Nearly 100 years in the past, the auto used to be this type of dream that the adventures of Becassine devoted an album to it. What used to be this fascination with the auto pronouncing? Additionally, what position does a automobile occupy in comics?
For greater than a century, motor presentations had been showcases of technical growth and desires of mobility. However lengthy prior to electrical, attached and self reliant automobiles, an surprising determine has already taken the wheel: Bekasin.
In an album known as l’Automotive de Becassine (1927), a well-known Breton servant drives an Excelsior, a prestigious Belgian emblem that has now disappeared. On this manner, the authors, Caumeri and Pinchon, be offering a singular testimony of the fascination of this period for the auto and the inscription of this image of modernity on the center of social representations.
A well-liked heroine going through modernity
Born in 1905 in Semaine de Suzette, Becassine is a comic book heroine, frequently caricatured for her clumsiness and naive language. On the other hand, her adventures repeatedly convey her head to head with the technical inventions of her time. She discovers gasoline, phone, aviation… such a lot of indicators of a global in transformation. All the way through the Nice Warfare, the collection presentations her mobilized, a logo of the increasing position of ladies and their dedication all the way through the battle.
On January 6, 1927, the auto used to be on the center of the well-known Breton girl’s new journey. France within the Twenties, marked by means of the Roaring Nineteen Twenties, related the auto with velocity, luxurious and social difference. Seeing Becassine, a determine of humble origins, stroll into an Excelsior showroom and position himself in a prestigious car creates a distinction this is each comical and revealing. At the one hand, the naivety of the heroine amuses; then again, the reader is invited to percentage his marvel.
A ravishing toy
The auto is then perceived as a “beautiful toy”, to make use of the phrases of the album, a dream object nonetheless reserved for the elite. This social size is bolstered by means of the location of the Marquise de Grand-Air, Mistress of Becassine, compelled by means of monetary difficulties to phase together with her personal automobile and its motive force.
A ravishing toy. Hachette/Gautier-Languereau, 1927, equipped by means of the writer
Becca’s option to the auto then takes an surprising flip: she wins the jackpot in a competition arranged by means of the Dilecta Jam Corporate, according to the discharge of balloons. The method dates again to the promotional contests of the Twenties. Via profitable the auto (a yellow Torpedo 10 CV), Bekasin turns into the driving force and thus lets in his lover to make use of the auto once more.
This comedian additionally has symbolic importance. Despite the fact that girls didn’t get the correct to vote in France till 1944, they’d get entry to to force automobiles very early on. In 1898, the Duchess of Uzes used to be the primary girl to obtain a certificates of competence (identical to lately’s motive force’s license), after which she was the primary motive force to be fined for dashing… 15 km/h.
However actually, riding used to be nonetheless ruled by means of males, and girls at the back of the wheel remained uncommon. That includes Becassine as conductor, the album tasks a picture of feminine emancipation.
When comics flirt with ads
What’s hanging about Becassine’s automobile is the express point out of the true emblem: Excelsior, a Belgian producer lively from 1903 to 1929. Used to be this covert promoting or extra correctly a type of “product placement”? Not anything lets in us to verify this a priori. What we will be able to say, then again, is that the usage of a well known emblem offers the tale extra credibility. On the very least, it kind of feels to be a type of referential realism that permits fiction to be given the feel of reality by means of drawing on present gadgets, manufacturers, and/or puts.
When it comes to the Bleuette doll, which could also be discussed within the album, the industrial size is, this time, particular. You will have to know that Bleuette is bought by means of the writer Gautier-Languereau and bought to the readers of Los angeles Semaine de Suzette. Its presence is subsequently a part of an actual cross-promotional technique: the comedian promotes an object which may be introduced to kids, and the connection with the doll, in flip, extends the universe of Becassine into the on a regular basis lifetime of its younger readers.
Bleuette doll. Hachette/Gautier-Languereau, 1927, writer From Excelsior to Fiat 509: the auto, heroine (and anti-heroine) of comics
Again to the auto: different main collection in no time gave it pleasure of position, integrating it as a story accent, a logo and even the motive force of the motion. Hergé populates Tintin with automobiles impressed by means of actual fashions: for instance, we discover the Ford T in Tintin within the Congo (1931) or the Lincoln Torpedo in Cigars of the Pharaoh (1934). The presence of those automobiles displays the spirit of journey and the fresh anchoring of the Tintin album. Later, in an album known as Rhinoceros Horn (1955), Spirou and Fantasio have been privileged to unveil the Turbotraction, a racing automobile of futuristic design, embodying the technological enthusiasm of the post-war duration.
With Michel Vaillant, Jean Gratton reaches a turning level: the auto is now not an adjunct, however the central object of the tale, developing a complete universe of racing and festival. In a extra widespread sense, -Bibi Fricotin_ illustrates this enthusiastic appropriation. Particularly, Bibi Fricotin’s album, ace volana (1960) presentations how the auto turns into an area for journey, reflecting its rising democratization.
Along with those heroic performances, the comedian additionally introduced comedian intrusions. In Tintin, the mythical 2 CV of Dupond and Dupont turns into a supply of burlesque in itself, its mechanical faults mirroring the ones of its house owners. Frankin, with Gaston Lagaffe, additionally mocks the parable of the auto: the outdated, patched and polluting Fiat 509 turns into the anti-racing pair par excellence, condemning the auto civilization throughout the absurd. Paradoxically, Fiat paid tribute to Lagaffe by means of freeing a promotional album in 1977 known as “La fantastica FIAT 509 di Gaston Lagaffe”, evidence, if any have been wanted, that even satire can be utilized in advertising.
Gaston Lagaffe’s Fiat 509 at the inexperienced sq. of Charleroi. Wikimedia as
From Becassine’s sumptuous Excelsior to Gaston’s comedian Jew’s harp, together with the racing automobiles of Tintin and Spyro, the comedian highlights all sides of our courting with the auto: fascination, appropriation, democratization and critique.
The auto, from the day before today to lately: between innovation and tale
Lately, automobile presentations spotlight the demanding situations of transferring to electrical, shared and attached mobility. Becassine’s adventures remind us that the auto used to be a lot more than only a way of transportation from its look: it used to be a cultural and symbolic object.
France 3 Brittany, 2025.
The Excelsior fascinated as a mechanical jewel; lately’s idea automobiles or Tesla arouse an identical interest. This parallel emphasizes a relentless: innovation by no means spreads by itself, it should learn, staged, appropriated. From its beginnings, the auto has been accompanied by means of an creativeness that is going past mere technical prowess.
Telling a tale way giving the auto a tale, a use, a promise: velocity, freedom or convenience. Hanging it on level way providing it a visual body (automobile display, commercial, comedian e-book) that turns the system right into a spectacle, into a cultured and social revel in. After all, appropriation way permitting everybody to glue this object to their life, their desires or their values.
Like lately’s display automobiles, Becassine’s Excelsior used to be now not only a topic of mechanical growth: it used to be a part of the collective creativeness, a story of modernity the place generation turns into a reflect of its time.
