Engines at top speed! Using the adventures of a comic book motorsports hero as an approach to understanding recent French history

ABSTRACT

Jean Graton created a series of comic books called Michel Vaillant, and its motorsports hero bore the same name. Michel Vaillant made his first appearance in 1957 in the weekly Tintin. Young French boys who loved adventure, sports and car racing greeted this publication with great enthusiasm. We studied the first series of Michel Vaillant, composed of 16 comic books produced in the 1960s. We have departed from traditional approaches and have based our method on the analysis of the sources of Graton’s inspiration. We link these sources to the comics’ text bubbles, visual signs and iconic meanings of the drawings. Our analysis of the comics’ iconography based on the establishment of a mass culture dedicated to the automobile brings to light the existence of an urge to go beyond the limits of tradition. Our research highlights that the success of Michel Vaillant is due, in the main, to the series’ detailed knowledge of the automobile sports industry, and to the myths of speed, youth and progress that it promulgates – myths in which its young male readers could see themselves reflected and which would also prepare them for the future.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Lois Rose (The Language Center) for her editing, Dave Day for his advice and Graton-Dupuis Publishing for giving permission to reproduce boxes of the series of Michel Vaillant comic books.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

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17. Groensteen, Bande dessinée, 7.

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29. Ibid.

30. Editorial, ‘Jean Graton’, 14.

31. Ibid.

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34. Lerman, Histoire, 11.

35. Editorial, ‘Jean Graton’, 14.

36. Tintin, no. 250, 6 August 1953; Tintin, no. 400, 21 June 1956; Tintin, no. 416, 11 October 1956.

37. Tintin, no. 278, 18 February 1954.

38. Tintin, no. 306, 2 September 1954; Tintin, no. 402, 5 July 1956.

39. Tintin, no. 372, 8 December 1955.

40. Tintin, no. 384, 1 March 1956.

41. Tintin, no. 350, 7 July 1955.

42. Tintin, no. 382, 16 February 1956.

43. Tintin, no. 509, 24 July 1958.

44. Tintin, no. 420, 8 November 1956.

45. Tintin, no. 433, 7 February 1957.

46. Jean Graton, Michel Vaillant: l'intégrale, vol. 1 (Bruxelles: Le Lombard, 2008), 6.

47. Lerman, Histoire, 9.

48. Jean Graton, Km. 357, no. 16 (Bruxelles: Graton Editeurs, 1969), 46.

49. Ibid.

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52. Editorial, ‘Jean Graton’, 15.

53. Jeet Heer, ‘Barnaby and American Clear Line Cartooning’, in Barnaby Volume One, ed. Crockett Johnson, (Seattle: Fantagraphics Books, 2013), 13.

54. Duchateau, ‘Qui fait votre journal?’, 30–1.

55. Ibid., 31.

56. The expression Treinte Glorieuses is attributed to Jean Fourastier in his analysis ‘Les Trentes Glorieuses, ou la révolution invisible de 1946 à 1973’, published in 1979. However, authors such as Bost affirm that it was also a troubling period, both socially and economically speaking, during the so-called Reconstruction period. The repetitive strikes organised by French industrial trade unions and pay gaps between lower and middle classes expressed this protest and disenchantment in May 1968. In François Bost, La Franche: mutations des systèmes productifs (Paris: Sedes/Cne, 2014), 98.

57. Christian Metz, ‘Le perçu et le nommé’, in Essais sémiotiques (Paris: Klincksieck, 1977), 129–62.

58. Jean-Charles Asselain, Histoire économique de la France. De 1919 à la fin des années 1970 (Paris: Seuil, 1984), 127.

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60. Graton, 13 est au départ, 11.

61. Panhard gives us a exhaustive list: Peugeot 404, Simca 1000, 1300 and 1500, Citroën Ami 6, Panhard PL 17, Renault 4, and Renault 8. In Jean Panhard, ‘Petite histoire del'automobile en France’, Culture Technique 19 (1989): 31.

