Bécassine

Bécassine is a French comic strip and the name of its heroine, appearing for the first time in the first issue of La Semaine de Suzette on February 2, 1905. She is considered one of the first female protagonists in the history of French comics.[1]

Bécassine
Bécassine
PublisherGautier-Languereau
Creative team
WritersÉmile-Joseph-Porphyre Pinchon
Jacqueline Rivière
Artists[[]]
Colorist[[]]
Editors
  • [[]]
  • [[]]
Original publication
Published inLa Semaine de Suzette
Date of publication1905-1962

Bécassine is one of the most enduring French comics of all time, iconic in its home country, and with a long history in syndication and publication.

Character

The character Bécassine is a young Breton housemaid, usually depicted wearing a green dress pastiching traditional Breton peasant costume, with lace coiffe and clogs. She is said to come from Finistère, the area most associated with traditional Breton culture. However, her clothing has non-Breton elements, reminiscent of the local costume of Picardy. She is usually portrayed without a mouth.

Seen as a stereotype and remnant of the contempt with which the Bretons were long seen, she is the typical provincial girl as seen by the more refined city people of Paris, the target audience of the young girls' magazine La Semaine de Suzette. But over the course of the stories, and coupled with the success she has, she is depicted more and more favourably. "Bécassine" is a nickname, derived from the French word for a number of birds of the family of the snipe, which is also used as a way of saying "fool" in French.

History

Initially made as filler for a blank page, the story, written by Jacqueline Rivière and drawn by Joseph Pinchon, was such a success that new pages regularly appeared, still in the guise of page fillers.

Only in 1913 did Bécassine become the heroine of more structured stories. Still drawn by Pinchon, the stories were then written by Caumery (pseudonym of Maurice Languereau), one of the associates of Gautier-Languereau, the publisher of La Semaine de Suzette. At that time, the character's real name was revealed to be Annaïck Labornez, her nickname coming from her home village, called Clocher-les-Bécasses.

Between 1913 and 1950, 27 volumes of the adventures of Bécassine appeared. Pinchon drew 25 of them, and Edouard Zier the other two. All 27 were credited as being written by "Caumery", but after Languereau's death in 1941, the pseudonym was used by others.

After Pinchon's death in 1953, the series continued with other artists, most notably Jean Trubert beginning in 1959.

With a first appearance three years before Les Pieds Nickelés, Bécassine is considered the birth of the modern bande dessinée, the Franco-Belgian comic. It marks the transition between the illustrated histories, or text comics, and the true bande dessinée. Its style of drawing, with lively, modern, rounded lines, would inspire the ligne claire style which Hergé 25 years later would popularise in The Adventures of Tintin.

After a decline in popularity, Bécassine regained prominence due to the hit single "Bécassine, c'est ma cousine" ("Bécassine, she's my cousin") by Chantal Goya, which sold over three million copies in 1979. It has been replied to by the Breton guitarist Dan Ar Braz with the song "Bécassine, ce n'est pas ma cousine" ("Bécassine, she's not my cousin").

The popular television show Le Bébête Show, a series that is similar to Spitting Image, showed far right politician Jean-Marie Le Pen in the guise of the puppet "Pencassine".

In April 2005, the French Post issued a stamp depicting Bécassine for her centenary. In contemporary Brittany she remains a familiar figure, with Bécassine dolls and ornaments available in tourist shops.

Bibliography

Source: Béra, Michel; Denni, Michel; and Mellot, Philippe (2002): "Trésors de la Bande Dessinée 2003-2004". Paris, Les éditions de l'amateur. ISBN 2-85917-357-9

If not otherwise mentioned, Pinchon is the artist, Caumery the writer, and Gautier-Languereau the publisher.

Volume Year Title Remarks
1 1913 L'enfance de Bécassine Published by Gautier
2 1916 Bécassine pendant la guerre Published by Gautier
3 1917 Bécassine chez les Alliés Drawn by E. Zier, published by Gautier
4 1918 Bécassine mobilisée Drawn by E. Zier
5 1919 Bécassine en apprentissage
6 1919 Bécassine chez les Turcs
7 1920 Les Cent Métiers de Bécassine
8 1921 Bécassine voyage
9 1922 Bécassine nourrice
10 1923 Bécassine alpiniste
11 1924 Les Bonnes Idées de Bécassine
12 1925 Bécassine au pays basque
13 1926 Bécassine, son oncle et leurs amis
14 1927 L'Automobile de Bécassine
15 1929 Bécassine au pensionnat
16 1930 Bécassine en aeroplane
17 1931 Bécassine fait du scoutisme
18 1932 Bécassine aux bains de mer
19 1933 Bécassine dans la neige
20 1934 Bécassine prend des pensionnaires
21 1935 Bécassine a Clocher-les-Bécasses
22 1936 Bécassine en croisière
23 1937 Bécassine cherche un emploi
24 1938 Les Mésaventures de Bécassine
25 1939 Bécassine en roulotte
26 1992 Bécassine au studio Only published then because the outbreak of the Second World War
1921 Alphabet de Bécassine Also published as Bécassine maîtresse d'école: published out of the main series
1927 Les Chansons de Bécassine Published outside the main series
1 1959 Bécassine revient New series, drawn by Trubert, written by Camille François
2 1961 L'Alphabet de Bécassine Drawn by Trubert, written by Vaubant
3 1962 Bécassine mène l'enquête Drawn by Trubert, written by Vaubant

Film versions

Bécassine was made into a film in 1940, directed by Pierre Caron with a story by Jean Nohain and René Pujol, and starring Paulette Dubost as Bécassine.

An animated film, Bécassine, le trésor viking (Becassine and the Viking Treasure), was made in 2001.

Another film adaptation, Bécassine, was released in France in 2018, and Bulgaria in 2019. [2]

Notes
  1. While one of the earliest female comics characters, she is not the very first. That honour goes to Gene Carr's Lady Bountiful (1901) ("Gene Carr". lambiek.net. Retrieved 20 April 2018.) and Winsor McCay's Hungry Henrietta (1905).
  2. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7217128/releaseinfo

References
  • Anne Martin-Fugier, La Place des bonnes : la domesticité féminine à Paris en 1900, Grasset, 1979 (reprinted 1985, 1998, 2004).
  • Bernard Lehambre, Bécassine, une légende du siècle, Gautier-Languereau/Hachette Jeunesse, 2005.
  • Yves-Marie Labé, « Bécassine débarque », in Le Monde, August 28, 2005.
  • Yann Le Meur, « Bécassine, le racisme ordinaire du bien-pensant », in Hopla, #21 (November 2005 – February 2006).
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