Superdupont
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Superdupont is a French comic strip created in 1972 by Marcel Gotlib and Jacques Lob. It is a parody of both Superman and French national attitudes (or, rather, their caricatural perception outside and inside France).
His adventures were essentially published in the 1970s and 1980s.
[edit] The character
Superdupont is the son of the unknown soldier buried under the Arc de Triomphe, he is very patriotic, sometimes chauvinist and empowered by superpowers, that help him to defend his country against a secret organization called Anti-France, a sectist and terrorist organization which wants to destroy France. Anti-France was originally a pejorative term used by the nationalist intellectual Charles Maurras.
Anti-France agents are all foreigners (non-French) and thus speak the fictional language Anti-Français, a mishmash of English, Spanish, Italian, Russian, and German. This movement is supposed to ridicule the paranoia of certain French people who consider the foreign and unfamiliar as a threat against France.
Also, the physical appearance of Superdupont is a superhero version of a caricatural Frenchman (specially, as seen by the Anglophone world): he wears a beret, a striped jersey, charentaises, a baguette of bread under the arm, a tricolour belt held by a safety pin, a long blue cape. He also supports economic patriotism, as he smokes Gauloises, he drinks red wine, he eats French cheese and refuses to be painted using China ink.
Like Superman, Superdupont is able to fly but seems less superpowered than Superman. By luck Superdupont is a master in the savate (a french martial art sharing some similarities with an other sport named "boxe française"), which gives some superiority over his opponents.
Dupont is believed to be one of the most common surnames in France and is equivalent to the Smith (surname) in the US or UK.
[edit] Publications
- Tome 1 : Superdupont (by Jacques Lob, Gotlib and Alexis)
- Tome 2 : Amour et forfaiture (by Jacques Lob, Solé and Gotlib)
- Tome 3 : Opération Camembert (by Jacques Lob, Gotlib and Solé)
- Tome 4 : Oui nide Iou (by Jacques Lob, Gotlib, Alexis, Solé, Daniel Goossens, Neal Adams and Coutelis)
- Tome 5 : Les âmes noires (by Jacques Lob, Gotlib, Alexis, Solé)
