boulier, a surly accountant for the Éditions Dupuis publishers, will not rest until he tracks down every useless expense for the publication, and in particular those of Gaston. How such an utterly joyless bureaucrat ended up working for a comics publisher is a mystery.
Monsieur Dupuis (the real-life publisher Charles Dupuis) himself has made two appearances, though at both times we only see his legs.
Spirou is also staffed by a string of attractive secretaries called Sonia, Yvonne and Suzanne, and translator Bertje Van Schrijfboek. Very occasionally, real-life figures from the magazine such as Yvan Delporte or Raoul Cauvin have cameos.
Mademoiselle Jeanne ("M'oiselle Jeanne" to Gaston) is one of Gaston’s colleagues, and his love interest. She was first depicted as comically unattractive for the purpose of a gag where he chooses her as his partner to a fancy dress party because her ponytail makes her suitable as a pantomime horse's rear end. Gradually however, she became cuter - if never really a beauty queen. Jeanne is a perfect match for Gaston, as she admires his talent, his courage, his inventiveness, and is utterly oblivious to his lack of common sense, of which she also has little. However their courtship is perpetually stuck at the very first step. They address each other with the formal vous, see each other mainly at the office, and only rarely go out together. By the end of the series, Gaston's daydreams about Jeanne were becoming more explicit and Franquin once drew them being much more intimate on a not commercially available greeting card one year, to the dismay of many fans. This platonic relationship, in a way, is in keeping with Gaston's refusal or incapacity to grow up.
Friends
Jules-de-chez-Smith-en-face (Jules-from-Smith’s-across-the-Street) is one of Gaston’s good friends and almost his alter ego. He "works" in the office just across the street from Gaston's window, prompting countless attempts at communicating via ingenious ways in those pre-email days. Jules shares Gaston's childish enthusiasm, and is his sidekick in many ventures.
Bertrand Labévue is another one of Gaston’s friends/sidekicks and also his cousin. As his name indicates, (la bévue is another synonym for "the blunder"), he shares his cousin's tendency to goof up. Bertrand suffers from acute depression, mirroring Franquin's own problems with the illness, and Gaston's efforts to cheer him up backfire comically.
Manu is another pal of Gaston, who keeps turning up in different jobs (à la Bert in Mary Poppins): chimney sweep, sewer worker, installer of street furniture... He is always ready to help Gaston get on Agent Longtarin's nerves.
Foes
Aimé De Mesmaeker is a rich businessman: he owns a private jet (until Gaston destroys it!) and his daughter drives no less than an Alfa Romeo. His precise line of business is unknown, but he is repeatedly lured into the offices of Spirou by Fantasio then Prunelle in order to sign some lucrative contracts, which Gaston always prevents. He has developped a deep loathing for Gaston and by extension his colleagues, even Prunelle whose short temper he matches. His frequent visits allow Franquin to satirise business rituals, as Dupuis's employees shower him with attention, complimentary drinks and cigars etc... De Mesmaeker is named after Johan De Mesmaeker (known as Jidéhem from the French pronunciation of his initials J.D.M.), Franquin’s collaborator on the series, who remarked that the character looked like his own father.[17] The real-life Mr De Mesmaeker Sr — actually a salesman — found it increasingly difficult to get contracts signed as Gaston's popularity grew…
Joseph Longtarin ("long nose") is a policeman working in the neighborhood where the Spirou office is located, with a particular responsibility for traffic. An exceptionally petty and vengeful man , he is the closest thing the series has to a villain. He is one of Gaston's favorite "victims" as well as his nemesis. The two clash continuously over Gaston's use of his car and his parking habits. Gaston retaliates for Longtarin's repeated attempts to ticket him by wreaking havoc on the neighbourhood's parking meters, his own (and Franquin's) obsession, and plays other pranks on him such as putting his likeness on his car bonnet in a parody of the Rolls-Royce sculpture.
Freddy-les-doigts-de-fée ("fairy-fingered Freddy") is a burglar. His occasional break-ins at Spirou are always foiled accidentally by Gaston, who leaves dangerous objects or devices at work. Workers at Spirou see Freddy as a fellow victim of Gaston, and offer him comfort and freebies when they find him in the morning, instead of turning him to the police.
