La Rubrique-à-Brac

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La Rubrique-à-Brac, a portmanteau of French words rubrique (section) and bric-à-brac, is a humoristic comic strip series created in 1968 by Gotlib.

Initially published in Pilote, the series was republished as five hardbound books between 1970 and 1974, and again in 2002 as one volume, which also included previously unpublished content.

It is widely regarded as one of the cornerstones of today's humour bande dessinée^[1]^[2].

1 Style
2 Recurring characters
3 References
4 External link

[edit] Style

La Rubrique-à-Brac is an assortment of short (two to three pages) unrelated strips, revisiting an extremely wide range of subjects, such as historical figures, classic fairytales, folklore, movie and television clichés, music, or the various uses of everyday items. Drawn in black and white (although the 2002 republication was colorized), its fairly realistic graphics contrast with the surreal, sometimes satirical humour of its textual content. The result is comparable to a graphical form of deadpan humour. The backgrounds are almost non-existent, and a large portion of the pannels is occupied by elaborate dialogues.

[edit] Recurring characters

Isaac Newton often appears in otherwise unrelated strips to be hit on the head by an unlikely object (among other things a seagull, a piano, a sloth, a button... not to mention his famous apple). This, of course, causes him to discover the law of universal gravitation.

The unnamed ladybug owes its existence to Gotlib's dislike of drawing backgrounds^[3]. He created this character as a way to fill up the blank space, and it is often seen in the bottom corner of pannels, usually commenting on their content.

Professeur Burp is a zoologist who occasionally presents absurd pseudoscientific expositions on various animals and animal life.

Charolles, a caricature of Gotlib himself, and Bougret are two criminal brigade detectives. The suspects in their various investigations are always the same two men: Blondeau Georges Jacques Babylas, a caricature of Goscinny, and Aristidès Othon Frédéric Wilfrid, a caricature of French cartoonist Fred. Although all evidence points to Aristidès, Blondeau is invariably found to be the culprit by Bougret, while Charolles is dumbfounded.

Gotlib himself appears in a number of his own strips, whether as the drawer (thus breaking the fourth wall), or as an actual character. Various other French comic artists also make appearances at one point or another.