comic strip
A comic strip is a Comics, sequence of cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often Serial (literature), serialized, with text in Speech balloon, balloons and Glossary of comics terminology#Captio ...
series by the French writer
Claire Bretécher
Claire Bretécher (; 17 April 1940 – 10 February 2020) on Lambiek Comiclopedia was a French
Le Nouvel Observateur
(), previously known as (2014–2024), (1964–2014), (1954–1964), (1953–1954), and (1950–1953), is a weekly French news magazine. Based in the 2nd arrondissement of Paris, ' is one of the three most prominent French news magazines ...
Pilote
''Pilote'' (), for a while subtitled ''the magazine of Asterix and Obelix'' (French: ''Le Journal D’Astérix et D’Obélix'' ) was a French comics magazine published from 1959 to 1989. Showcasing most of the major Franco-Belgian comics, French ...
from 1971 to 1973.
''Les Frustrés'' (the Frustrated) are men and women, often from a wealthy intellectual background, confronted with their little daily worries. Sixty-eight people on the decline, bourgeois-bohemian, middle managers or even emancipated women, exchange their ideas on short black and white stories and allow the author to express various thoughts on society. The topics covered are very varied: educational methods and problems, conflict between generations, women's emancipation, married life and its crises, decadence of society, politics, etc. There are no recurring characters.
''Les Frustrés'' have been translated into
Italian
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* Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries
** Italians, a Romance ethnic group related to or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom
** Italian language, a Romance languag ...
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany, the country of the Germans and German things
**Germania (Roman era)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
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Dutch
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* Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands
** Dutch people as an ethnic group ()
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* In specific terms, i ...
After several years spent working for the youth weeklies of
Bande dessinée
(singular ; literally 'drawn strips'), abbreviated BDs and also referred to as Franco-Belgian comics (), are comics that are usually originally in French and created for readership in France and Belgium. These countries have a long tradition ...
, Claire Bretécher joined in 1969 at ''
Pilote
''Pilote'' (), for a while subtitled ''the magazine of Asterix and Obelix'' (French: ''Le Journal D’Astérix et D’Obélix'' ) was a French comics magazine published from 1959 to 1989. Showcasing most of the major Franco-Belgian comics, French ...
'', rather intended for adolescents. The following year, she produced pages for the '' Actualité '', a series of often humorous short stories in which the newspaper's team commented on the present weather, a work that she did not appreciate very much. Quickly, she treats her news in a very satirical way to showcase the shortcomings of her contemporaries, and particularly those she knows best, the urban middle and upper classes of the left, in stories of one or two pages in the middle. regular format. From 1971, these stories were published separately from the news under the title '' Salades de saison'', and are the subject of an album in 1973.
When Bretécher enters the ''
Nouvel Observateur
(), previously known as (2014–2024), (1964–2014), (1954–1964), (1953–1954), and (1950–1953), is a weekly French news magazine. Based in the 2nd arrondissement of Paris, ' is one of the three most prominent French news magazines a ...
'', it uses this format from its first publication, in the issue of .. The fourth story, published on , is titled "The Frustrated Page", a title that appears above each plate from the October 29 issue.
In 1975, she published an author's first collection of her boards. This one, as well as the following four, is "a considerable success" and has been translated into several languages.. In 1981, Bretécher decided to stop publishing every week in the ''Nouvel Obs''.
Commentaries
Earning its author the qualification in 1976 of "best sociologist of the year" by
Roland Barthes
Roland Gérard Barthes (; ; 12 November 1915 – 25 March 1980) was a French literary theorist, essayist, philosopher, critic, and semiotician. His work engaged in the analysis of a variety of sign systems, mainly derived from Western popu ...
, his Frustrés page is, according to
Jean Daniel
Jean Daniel Bensaid (21 July 1920 – 19 February 2020) was a French journalist and author. He was the founder and executive editor of '' Le Nouvel Observateur'' weekly now known as ''L'Obs''.
Life and career
Daniel was born in Blida, Algeria, ...
, "in depth, and in the second degree, one of the most effectively politicized chronicles of our weekly" According to Florence Montreynaud, the "conformists of anti-conformism" of whom the Frustrés de Brétecher portray "are also the readers of the" Nouvel Observateur "", namely "the snobs, the sons of bourgeois lefties, soft, hard, sexists, feminists, lax parents and their ugly jojos ”Bretécher makes the language of his characters the best way to turn them into "social archetypes. In this series, as in '' Salades de saison'',.
Tics of language, mannerisms, language of wood: the language of the French urban intellectual bourgeoisie of the 1970s is faithfully transcribed in its evolution, which allows the author to better show the contradictions, even the emptiness, of the permanent questions of his characters.
In the tradition of
Jules Feiffer
Jules Ralph Feiffer ( ; January 26, 1929 – January 17, 2025) was an American cartoonist and author, who at one time was considered the most widely read satirist in the country. He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1986 for Pulitzer Prize for Editori ...
, one of his main inspiration, Bretécher generally uses in the '' Frustrés '' an extremely regular arrangement of boxes ( Gaufrier) and drawings which are repeated a lot ( Itération iconique) which allows better highlight the rare variations of the characters' postures and thus maximize the humorous effect carried by the text
Albums
* Original series of five albums
# ''Les Frustrés'', 1975.
# ''Les Frustrés 2'', 1976.
# ''Les Frustrés 3'', 1978..
# ''Les Frustrés 4'', 1979.
# ''Les Frustrés 5'', 1980.
* ''Les Frustrés'', France Loisirs, 2 volumes, 1978-1979. Recueil reprenant les 4 premiers volumes.
* ''Les Frustrés'', Presses Pocket, 5 volumes, 1987. Édition poche
* ''Les Frustrés'', auto-édition, 1996. Recueil des 5 volumes.
* ''Les Frustrés'' t. 1, Librio, coll. « Librio BD », 2005. Édition poche
* ''Les Frustrés'' : ''Morceaux choisis'', Dargaud, 2008. Édition spécialement réalisée pour ''
Le Nouvel Observateur
(), previously known as (2014–2024), (1964–2014), (1954–1964), (1953–1954), and (1950–1953), is a weekly French news magazine. Based in the 2nd arrondissement of Paris, ' is one of the three most prominent French news magazines ...