Producing Popularity: the Success in France of the Comics Series "Astérix Le Gaulois" Eliza Bourque Dandridge Thesis
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Producing Popularity: The Success in France of the Comics Series "Astérix le Gaulois" Eliza Bourque Dandridge Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirement for the Degree of Master of Arts in History (European Area Studies) Dr. Fabrice G. Teulon, Chair Dr. Sue W. Farquhar Dr. E. Thomas Ewing April 30, 2008 Blacksburg, Virginia Keywords: Astérix, comics, bande dessinée, production of culture, branding, popularity, appeal Copyright 2008 Eliza Bourque Dandridge. All rights reserved. Producing Popularity: The Success in France of the Comics Series "Astérix le Gaulois" Eliza Bourque Dandridge ABSTRACT: This study examines the rise in popularity of the French comics series "Astérix le Gaulois" through a production-of-culture lens in an effort to uncover how industry evolution and organization, protectionist legislation, marketing, advertising, branding, and consecration by the media worked interdependently to catapult Astérix, the series' protagonist, into stardom by the middle of the 1960s. In so doing, this study forcefully argues that elements external to the text itself greatly facilitated, and in some ways determined, the series' quick and dramatic rise in popularity in France by 1966. The predominance of American and Belgian comics into the 1950s and the moral turn towards all things "100 % français" enabled the success of Pilote, the French- language, French-themed magazine launched in 1959 and in which "Astérix" first appeared. By the early 1960s, Pilote's faithful readership helped make the publication of "Astérix" in album format a resounding success. Simultaneous radio exposure and extensive product merchandising further promoted "Astérix" to a new, vast, and diverse comics market comprised of children and adults alike. Media consecration marked the final step in Astérix's meteoric rise in popularity in France. Institutionalization of the comics series by the national press during the 1960s transformed Astérix into an emblem of national importance, created celebrities out of the series' co-creators, and even helped legitimize bande dessinée, or comics, as a French cultural form worthy of "serious" consideration. Notre histoire, publiée dès le premier numéro de Pilote, remporte aussitôt un assez vif succès auprès de nos lecteurs, ce qui nous satisfait d'autant plus que sa publication sous forme d'albums semble également promise à un assez bon succès d'édition, le tirage de chaque nouvel album étant double du tirage de l'album précédent. Et puis, tout à coup, mystérieusement, il se passe quelque chose : le simple succès d'édition se transforme et devient le phénomène Astérix […]. – René Goscinny, in an address to the Rotary Club of Paris, May 19671 1 Reproduced in Caroline Guillot and Olivier Andrieu, René Goscinny (Paris: Éditions du Chêne, 2005) 208. Translation: "Our comic series, published in Pilote from the first issue, immediately became quite a success among our readers, which pleased us all the more since the series' publication in album format appeared equally poised for success, the print run of each new album being double that of the preceding album. And then, all of a sudden, mysteriously, something happened: the simple success in print underwent a transformation and became the Astérix phenomenon […]." Unless otherwise indicated, all translations furnished by the author. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS I Introduction: "Le Phénomène Astérix" ……………………………………………… 1 Prologue ………………………………………………………………………………….. 1 "Astérix" as Culture Produced …………………………………………………………… 4 Plan ………………………………………………………………………………………. 8 II Paving the Way for Pilote: 1830s - 1950s ……………………………………………… 9 Introduction ……………………………………………………………………………… 9 The Emergence of Comics in Europe: 1830s - 1930s …………………………………… 9 The American Comics Invasion of France and the Law of 1949: 1940s ……………… 14 The Reign of Belgian Comics in France: 1950s ………………………………………. 21 René Goscinny, Albert Uderzo, and Their New Magazine: 1959 ……………………… 23 Conclusion ……………………………………………………………………………… 26 III Pilote, "Astérix," and the Revival of French BD: 1959 - 1966 ………………………28 Introduction ……………………………………………………………………………. 28 Pilote: Old Format, New Content? …………………………………………………….. 30 Community-Building Through Pilote ………………………………………………….. 38 "Astérix" Steals Ahead: Marketing and Advertising the Brand ……………………….. 47 Conclusion ……………………………………………………………………………… 55 IV The Institutionalization of "Astérix" by the Press: 1963 - 1970 …………………… 56 Introduction …………………………………………………………………………….. 56 Establishing the Emotional Register ……………………………………………………. 59 Legitimizing the Field (and "Astérix") to Justify Enjoyment ………………………….. 