Pets
Gaston is very fond of animals, as Franquin was of drawing them, and keeps several pets. The main ones are a depressive and aggressive seagull and a very nervous cat. Like Franquin's most famous animal creation, the Marsupilami, those two never acquired a name and are just referred to as the cat and the seagull. Gaston also sometimes keeps a mouse called Cheese, and a goldfish. The animals are sometimes Gaston's partners in crime or props as he creates chaos in the office, and sometimes the victims of his clumsiness. They are often depicted more realistically than the pets in Spirou in that we are not privy to their inner thoughts. The cat and seagull in particular can be fairly vicious, although never to Gaston himself.
Props, inventions and other running gags
Objects play an important part in Gaston's life, and some of them have become iconic enough to be sometimes recreated in real life for exhibitions and such. The main two are:
Gaston's car
Gaston drives an old Fiat decorated with racing patterns even though its top speed still allows passengers to pick flowers on the side of the motorway. Much humour derives from the car's extreme state of decrepitude, which allows for instance a friend of Gaston to waterski behind it as the latter strenously denies that the vehicle is leaking a lot of oil. Some of Gaston's colleagues are terrified at the very thought of sitting in the Fiat. The car is also the source of many clashes with Longtarin, as Gaston endlessly devises schemes to avoid paying parking meters, even going as far as parking it up in a tree.
The Gaffophone
This extraordinary instrument, a prehistoric-looking combination of horn and harp created by Gaston, creates a sound so extreme that it causes physical destruction all around and panics animals. Like the bard's voice in Asterix, it horrifies everyone except its originator. Gaston has also created other instruments. In a text published in En direct de la gaffe, the gaffophone began to blossom, developed into a small ecosystem and was violently destroyed in natural circumstances. Gaston later rebuilt it.
Costumes
An early running gag involved Gaston coming up with elaborate and extremely impractical costumes for fancy dress parties at the facetious suggestions of his colleagues: wobbler toy, octopus, greek urn, petrol (gas) pump, Eiffel Tower etc... He invariably left it to the last moment to worry about whether he might have to dance...
Other inventions
These have included: a necktie-tying device, a shoelace-tying device, a door which opens vertically, a table which hangs from the ceiling, a self-heating overcoat, a rotating Christmas tree, an incendiary camera flash, a pneumatic ashtray, an electric scarecrow, a foldable bicycle, a remote-controlled electric iron, a fabric-melting washing powder, a floor-dissolving tile wax, a mini-lawnmower (to mow around the daisies), a suit of armour for mice, the World's Biggest Paperclip, an electric hammer (which has to be nailed in the first place), a solar-powered torchlight (which works only when sun is shining)... Gaston's culinary pinnacle was the invention of the strawberry codfish.
The mail backlog
The task most often given Gaston by Prunelle is to sort and answer the mail - presumably sent by readers. This often builds up to a mountain-like backlog, which Gaston often attempts to dispose of in creative ways, for instance stuffing a home-made sofa with it. In a similar vein, Gaston was briefly put in charge of the reference library: at first he arranged the books into a maze and charged his colleagues for admission, and later he simply piled them up, dug a cave in the middle and settled there with his pets and a stove to sleep all day.
De Mesmaeker's contracts
This is possibly the most frequent running gag in the series, and by Franquin's admission a MacGuffin: "Whatever's in the contracts is irrelevant. What we want to see is how Gaston will fail them." Over the years, Fantasio and Prunelle's efforts to get those mythical contracts signed have become increasingly frantic and desperate. The contracts are irrevocably jinxed, and even if they do get signed, Gaston will accidentally destroy them. In two instances, De Mesmaeker actually signed contracts with Gaston himself on a whim, instead of the contracts. both times for merchandising Gaston's inventions, such as the "Cosmo-clock", an Apollo spacecraft-shaped cuckoo clock, or Gaston's famous soup. More often than not however, Gaston irritates, offends or wounds the hapless businessman first, causing him to storm out. Or black out...
Politics, activism, promotional material
Authors at Spirou could only go so far in expressing anything ressembling politics within the magazine, and so the author of Gaston generally stuck to a gentle satire of productivity and authority. However, the pacifism and concern for the environment that formed the basis of Franquin's politics and would be expressed much more bluntly in Idées noires were already surfacing in Gaston (and Spirou et Fantasio). Very occasionally, Franquin overstepped the mark, as in an uncharacteristically angry strip where Gaston uses a toy Messerschmitt plane to strafe the whole office in protest at their (real life) appearance in the magazine's modelling column. Outside of Spirou however, Franquin had a free rein, and used Gaston in promotional material for diverse organisations such as Greenpeace and Amnesty International. In the former, activists scare whales away from whalers by plucking the dreaded gaffophone. For the latter, Franquin produced a gut-wrenching sequence where Gaston is beaten and tortured and forced to watch Moiselle Jeanne raped in front of him, before being sent to a prison camp. Awaking in a sweat, he shouts at the reader that "although this was a nightmare, it's happening right now around the world", urging membership. Gaston has also appeared in advertising campaigns for batteries, a soft drink, and in a campaign to promote bus use. The material was always drawn by Franquin himself rather than under licence, and has been reprinted in books. The latter campaign is interesting in that it shows Franquin's evolution from car enthusiast inventing the Turbo-traction and other fancy sports vehicles for Spirou in the 1950s, to disillusioned citizen concerned over traffic and pollution in later years. One topical strip had the seagull boycotting Gaston's car after seeing a bird stuck in an oil spill on television. "Life is becoming more and more complicated", its owner concludes gloomily in a very rare joke-free ending.
