Claire Bretécher (1940–2020)

It may not make sense for me to say how great this is, considering that I only understood maybe 50% of it: not only do I not speak French fluently, but as part of her attempt to make the teenage dialogue in Agrippine equally confusing for all ages, Bretécher made up a whole lot of slang no French person ever used before. But that's part of the fun, because it's not just arbitrary jargon but rel="nofollow" target="_top">puns on terms that are already puns on or backwards versions of something else, so once you do figure it out it's both logical and ridiculous in the same way that natural language is—plus, her dialogue is fun even if you have no idea what they're saying, because Bretécher has such a perfect ear for tone and rhythm and she directs her "actors" so well. I don't know if she and Jules Feiffer influenced each other, or just developed similar writing and drawing styles independently, but they're brilliant in a lot of the same ways (although for a North American reader, Agrippine also weirdly recalls For Better or for Worse—Lynn Johnston is less rude and more naturalistic, and allows her people to grow up, but I think there's a similar feeling for character and detail).

Anyway, this is a bunch of one-page strips about a teenager in 1988 who's relatable yet unbearable. She's 14 or 15 and she looks just as awkward as people are afraid they look at that age, kind of like Beavis and Butt-Head with better drawings, but she acts insanely confident about everything. Her life is full of drama even though she never really does anything. She has an on-and-off boyfriend, Modern (none of the kids have regular names, they're all English words or weird historical references), who's a pretentious ass, but kind of lovable for his dorky desperation. One very simple story I like a lot is just Modern lecturing her endlessly about his philosophy, while he inches closer into her personal space and she just stares at him with the smallest possible increase in tension, until he's about to try to kiss her and she suddenly says "You're a genius but I'm not interested in you physically" (which, we know from other episodes, she totally is). He brushes it off and says he's not interested either because she's not smart enough. She takes offense to that—so he challenges her to summarize all the bullshit he just said. That's about as adult as the situations get; other times we see how much of a little kid Agrippine still is, with a kid's idea of how to negotiate with the world (she talks her way into a babysitting job at a luxurious home she wants to hang out at, but backs out when she realizes it'll actually involve babysitting).

I guess I'll have to read this in English some time, but I won't get my hopes up: I think even the world's greatest translator might not be able to make the jokes make sense and make the writing work so well with the drawing. In conclusion, Claire Bretécher rules.… (más)

I did not finish this book. First off it was a bit hard to read. The illustrators chose to use cursive and my digital galley was just not clear enough. Then the story really wasn't doing it for me. The family dynamic where kids didn’t even know they had a great-grandma because of family striff saddens me. Then when the great granddaughter is just trying to get money out of great grams it pisses me off. This is not a family dynamic I want to read about. I am sure there will be plenty of people who like it, I am just not one of them.… (más)

De 1973 à 1980, dans les pages du Nouvel Obs, Claire Bretécher signe chaque semaine le portrait des Frustrés qui lui vaut d'être qualifiée de « meilleure sociologue de l'année » en 76 par Roland Barthes. Elle croque, certes avec tendresse, mais surtout avec une lucidité impitoyable ces Français snobs, intellos, gauchisants et surtout totalement largués.

Prés de 30 ans plus tard, ces pages hilarantes sont un témoignage jubilatoire de tous nos travers et le meilleur moyen de se rendre compte que rien n'a changé, de Frustrés nous sommes juste devenus des bobos, mais les symptômes sont les mêmes.… (más)