Claire Bretécher in 2008 and one of her drawings, extracted from “Petits Travers”. – Rita Scoglia – Claire Bretécher – Dargaud
- The comic book author Claire Bretécher died on Monday at the age of 79, Dargaud editions announced on Tuesday.
- At the end of the 1960s and 1970s, Claire Bretécher established herself in the very masculine world of comics.
- Cellulite, Agrippina, Mothers, Teresa of Avila… Her emblematic characters are women.
- “Feminism is really the only thing that interests me,” she said on Antenna 2 in 1975.
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” In L’New Obs, she only reads Bretécher “, sang the Strasbourg group Cookie Dingler in 1984 in their hit Liberated woman. While we learned this Tuesday of the death of the comic book author
Claire Bretécher at the age of 79, back on the path of a pioneer, feminist in drawing.
A woman in a world of men
“Claire Bretécher was a pioneer in the conquest, by women, of a place in comics, a long exclusively male artistic form,” emphasizes comic book critic Antoine Guillot on the air. France Culture this Tuesday. “She was admirable for that,” confirms to 20 minutes Isabelle Bastian-Dupleix, curator of the exhibition devoted to Claire Bretécher at the BPI in 2015.
“I did a year at the Beaux-Arts in Nantes and I came to Paris, because it was the only place where I could draw. I haven’t been raped, I don’t have any horror, I struggled a bit, that’s it! “Said Claire Bretécher in 2015 in the columns of rap. “This little provincial came to Paris because she wanted to draw. She fought. She has approached many publishing houses. She was very tenacious and she lived poorly at the start, ”recalls Isabelle Bastian-Dupleix.
Within the editorial staff of Pilot, in 1969, by co-founding The Savannah Echo in 1972 (“La chance de ma vie”, according to Claire Bretécher), at New Observer from 1973 to 1981, at the Angoulême festival in 1975 and 1982, the sagacity and ferocity of the illustrator imposed themselves in the almost exclusively masculine world of comics. Reserved in editorial conferences, it stands out thanks to its corrosive, fair and “very licked” line. “I take great care in my drawings. I spend a lot of time making it look spontaneous, “she said about her work on
Antenna 2 in 1975.
“His entry into the team of Pilot served him. Thanks to her very acerbic humor, she had no problems with her drawing colleagues, “recalls Isabelle Bastian-Dupleix. And to add: “She hated being exploited and she was determined to live by her drawing”. This is how she will publish her first albums on her own.
A woman who crunches women
Through her collaborations with the press and her albums, the designer gives birth to iconic heroines of French comics: Cellulite, Agrippine, Les Mères, Thérèse d´Avila, etc. “I don’t know how to operate male characters. I don’t understand their mechanics. Everyone tells me there is nothing to understand, but that is not true. There are still constants by sex and by lifestyle, “explains the designer in 2009 to L’Express.
In 1976, semiologist Roland Barthes called her the “best sociologist of the year”. Sexual liberation, motherhood, work, couple, family, adolescence, relationship with the body and femininity, feminism … Extremely lucid on the relationships of domination, none of the struggles of women escapes her vitriolic humor. “She was tender with none of her characters, neither men nor women,” moderates Isabelle Bastian-Dupleix. Above all, she had a pioneering side, she became interested in feminism, sometimes making fun of, same-sex parenting at a time when this was not the case. “
A feminist who mocks feminists
“Feminism is really the only thing that interests me right now. But it’s quite difficult because I hate militancy, ”she said on Antenna 2 in 1975. When asked“ Do you feel feminist? “, Bretécher responds in 2009 to The Express in the past: “It was my tendency, but the militant aspect always disgusted me. When I was young, I was on my meadow, I didn’t want to be bored. “She defended herself from being an activist. She was a woman jealous of her independence and her freedom, “analyzes Isabelle Bastian-Dupleix.
Laughing with everyone, his pen will also laugh at feminism. In a joke by the Frustrés entitled “Woman and creation”, she self-parodies through Janine Lemercier, the only woman in sculpto-architecture. If it was not necessarily a source of direct inspiration, it made you want to draw other women from Pénélope Bagieu to Dorothée de Monfreid via Catherine Meurisse.
“Many claim it! “, Notes Isabelle Bastian-Dupleix. “Catherine Meurisse considers her as a source of inspiration and a model and considers herself as his heiress,” concludes the curator, who is preparing an exhibition dedicated to the author of the upsetting album. Lightness, Which will be held at the BPI in Paris from June 24 to November 2. The relay has passed.
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