Author more and more essential within the Journal de Spirou, Pascal Jousselin offers us this week a nice little album entitled Unbeatable, made of parody and burlesque. A delight for the youngest, and a good moment of relaxation for the less young.
Justice and fresh vegetables, which has just been released by Dupuis, tells us the jaded adventures of Unbeatable, a superhero from B.D. whose powers come directly from the medium in which he expresses himself, thwarting the traps of his opponents thanks to the sheet of paper on which he is drawn, or his ability to know the scenario before anyone else at a glance at the next square. The youngest will certainly be delighted to discover these stories more or less long (from one to ten pages) and very original, joyful and colorful. The characters are archetypes, certainly, but this is the generally fundamental principle of superhero stories. Even in a more burlesque setting, like here. We discover, for example, a mad scientist, a super-villain or a super-teen trainee who, each in their own way, bring grist to the mill of Unbeatable, the one and only superhero of comics who wanders lightly in the pages of his album.
The less young audience, meanwhile, who eventually knows his classics of the years 1960-70, will not fail to think of the burlesque delusions of Fred in Philemon (among others), the lecture on the giraffe of Professor Burp in La Rubrique-à-brac – taume 2 of Gotilb, or much more recently, the fantastic delusions of Marc-Antoine Mathieu in Le Décalage, last volume of Julius Corentin Acquefacques, prisoner of dreams. What Jousselin proposes is therefore not particularly innovative, but we can appreciate the fact that he brings up to date this type of narrative device that is ultimately little used by comic book authors. With the recently released album Les Jolies Filles de Flix, which also worked on this type of creative principle, perhaps it augurs a new interest in this way of imagining stories. Follow…
It should also be noted that the author takes advantage of his album to place some themes (the lying politician, the CEO of the chemical industry) that may seem naïve to an adult reader, but which are, all in all, quite suitable for a younger audience. Because let's not forget that this album is primarily intended for them and that it is very likely that teens and pre-teens who have not totally abandoned reading and / or comics for videomania will find their account.
