181 - Gotlib

Gotlib MARCEL GOTLIB Pervers Pépère, Audie 1981 Original cover. India ink and colored inks on paper 30 × 37 cm (11.81 × 14.57 in.) Pervers Pépère is a character created by Gotlib in 1982 for his magazine *Fluide Glacial*. It is a paradoxical creation within the author’s body of work, as he did not hesitate to be particularly transgressive at the same time with the *Raah-Lovely* series. The era spoke freely about sex, much like the May ’68 generation. Gotlib is, in fact, one of the influential creators who pioneered the “adult” comic strip. But in Pervers Pépère, he deliberately takes the opposite approach: Starting with a cliché—the lecherous old man who suddenly flashes his private parts at schoolgirls, ready to commit who knows what depravity—he ends up with a farcical and outdated gag as… ice-cold as a stream of water! A master of this series of gags, with their fake suspense (just like in *Gaston Lagaffe*, we know how it ends…), Gotlib often uses symbols of childlike innocence—such as the Guignol puppet here—to better ridicule the obsessions specific to adulthood. The contrast is utterly hilarious. This is the original cover of the only album ever published featuring this character. A one-of-a-kind piece! Didier Pasamonik