By Franquin, with Michel, translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-535-6 (PB Album/Digital edition)
Like so much in Franco-Belgian comics, it all started with Le Journal de Spirou, which debuted on April 2nd 1938, with its iconic lead strip created by François Robert Velter AKA Rob-Vel. In 1943, publisher Dupuis purchased all rights to the comic and its titular star, and comic-strip prodigy Joseph Gillain (Jijé) took the helm for the redheaded kid’s further exploits as the magazine gradually became a cornerstone of European culture.
In 1946, Jijé’s assistant André Franquin was handed creative control. Slowly moving from gag vignettes to extended adventure serials, Franquin introduced a broad and engaging supporting cast of regulars as well as phenomenally popular wonder beast The Marsupilami. Debuting in 1952 (in Spirou et les héritiers) that critter eventually became a spin-off star of screen, plush toys, console games and albums in his own right.
Franquin crafted increasingly fantastic and absorbing Spirou sagas until a final resignation in 1969. Over two decades he had enlarged the feature’s scope and horizons, until it became purely his own. In almost every episode, fans met startling and memorable new characters like comrade/rival Fantasio, crackpot inventor Count of Champignac and even supervillains. Spirou & Fantasio evolved into globetrotting journalists visiting exotic places, exposing crimes, exploring the incredible and clashing with bizarre and exotic arch-enemies.
Throughout it all, Fantasio remained a full-fledged – albeit fictional – Le Journal de Spirou reporter who had to pop into the office between cases. Sadly, lurking there was an accident-prone, big-headed junior in charge of minor jobs and dogs-bodying. He was Gaston Lagaffe – Franquin’s other immortal creation…
There’s a long tradition of comics personalising fictitiously mysterious creatives and the arcane processes they indulge in, whether it’s the Marvel Bullpen or DC Thomson’s lugubrious Editor and underlings at The Beano and Dandy – it’s a truly international practise.
Occasional asides on text pages featured well-meaning foul-up/office gofer “Gaston” (who debuted in #985, February 28th 1957). He grew to be one of the most popular and perennial components of the comic, whether as a guest in Spirou’s cases or his own short illustrated strips and faux editorial reports on the editorial pages.
In terms of actual schtick and delivery, older readers will recognise favourite beats and timeless elements of well-intentioned self-delusion as seen in Benny Hill and Jacques Tati and recognise recurring situations from Some Mothers Do Have ’Em or Mr Bean. It’s slapstick, paralysing puns, infernal ingenuity and invention, pomposity lampooned and no good deed going noticed, rewarded or unpunished…
As previously stated, Gaston/Gomer draws a regular pay check (let’s not dignify or mis-categorise what he does as “work”) from Spirou’s editorial offices: reporting to journalist Fantasio, or complicating the lives of office manager Léon Prunelle and other, more diligent staffers, all whilst effectively ignoring those minor jobs he’s paid to handle. These include page paste-up, posting (initially fragile) packages and editing readers’ letters… and that’s the official reason why fans’ requests and suggestions are never answered…
Gomer is lazy, peckish, opinionated, ever-ravenous, impetuous, underfed, forgetful and eternally hungry, with his most manic moments all stemming from cutting work corners and stashing or illicitly consuming contraband food in the office…
This leads to constant clashes with police officer Longsnoot and fireman Captain Morwater, yet our office oaf remains eternally easy-going and incorrigible. Only three questions are really important here: why everyone keeps giving him one last chance, what can gentle, lovelorn Miss Jeanne possible see in the self-opinionated idiot and will angry capitalist/ever-outraged financier De Mesmaeker ever get his perennial, pestiferous contracts signed?
From a reformatted edition of earlier strips that were remastered in 1987, Gaston – Le repos du Gaffeur becomes Cinebook’s sixth translated compilation: again focussing on non-stop all-Franquin comics gags in single-page bursts.
Here our well-meaning, overly helpful know-it-all/office hindrance invents more stuff that makes life unnecessarily dangerous (such as super-sticky plastic floor wax, “handchairs”, hyper-elastic paddleball bats, an anti-burglary system or his own Marsupilami onesie) and proves that even when he actually does his job – like tidying the office or bringing papers – the gods and his own ill-fortune ensure the result is chaos and calamity…
There are further catastrophic developments in the evolution of his Instrument of Musical Destruction – the truly terrifying Brontosaurophone/Goofophone. In celebration of the magazine’s 600th issue it is electrified and “improved” by modern amplifiers and features ponderously in the boy’s new band – with shocking consequences. Other G-phone inclusions vex the military and pauperise anyone with windows, watches or glasses…
We experience first-hand the appalling fallout of Gomer’s new hobby, as enraged and often wounded beachgoers are caught in the blast radius of his kite-flying, leading to the return of opposite number Jules-from-Smith’s-across-the-street.
This office junior is a like-minded soul and born accomplice, always eager to slope off for a chat: a confirmed devotee of Gomer’s methods of passing the time whilst at work. He even collaborates on any retaliations Gomer inflicts on officer Longsnoot, but here regrets becoming a guinea pig for his inventive pal’s anti-moth deterrent. Moreover, at least one bug spray delivery system finds greater purpose as a means of aerial transportation…
As summer progresses towards Christmas, there are many holiday moments, but Gomer spends most of them tinkering with his infernal congestion-powered pride-&-joy. Many strips feature his doomed love affair with and manic efforts to modify and mollify the accursed motorised atrocity he calls his car. Sadly, the decrepit, dilapidated Fiat 509 is more in need of a merciful execution than his many desperately well-meant engineering interventions to counter its lethal road pollution and failure to function…
The remainder of the volume’s picture strip pandemonium encapsulates the imbecile’s numerous clashes with a bowling ball that clearly despises him; office culinary near-misses (dubbed by lucky survivor Lebrac as “horror-cuisine”) ranging from arson-in-the-raw to political assassination attempts, as well as dabbling with radio-controlled model planes, attempts at getting rid of minor illnesses, ailments and new office innovations.
The lad does try a few moonlighting jobs, but security guard in a China shop, musical backing vocalist and personal plumber are never going to work out, whilst attempts to save and replace the Christmas turkey with crepes are equally ambitious-but-doomed…
In the recurrent saga of office and interpersonal politics, the Goof finds himself the target of increasingly arcane and ingenious pranks, and naturally retaliates in good spirit. Of course, it all gets out of hand when Lebrac introduces termites to the Goofophone and they reject it in favour of tastier fare …like bricks and mortar.
Benighted industrialist De Mesmaeker learns a hard lesson when he foolishly invests in a goof gadget and Gomer increasingly shows his softer side by adopting new pets to keep his goldfish company. Of course, wild mice, a surly blacked-headed gull and the feral cat from behind the building wouldn’t be most people’s first choices, but as they settle in the office staff quickly learn to steer clear of them…
Far better enjoyed than précised or described, these strips allowed Franquin and occasional co-scenarists Michel, Yvan Delporte & Jidéhem (AKA Jean De Mesmaeker – just one of many in-joke analogues who populate the strip) to flex their whimsical muscles and even subversively sneak in some satirical support for their beliefs in pacifism, environmentalism and animal rights. These gags remain supreme examples of all-ages comedy: wholesome, barbed, daft and incrementally funnier with every re-reading.
Why haven’t you Goofed off yet?
© Dupuis, Dargaud-Lombard s.a. 2009 by Franquin. All rights reserved. English translation © 2020 Cinebook Ltd.