63 Teaching the Public How to Read "Astérix" …………………………………………… 69 Conclusion ……………………………………………………………………………… 77 V Conclusion: Explaining Popularity …………………………………………………... 79 The Production of Popularity …………………………………………………………… 79 Popularity v. Appeal ……………………………………………………………………. 82 Multiple Readers, Multiple Readings ………………………………………………….. 83 Works Cited ……………………………………………………………………………. 86 iv I INTRODUCTION: "LE PHÉNOMÈNE ASTÉRIX" Prologue When the French film Astérix et Obélix contre César opened in France on Wednesday, February 3, 1999, the French box office raked in a whopping $2.8m in first-day ticket sales.2 Attendance over the following week topped 2.7m – in a country of only 59m people.3 The most expensive movie ever produced by a French studio opened on a record-setting 795 screens throughout France.4 Only Titanic, released just one month earlier on 635 screens, beat Astérix et Obélix contre César in attendance over the course of its run in France, with 21m tickets sold. According to Unifrance, the French Culture Ministry's promotional arm for French cinema, the box-office success of Astérix et Obélix contre César nearly doubled the size of the European audience for French film for the whole of 1999, a welcome development for an industry whose patronage – even among the French – had tanked to a ten-year low the previous year.5 That Gérard Dépardieu and Roberto Benigni, both cinematic legends in their respective countries, starred in Astérix et Obélix contre César, and that the film was jointly financed by German and Italian interests, can only partially explain how a film adaptation of a French comic strip set in Roman times could sell 8.7m tickets.6 Yet the film accounted for nearly 43% of all tickets sold to French movie-goers during 1999. Astérix & Obélix: Mission Cléopâtre, the sequel released in 2002, went on to sell 14.3m tickets, claiming a full 66% share of total tickets sold to French audiences that same year.7 For nearly five decades now, Astérix8 has been big business in France. Since its debut in the magazine Pilote in 1959, the French comic strip – or bande dessinée, as the "ninth art" is called in France – has sold over 320 million copies on five continents and has been translated into over 100 languages or dialects.9 To date, the world of "Astérix" encompasses 33 albums, 2 Michael Williams, "'Asterix' conquers B.O. Gallic pic grabs 2.8 mil on opening day," Variety 5 Feb. 1999. 3 INSEE, Recensement de la population, Exploitation principale et complémentaire, 1999. 4 Williams. 5 "France Builds Its European Film Audience," Studio Briefing 6 Oct. 2000, 15 Apr. 2008 <http://imdb.com/news/sb/2000-10-06#film8>. 6 LUMIERE database of the European Audiovisual Observatory, 15 Apr. 2008 <http://lumiere.obs.coe.int/web/film_info/?id=12007>. 7 LUMIERE, 15 Apr. 2008 <http://lumiere.obs.coe.int/web/film_info/?id=18690&graphics=on>. 8 Within this paper, "Astérix" (in quotes) refers to the comics series, Astérix (italicized) to the comic series published in album (book) format, and Astérix to the character. 9 Bernard de Choisy, Denis Clauteaux, and Marc Jallon, Le Monde Miroir d'Astérix (Paris: Les Éditions Albert René, 2005) 34. See also Nicolas Rouvière, Astérix ou les lumières de la civilisation (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 2006) 1. 1 eight animated cartoons, three live-action films, board games, video games, permanent museum exhibits, and countless products licensed to use the comics' syntactic peculiarity in marketing and advertising, as in the cases of the butter "Beurix," the cheese "Avécremix, " or Shell's "Hélix" oil, if not the actual character likenesses themselves.10 The jewel in the "Astérix" crown is Parc Astérix, located just north of Paris near Disneyland Resort Paris. Completed in 1989, the "Astérix"-themed amusement park played host to more than 1.8m visitors in 2006.11 Co-creators René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo claimed that they simply meant to entertain ("se marrer et faire marrer les autres") a growing market of adolescent, French bande dessinée fans when they came up with the idea for "Astérix" in 1959.12 They created the comic series for the first issue of Pilote, their new journal devoted to showcasing high-quality bande dessinée produced by French and Francophone scénaristes, or comics writers, and dessinateurs, or illustrators. François Clauteaux, Pilote's future director, had come up with the magazine's name. Pilote, meaning "pilot," would "guide" French youth, modeling "des pistes, des voies, des orientations aux jeunes lecteurs"13 with its original comics series, innovative layouts, and in- depth news articles.14 Goscinny and Uderzo were tasked with developing a new bande dessinée to premiere in the magazine's inaugural issue, scheduled for release at the end of October 1959. By late summer, they still had not hit on a suitable idea for the new strip. They