Denial, denial, denial, denial everywhere. Ugh. Pooh. Stinky comic. Titeuf in the toilets. Fortunately ! Magnanimous gesture of fate! The trials revealed in Titeuf, the guestbook, which celebrates the 30 years of the globally adored character in appropriate gilding, show a rather Grandteuf Titeuf: an adult who evokes his childhood memories. Titeuf adult? Ugh again.
“It was the first idea”, recalls Zep, Philippe Chappuis in civilian life, at the Swiss end of the wire. He still lives in Switzerland, where he was born under a lucky star in December 1967: precisely at the time when the newspaper Pilot the last Dingofiles by Marcel Gotlib and René Goscinny and that the first boards of the Heading-to-brac of the same Marcel are inked. There’s no hazard. We also learn in the first pages of the copious anniversary album that the window of Chappuis’ first studio “overlooked a primary schoolyard”. All he had to do was listen: they spoke Titeuf there.
I always tell myself that there will be a time when I will have done the trick. But no. The character is very simple: he is a child who takes a look at the world around him, that is to say above all a world made by adults, and this world, well, he is responsible for bringing always new topics, in fact.
Decisive moment. Philippe’s clothes tore like Hulk’s and Zep shone (Zep as in Led ZEPpelin, yes). We are in 1992: the real world of childhood, the cruel and pitiless world of boys and girls, the world of secretions, smells, various humiliations and small victories has found both its hero and its whipping boy: Titeuf, a little guy with a big blond streak (inspired by the Roadrunner and Tintin, Zep will see afterwards).
Respond to the changing world
There will be no adult Titeuf. The publisher Jean-Claude Camano brought him into Glénat. It is success. Seventeen albums and a few billion copies later (the figures are fuzzy in China), Titeuf is a bronze statue in the famous schoolyard, and in gold in this adorable collection that is both chronological and complementary: posters of exhibitions, unpublished boards, portraits and tributes, a sort of everything Titeuf outside the albums. A 18e album is in progress. “I always tell myself that there will be a time when I will have done the trick. But no. The character is very simple: he is a child who takes a look at the world around him, that is to say above all a world made by adults, and this world, well, he is responsible for bringing always new topics, in fact. I have the impression that there is always matter. Precisely because the world is changing. »
The Quebec designer Phlpp Grrd similarly notes the eternal topicality of Titeuf. “Before Zep, comics aimed at children were childish. Boule and Bill were kids in the 1950s and a lot of this comic book genre didn’t try to cross the boundaries of this series. He broke down barriers. With Titeuf, we talk about sex or grief like never before. Zep: “Comics and children’s literature were very modest, fairly regulated. But a Goscinny pushed towards freedom. The little Nicolas, already, was transgressive because Goscinny played with the French language. He created turns of phrase, neologisms, very, very long sentences without punctuation, a brilliant orality. And then Gotlib, encouraged by Goscinny, opened a lot of doors. The readers of the Heading-to-brac followed him in his audacity, lived his transgressions with him. Pupil Chaprot already had snot on his nose. “I didn’t invent farts either. »
A before and an after-Titeuf
We can still say that there is a before and an after-Titeuf. Michel Viau, screenwriter, publisher, professor, comic book historian, confirms this. “Zep left his mark on youth comics. With this series, he has pushed the limits of what can be offered to young people. And we can say that Titeuf went to school. Zep created the magazine Tcho! in which numerous series with an equally provocative spirit as Titeuf were published, and he scripted some of them himself (The Chronokidswith Stan and Vince, Captain Biceps with Tebo…). Many series with uninhibited humor and containing crushing can claim wit Titeuf. What we think of kid paddle board of Midam, Tony Alberto from Dab’s, or Nini Patalo by Lisa Mandel. »
Zep is part of a generation of free spirits. “We looked at comics a bit like we look at video games today. We thought that by letting children read only comics, we were going to destroy their childhood. I’m part of the generation that got rid of that, says the creator. I was able to make a comic strip for the general public, a world accessible to children, where we talk about everything. Very schoolboy things, the characteristic of childhood, drool, saliva, farts, but also the vision that one can have of sexuality, old age, illness, all that seen by children. »
Titeuf to the rescue
In Titeuf, the guestbook, there are many commissioned plates and illustrations: Zep has responded a lot to associations. From Handicap International (young mine victims who have lost limbs) to the Pandemic Task Force, from victims of sexual assault to sick children, Zep is always willing… and manages to make people laugh. “I try to keep the tone of my character, who is a child and who can find funny things that aren’t funny at first glance. At the same time, the funny must not remove the horrible aspect, or the preventive aspect. It’s a balance to find. »
It can go very far. “At one point, I realized that we were more affected by what happens to a fictional character than by reality. We shell ourselves and the news on TV no longer reaches us. This despairs me, this aspect of our humanity. When there was the great influx of migrants during the war in Syria, I drew on my blog a Titeuf who lost everything, his parents, his friends, and even his life. These pages have been shared hundreds of thousands of times. In the book, he adds: [l’histoire] traveled around the world. Unfortunately, she did not change it. » Titeuf sometimes has unexpected effects: in 2018, Jair Bolsonaro, not yet president of Brazil, denounced on full TV The guide to the sexual zizi, the very funny and very useful manual where the very natural questions of the preteen Titeuf find answers. “I would never have imagined such a thing. Getting into reality a bit is good. » Reissued, the Zizi sexual is at 1,600,000 copies scattered around the world.
At a time when Tintins are being burned in Ontario, is Titeuf threatened? “At the moment, he is not. Fingers crossed. I understand that people find that we can do everything a little too much and want to create a little order. The problem with order is that everyone wants their order. Let’s not make humor about it. For me, we should be able to laugh at everything. It’s not the subject, it’s the way we treat it, but we must be aware of the sensitivity of the people who read us. Not everyone is made to read Charlie Hebdo. And that’s okay. There is no humor that is for everyone. But just because it doesn’t make you laugh doesn’t mean you have to burn the books. »