The albums
In 1960 the first "Gaston" book, a small-format (7x13 cm) publication, was released. Its format was so unorthodox that some retailers thought it was a promotional issue to be given away free.[18] The cover features Gaston wearing orange espadrilles without socks, not yet given his trademark blue espadrilles.
Fifteen major albums were published between 1963 and 1996, including all the strips that appeared in Spirou. There were some oddities such as number 1 appearing out of sequence and number 0 twenty years later. The first five were quickly sold out; the others were frequently reprinted.
Included in the series were the "R1" through "R5" albums (R for Réédition, French for republication). The R5 album was not published until 1986; its non-existence until then had been a mystery.
Beginning in 1987, Éditions J'ai lu began publishing a 17-volume series in paperback format. The titles and contents did not exactly match the large-format albums.
In 1996, upon Gaston's 40th anniversary, Dupuis and Marsu Productions published Edition Définitive, containing nearly all Gaston gags in chronological order. As some of the earliest material had been damaged, restauration work was done by Studio Léonardo, with the results approved by Franquin.[19]
Classic series
| Number | Title | Published | ISBN |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | Gaston | 1960 | |
| 2 | Gala des gaffes | 1963 | |
| 3 | Gaffes à gogo | 1964 | |
| 4 | Gaffes en gros | 1965 | |
| 1 | Gare aux gaffes | 1966 | |
| 5 | Les gaffes d'un gars gonflé | 1967 | |
| 6 | Des gaffes et des dégâts | 1968 | ISBN 2-8001-0088-5 |
| 7 | Un gaffeur sachant gaffer | 1969 | ISBN 2-8001-0089-3 |
| 8 | Lagaffe nous gâte | 1970 | ISBN 2-8001-0090-7 |
| R1 | Gala de gaffes à gogo | 1970 | ISBN 2-8001-0093-1 |
| 9 | Le cas Lagaffe | 1971 | ISBN 2-8001-0091-5 |
| 10 | Le géant de la gaffe | 1972 | ISBN 2-8001-0092-3 |
| R2 | Le bureau des gaffes en gros | 1972 | ISBN 2-8001-0094-X |
| R3 | Gare aux gaffes du gars gonflé | 1973 | ISBN 2-8001-0308-6 |
| 11 | Gaffes, bévues et boulettes | 1973 | ISBN 2-8001-0330-2 |
| R4 | En direct de la gaffe | 1974 | ISBN 2-8001-0370-1 |
| 12 | Le gang des gaffeurs | 1974 | ISBN 2-8001-0400-7 |
| 13 | Lagaffe mérite des baffes | 1979 | ISBN 2-8001-0658-1 |
| 14 | La saga des gaffes | 1982 | ISBN 2-8001-0955-6 |
| 0 | Gaffes et gadgets | 1985 | ISBN 2-8001-1248-4 |
| R5 | Le lourd passé de Lagaffe | 1986 | ISBN 2-8001-1473-8 |
| 15 | Gaffe à Lagaffe ! | 1996 | ISBN 2-908462-73-7 |
Definitive series
| Volume | ISBN |
|---|---|
| Gaston n°1 | ISBN 2-8001-2681-7 |
| Gaston n°2 | ISBN 2-8001-2682-5 |
| Gaston n°3 | ISBN 2-8001-2683-3 |
| Gaston n°4 | ISBN 2-8001-2684-1 |
| Gaston n°5 | ISBN 2-8001-2685-X |
| Gaston n°6 | ISBN 2-8001-2686-8 |
| Gaston n°7 | ISBN 2-8001-2687-6 |
| Gaston n°8 | ISBN 2-8001-2688-4 |
| Gaston n°9 | ISBN 2-8001-2689-2 |
| Gaston n°10 | ISBN 2-8001-2690-6 |
| Gaston n°11 | ISBN 2-8001-2691-4 |
| Gaston n°12 | ISBN 2-8001-2692-2 |
| Gaston n°13 | ISBN 2-8001-2693-0 |
| Gaston n°14 | ISBN 2-8001-2694-9 |
| Gaston n°15 | ISBN 2-8001-2695-7 |
| Gaston n°16 | ISBN 2-8001-2696-5 |
| Gaston n°17 | ISBN 2-8001-2697-3 |
| Gaston n°18 | ISBN 2-912536-10-3 |
| Gaston n°19 | ISBN 2-912536-31-6 |
