Imaginary interview with Gotlib
by Charactorium · Gotlib (1934 — 2016) · Visual Arts · Performing Arts · 5 min read
Late 2000s, somewhere in the Paris region. Marcel Gotlib receives us near his drawing table, pen and India ink within reach. On the first page lying around, a tiny ladybug seems to be already watching us from the corner of its eye.
—How did you enter the world of comic humor?
I started modestly, in 1962, at Vaillant, the magazine that would become Pif Gadget. There, I invented Gai-Luron, a phlegmatic and blasé dog who watched life go by just as I watched deadlines pass. It was well-behaved youth press, with its panels, speech balloons, and calibrated gags. But something was already itching. I liked the idea that a drawing could laugh at itself, mock its own mechanics. This bored dog, deep down, was a small declaration: I preferred humor that doubts to humor that reassures. The rest of my life only deepened that groove.
I preferred humor that doubts to humor that reassures.
—What did the Pilote studio and your work with Goscinny represent to you?
Joining the editorial staff of Pilote in 1965 was like entering a beehive. René Goscinny reigned as editor-in-chief, and he involved me in writing the Dingodossiers, those fake pseudo-documentary dossiers where we dismantled seriousness with the utmost seriousness. Working alongside him meant learning rhythm, punchlines, the invisible mechanics of the gag. Then he did something rare: he entrusted me with a free column, a space where I did whatever I wanted. Few press bosses dare to give such free rein. It was in this offered freedom that my graphic humor was born, the humor of margins and digressions, which would become the Rubrique-à-brac.
—Tell us about that tiny ladybug found in your panels.
Ah, her! In the Rubrique-à-brac, between 1968 and 1974, I got into the habit of slipping a ladybug as small as nothing into a corner of the panel. She comments on the action, protests, falls, gets crushed by a character who doesn't even see her. It was my way of putting a spectator inside the drawing, an ironic witness to my own antics. I had no idea she would become so important: people ended up recognizing her almost as much as me. A cartoonist sometimes signs better with a detail than with his name. This little critter was my moving signature, my miniature conscience that refused to take itself seriously.
A cartoonist sometimes signs better with a detail than with his name.
—How did you concretely work on a page of the Rubrique-à-brac?
It all started with an idea caught in the morning, often a twist: a tale, a proverb, a law of physics that I took literally to derail it. I first sketched lightly, searching for the right layout. Then came the inking, the real moment of truth, with pen and India ink, where the line becomes final and the thick-and-thin strokes give the drawing its nervous energy. I loved playing with logic and language to the point of absurdity, making reason stumble against itself. And always, in a corner, the ladybug waited for her moment to sabotage the neat order. The page was only finished when it creaked a little.
—Superdupont is one of your most famous characters. Where did he come from?
In 1974, I felt like mocking a certain French chauvinistic spirit, the one that thinks it's the center of the world. So I draped a superhero in the clichés of the average Frenchman: the beret, the undershirt — the marcel, of course —, the slippers, and the baguette under his arm. Thus Superdupont, jingoistic defender of the homeland against the 'Anti-France,' that imaginary enemy that justifies all foolishness. The strength of parody is that it mocks with tenderness. I wasn't spitting on my compatriots, I was holding up a distorting mirror where they could laugh at themselves. A hero in slippers remains more lucid about his country than a fiery speech.
A hero in slippers remains more lucid about his country than a fiery speech.
—Why does parody occupy such a central place in your work?
Because nothing resists mocking imitation. With Superdupont, I dismantled jingoism; with Hamster Jovial et ses louveteaux, also in 1974, I attacked scouting and its wholesome spirit, but from underneath, with a black humor that stripped away the varnish. To parody is not to destroy, it is to reveal the hidden mechanics of a genre, a cliché, a clear conscience. Heroes too clean, summer camps too cheerful, certainties too comfortable: all of that needs to be tickled. I believe you truly respect something only when you can laugh at it. The rest is just reverence, and reverence has always given me ants in my pants.
—You founded magazines entirely for adults. What drove you to do that?
Youth press was corseted by censorship, and I was beginning to suffocate in those well-meaning limits. In 1972, I co-founded L'Écho des savanes with Claire Bretécher and Nikita Mandryka, one of the very first comic magazines intended for adults, freed from the control that weighed on children's magazines. It was a breath of fresh air: finally drawing without wondering at every panel if we would shock a vigilance committee. We wanted a space where humor could be naughty, absurd, biting, without asking permission. Once you've tasted freedom with your pen, you can't do without it. That was the real turning point of my career.
—How was the magazine Fluide Glacial born?
In 1975, with the cartoonist Alexis, I launched Fluide Glacial, a magazine dedicated to absurd humor and parody. We wanted our own house, where we could create adult gags and publish other authors hungry for freedom. That's where I gathered my stories in Rhââ Lovely, those tales playing on absurdity and naughtiness. Then, in 1977, Alexis's sudden death cut me short; I continued the title thinking of him. What I couldn't foresee was that this magazine would outlive me: it still appears, one of the longest-running in all of French comics. Founding something that surpasses you — that's a strange reward.
Founding something that surpasses you — that's a strange reward.
—Your childhood was marked by the Occupation. Do you remember that period?
I was born Marcel Gottlieb in Paris, in 1934, into a Jewish family of Hungarian and Austro-German origin. In 1942, under the Occupation, my father was arrested and deported; I, as a child, escaped the roundups by being hidden in the countryside. My father never returned, died in a camp. You don't emerge unscathed from such silence. I spoke about it very late, in my autobiography, J'existe, je me suis rencontré. For a long time, I didn't know how to name that void. What I do know is that laughter came to lodge itself exactly where pain had dug its place. Sometimes you laugh to keep from screaming.
Laughter came to lodge itself exactly where pain had dug its place.
—Would you say this tragedy fueled your choice of humor?
Undoubtedly, yes, even though I mistrust overly neat explanations. When you've seen, as a child, the world tip into the deadliest absurdity, you look for a weapon to match. Mine was the pen and the gag. Laughing at everything, not out of cynicism, but because the absurdity of the world deserved to be answered on its own terms. In J'existe, je me suis rencontré, I tried to say how humorous drawing allowed me to transform pain into something other than a complaint. The ladybug getting crushed in a corner of the panel, deep down, is perhaps me, tiny and alive, still commenting on the disaster while refusing to stay silent.
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This imaginary interview was generated by artificial intelligence from sources documented in Gotlib's profile. It dramatises what the figure might have said based on what we know about them, but does not constitute attested historical testimony. For primary sources and factual documentation, refer to the full profile.