62. Jean Graton, La trahison de Steve Warson, no. 6 (Bruxelles: Graton Editeurs, 1964), 60.

63. Jean Graton, L’honneur du samouraï, no. 10 (Bruxelles: Graton Editeurs, 1966), 9–10.

64. Thierry Méot, ‘L'indutrie automobile depuis 1950: des mutations à la chaîne’, in L’économie française, ed. INSEE (Paris: INSEE, 2009), 113.

65. Joffre Dumazedier, Revolution culturelle du temps libre 1968-1988 (Paris: Meridiens Klincksieck, 1988).

66. Daniel Henri, ‘L’Auto’, in La France d’un siècle à l’autre (1914-2000), vol. 1, ed. Jean-Pierre Rioux and Jean-François Sirinelli (Paris: Hachette, 1999), 537.

67. One mythical model of Matra of this period symbolises both sporting, fun and innovation elements at an affordable price: the M530 (‘la voiture des copains’, the friends’ car), which was sold between 1967 and 1973 in a total of 9,609 exemplaires, http://matra.com/article/historique-chiffres-cles (accessed 19 June 2016).

68. Jean Graton, Route de nuit, no. 4 (Bruxelles: Graton Editeurs, 1962); Jean Graton, Le retour de Steve Warson, no. 9 (Bruxelles: Graton Editeur, 1965); Jean Graton, Les chevaliers de Königsfeld, no. 12 (Bruxelles: Graton Editeurs, 1967); Jean Graton, Concerto pour pilotes, no. 13 (Bruxelles: Graton Editeurs, 1968); Graton, Km. 357.

69. Jean Graton, Le pilote sans visage, no. 2 (Bruxelles: Graton Editeurs, 1960), 12.

70. Jean Graton, Les casse-cou, no. 7 (Bruxelles: Graton Editeurs, 1964), 24–7 and 46–51.

71. Ibid., 9.

72. Stephen Bayler, Sex, Drink and Fast Cars: The Creation and Consumption of Images (London: Faber & Faber, 1986).

73. Jean Graton, Le grand défi, no. 1 (Bruxelles: Graton Editeurs, 1959), 23.

74. Ibid.

75. Graton, 13 est au départ.

76. Graton, Honneur du samouraï, 50.

77. Jean Graton, Le cirque infernal, no. 15 (Bruxelles: Graton Editeurs, 1969), 4.

78. Graton, Trahison de Steve Warson, 3.

79. Jean-Louis Loubet, Histoire de l'automobile française (Paris: Seuil, 2001), 369.

80. Graton, Grand défi, 4.

81. Jean Graton, Le circuit de la peur, no. 3 (Bruxelles: Graton Editeurs, 1961), 7.

82. Graton, Pilote sans visage, 42.

83. Graton, Circuit de la peur, 8.

84. Graton, 13 est au départ, 6.

85. Graton, Trahison de Steve Warson, 37–8.

86. Graton, Casse-cou, 22.

87. According to Loubet, this publication sold 300,000 copies at that time, and even 600,000 with the Citroën DS 19 launch in 1955. In Loubet, Histoire, 364.

88. Erwin Panofsky, Meaning in the Visual Arts: Papers in and on Art History (New York: Doubleday, 1955).

89. Rudolf Wittkower, ‘Interpretation of Visual Symbols in the Arts’, in Allegory and the Migration of Symbols (London: Thames & Hudson, 1977), 173–87.

90. Graton, Grand défi, 4 and 20.

91. Graton, Trahison de Steve Warson, 61.

92. Jean Graton, Mach 1 pour Steve Warson, no. 14 (Bruxelles: Graton Editeurs, 1968), 34.

93. Jean Graton, Le 8^e pilote, no. 8 (Bruxelles: Graton Editeurs, 1965), 4.

94. Jean Graton, Suspense à Indianapolis, no. 11 (Bruxelles: Graton Editeurs, 1966), cover.

95. Graton, Chevaliers de Königsfeld, 64.

96. Graton, Honneur du samouraï, 44.

97. Graton, Trahison de Steve Warson, 6.

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104. Barthes, Mythologies.

105. Alain Prost, preface to Michel Vaillant: l'intégrale, vol. 1, by Jean Graton (Bruxelles: Le Lombard, 2008).