The commercial project orchestrated in the run-up to Christmas by some still angers another: Isabelle Franquin, the daughter of André Franquin, the creator of Gaston Lagaffe, who less than a month after the return of this character comic strip in a highly controversial new album, continues to rebel against this resurrection which goes against the wishes expressed by his father during his lifetime.
In a rare interview granted to Duty, the protector of the moral rights of the work of the Belgian designer even denounces a “servile drawing”, put on the market without much critical spirit, and which emphasizes as much the trait of the sympathetic blunderer brought into the world in 1957 by his father as a new “absurd” inscription of the character in a present that is not his own. “Gaston is the witness of his era, that of the Trente Glorieuses of which he remains a reference,” says Isabelle Franquin. He had to be left where he was and where he came from. »
However, the publishing house Dupuis, with the complicity of the Quebec cartoonist Marc Delafontaine, known as Delaf, decided not to respect the wishes of the creator, who wanted his character not to survive him. Worse, with great fanfare, they released a 22e album of his adventures, entitled The return of Lagaffelast November 22, a project denounced by André Franquin’s daughter since she learned of it in December 2021. It was made possible after the intervention of an arbitrator last May having ruled in favor of Dupuis, owner of the editorial rights to the work.
The album was presented as a tribute to the master of Franco-Belgian comics who died in 1997, at the age of 73, even if, for Isabelle Franquin, it is above all a blatant lack of respect.
“Marc Delafontaine transformed a free form of writing, a personal drawing, into a mechanical typeface, which is the complete opposite of creation. Her own writing risks sinking in this editorial adventure, says the daughter of André Franquin, exposed two years ago to this resurrection project that she could not envisage. My father’s wishes for his hero were known to those close to him, to the entire profession. It had been formulated several times in the press in his last years. It was impossible not to know and, for me, to accept what I had in front of me. »
She adds: “The publisher doesn’t see a problem with it. He is even pleased with the “bluffing” result of his substitute product. He has the recipe: with IT, the patience of Marc Delafontaine and commercial tenacity, the publisher has just made the character of Gaston and his universe into a product. That André Franquin rebelled throughout his career and throughout interviews against servile copyists [de son oeuvre et de celle des autres] don’t bother anyone. That Gaston Lagaffe is André Franquin’s “the thing”, a character close to him as he has often said, and that he has made evolve as if he were a real living character, obviously does not matter. for the protagonists of this recovery. »
“In the face of a fait accompli”
In the pages of Duty, a few days ago, the designer Marc Delafontaine said he took the time to think before embarking on this adventure, without hesitating too much. “I was a super fan of Gaston,” he said. It was my favorite series when I was little. I had made myself posters because I couldn’t find any in stores. I even spent Halloween dressed as Gaston. And when we [m’a] Free [de reprendre le personnage], I had the impression of entering a parallel world, telling myself that it couldn’t exist, that kind of thing. I was astonished and stunned. »
Isabelle Franquin would have preferred that “the thing” simply did not begin to “exist”, deploring that the boards of this 22e and controversial album, with a print run of 800,000 copies, was released in a discreet manner that contrasted with contractual obligations, forcing the publisher to inform it every six months of “any project relating to Gaston Lagaffe,” he assures. She. “Marc Delafontaine says he “never wanted to hide anything from anyone”, but he was singularly discreet about his work on the cover of Gaston Lagaffe, some of which he could have shown me at an intermediate stage. “, and this, without waiting for an “album intention, as accomplished as possible”, which gives the impression, says André Franquin’s daughter, of having sought to present her “with a fait accompli”.
The day after the release of an album which benefited from extensive media coverage, several fans of the character began to dream of a return, now sealed for years to come, of their childhood hero. But for Isabelle Franquin, this editorial project should above all find itself at the heart of a serious, necessary and too often avoided reflection in the media around all these resurrections of universes and characters stirring up the nostalgia of an audience for base purposes. mercantile.
“We talked a lot about covers ofAsterixof Boule & Bill or lucky Luke on the occasion of the “resurrection” imposed on Gaston Lagaffe, without understanding, however, that these covers had been approved and even, in certain cases, initiated by the creators of these series themselves, she said. Which is far from being the case for Gaston. »
She continues: “Continuing works that have met with public support means believing that the recipe for Proust’s madeleine is within everyone’s reach, that the pleasure of contact with a creation is renewable. But this is reasoning without taking into account the fragility of creation. Few creators manage to give others a work that makes them vibrate, laugh, cry, think, accompanying us in the moments of our lives to sometimes give them meaning. We cannot let people believe that it is enough to push a button, to apply a formula for the miracle to take place again. »
She then names films, Blow-Upby Michelangelo Antonioni, The big mopby Gérard Oury, both dating from 1966, or Children of Paradise signed Marcel Carné and Jacques Prévert in 1945, of which it would be a shame to see “remakes” appear, she says. “We don’t want a continuation of The foam of the daysby Boris Vian, no more”, unique and singular works, anchored in their time, just like the last original plate of Gaston Lagaffepublished on June 25, 1991 in the magazine Spirou number 2776. It is she who closes the final chapter of a saga that it is “useless” and “irrelevant” to seek to take further, she concludes.