Other publications
- Biographie d'un gaffeur (1965) Franquin & Jidéhem, Gag de poche n°26
- La fantastica Fiat 509 di Gaston Lagaffe (1977)
- Gaston et le Marsupilami (1978, ISBN 2-8001-0637-9)
- Les Robinsons du rail (1981, ISBN 2-903403-05-8) A text and image album featuring Gaston, Spirou and Fantasio
- Fou du Bus (1987, ISBN 2-906452-01-7) Advert album commissioned by the Union of Public Transportations
- Rempile et désopile (1989) Advertising gags for Philips, only printed in 2500 editions
The movie
In 1981, a live-action French movie based on Gaston Lagaffe, called "Fais gaffe à la gaffe !"directed by Paul Boujenah and starring Roger Mirmont bombed.
Franquin, uncomfortable at the prospect of Gaston being adapted, had given permission for the elements and jokes from his work to be used, but not the actual characters. As a result, the characters' names were all changed, making the whole thing look more like a rip-off than a proper adaptation.
See also
References
- Franquin publications in le Journal de Spirou BD oubliées
- Gaston appearances in le Journal de Spirou gastonlagaffe.com.
- Sadoul, Numa (1986). Et Franquin créa la gaffe. Distri B.D. 2-87178-000-5.
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Footnotes
- ^ gastonlagaffe.com. "Dossiers-28 février 1957".Template:Fr icon
- ^ Image of Spirou #985 Gaston page
- ^ gastonlagaffe.com. "Franquin raconte Gaston".Template:Fr icon
- ^ Image1 of Spirou #1000 cover
- ^ Image2 of Spirou #1000 cover
- ^ Gaston-Spirou #1000 supplement N°1
- ^ gastonlagaffe.com. "Dossiers-28 novembre 1957".Template:Fr icon
- ^ gastonlagaffe.com. "Dossiers-5 décembre 1957".Template:Fr icon
- ^ gastonlagaffe.com. "les différentes époques".Template:Fr icon
- ^ gastonlagaffe.com. "Dossiers-19 septembre 1957".Template:Fr icon
- ^ gastonlagaffe.com. "Dossiers-21 novembre 1957".Template:Fr icon
- ^ a b Collignon, Claude. "Images moins connues dans SPIROU".Template:Fr icon
- ^ a b Inigo Yanez, Pedro. "Apparitions de Gaston Lagaffe".Template:Fr icon
- ^ franquin.com. "Franquin-les amis-Jidéhem".Template:Fr icon
- ^ franquin.com. "Franquin-une vie-1968".Template:Fr icon
- ^ gastonlagaffe.com. "Dossiers-inventaire-all Gaston index".Template:Fr icon
- ^ franquin.com. "Gaston-personnages-De Mesmaeker".Template:Fr icon
- ^ gastonlagaffe.com. "Série classique Gaston 0".Template:Fr icon
- ^ franquin.com. "Albums-Edition Définitive".Template:Fr icon
External links
 | This February 2007's use of external links may not follow Wikipedia's policies or guidelines. |
- Gaston Lagaffe official site Template:Fr icon
- Franquin official site Template:Fr icon
- The Franquin forum Template:Fr icon
- Some fan sites:
- http://www.glowingplate.com/gaston/ (includes sample cartoon with English translation)
- http://www.ifarm.nl/guust/english.html (includes sample cartoon with English translation)
- http://www.ifi.uio.no/~janl/ts/viggo.html
- http://lagaffemegate.free.fr/ Template:Fr icon
- http://www.bdcentral.com/Gaston/ Template:Fr icon
- http://perso.wanadoo.fr/claude.collignon/ Template:Fr icon
- http://edbd.netatlantide.net/gaston/gaston.html Template:Fr icon
- http://orde.org.uk/comics/comic.php/gaston-lagaffe_frontcover (English translations of some strips)