The Adventures of Jodelle

'The Adventures of Jodelle' by Guy Peellaert and Pierre Bartier

Fantagraphics, 2013

'The Adventures of Jodelle' (160 pp.) was published in January 2013 by Fantagraphics Books. Like all the books from Fantagraphics, it's very well-made, measuring 13 1/4 x 10 1/2 inches in size, printed on higher-quality paper with very good color separations. A special feature of the book is the inclusion in one chapter of a sheet of tracing paper, designed to overlay a draft artwork page and thus reproduce the sequential process by which Peellaert drew and colored his 'Jodelle' comic. 

Few publishers other than Fantagraphics would be willing to commission the printing and binding of a book designed to accommodate such detail.

Prior to reading this book, I was somewhat familiar with Belgian artist Peellaert (April 6 1934 – November 17 2008) from his 1973 trade paperback of portraits of famous rock-and-roll performers, Rock Dreams. 

'Jodelle' reprints his graphic novel, first published as Les Aventures de Jodelle in France in 1966, along with an 80-page section containing  essays that cover Peellaert's early career, his commercial art, and his role in defining French pop culture during the 60s and 70s. 

These essays are pretty awful, as they are written by academics and overloaded with jargon and fatuous phrasing.

'Jodelle' garnered attention for its use of a Pop Art style reliant on bright, flat colors. As mentioned above, the book goes into detail on the painstaking process by which Peellaert drew and hand-colored each page.

The plot of 'Jodelle' is not particularly involved: the nubile heroine cavorts in a near-future, 'decadent' world populated by characters resembling some of the major pop culture and political figures of 1960s France. Needless to say, these satirical references likely are going to draw blanks from non-French readers, although the supplemental essays provide some degree of insight into these topics (for example, Peellaert's erotic obsession with France's 'Ye-Ye Girls', including Sylvie Vartan and Francoise Hardy).

I finished 'The Adventures of Jodelle' thinking that the book is an over-elaborate treatment of a comic strip that, like many pop culture phenomena, had a very short shelf life. I doubt that many contemporary readers will find 'Jodelle' that impressive or impactful; they likely will be amused to know that its fame in 1966 came mostly from its titillating aspects, which seem quaint and innocent by the standards of the early 21st century.

Used copies of 'The Adventures of Jodelle' have rather steep asking prices, as does the 80-page, comic-only version published by Fantagraphics in 2013. Accordingly, I believe that 'The Adventures of Jodelle' likely will be of interest only to a narrow segment of the reading public in Anglophone countries: those who enjoy French popular culture, the history and lore of comics, the Pop Art movement in Western Europe during the 1960s, and commercial art and television production at that time.