Oupus 3

Ouvroir de Bande Dessinée. Oupus 3: Les Vacances de l’Oubapo. L’Association, 2000.

After a long time, I finally got ahold of one of the Oubapo’s books. This volume of their Oupus collects 36 strips published in the French newspaper Liberation during the summer of 2000. Six artists (Lewis Trondheim, Killoffer, Jean-Chistophe Menu, Francois Ayroles, Lécroart, Jochen Gerner) each take on six constraints (Pliage, Strips Croisés, Palindrome, Itération, Upside-Down, Morlaque).

In general I’m not a big fan of comic strips. I prefer my comics like my prose, longer, enormous even. That’s my disclaimer before I continue. These strips are all single entities, unconnected to each other with the exception of Menu’s work which all features the same character in the same setting.

The early work of the Oulipo (and often the things you see mentioned on brief summaries of it) mostly consisted of short works that, while providing examples of different constraints, were not very interesting in themselves. It’s only in later stages, particularly with the writings of Perec, that the strictly constrained work was also a work of interest beyond the fact of the constraint. I am, of course, generalizing, but I think it holds true in most cases. The group is/was not conceived of as being about the creation of works. Rather, it was about the creation of constraints and forms.

The Oubapo is still in the early stages in this regard. The works contained in Oupus 3 are most often exercises, examples, lesser works which hold the interest mostly due to the effect of the constraint, the novelty.

Of the artists involved Trondheim is the only one whose comics I’ve read previously. His humorous and whackily fantastical strips were on the whole the most amusing to me. Killoffer offers the most interesting drawing, using a few different styles for his strips. Unlike the others one would be hard pressed to guess that they are by the same hand if it weren’t for the attribution. He also uses the constraints in the most innovative ways, often eschewing the convention rectangular panels. Ayroles’ work also impresses on different levels: his slightly angular line, the use of only black or white with no shading of any kind, and his dark humor. The others failed to impress me much. I am particularly turned off by Lecroart’s bloated characters.

I’ll look at each of the six constraints and the strips herein:

Pliage (Folding/Folded piece of paper): This constraint involves a strip that can be read normally and then folded at certain points to make a new strip out of, for example, the top part of the top row of panels and the bottom part of the bottom row of panels. In the end this creates both compression of the strip as well as a jumble. The words in the strips are organized so that when the strip is folded lines or even words are cut off and mixed with others. For the most part this creates a second reading of the strip that is humorous due to the juxtaposition with and difference from the first reading. Killoffer’s pliage, while drawn in a almost Greek vase fluid line style (or perhaps like a Picasso etching (I’m thinking of those unshaded Minotaur etchings)), is such that I can’t even figure out how it’s supposed to be folded as he uses parallelogram shaped panels organized into a circular flower pattern. Trondheim’s pliage offers three readings which are quite funny thanks to the last panel in which God makes a surprise appearance (Can you go wrong with the punchline “Ciel! J’ai fait le sexe avec dieu!!” [Heavens! I had sex with god!!]).

Strips croisés (Alternate strips): These strips are written so that one can read them different ways: read normally, read down the columns, read diagonally, read across the rows. These strips gain the most humor from the multiple meanings of the image or text in different contexts. Only Killoffer takes a non-gag approach and creates a sparse poetic strip. Ayroles does a lot with a limited set of images and a large number of panels, featuring a boy and his father sitting opposite each other on in a train cabin. His is written so that one can read from each column any panel in any sequence, creating 256 4 panel strips (according to the text, I’m not going to do the math) from the 16 panels that appear on the page.

Palindrome: A strip that is the same when read forward and backwards, in this case by panel (i.e. the first and last panels have the same image and the same text, the second and second last panels have the same… etc.). Like other forms of palindrome these strips are interesting for the novelty and technical feat but not much on their own. I’ll pass on mentioning any of these as I was unimpressed with them all.

Itération (Iteration): This involves using the same image or the same text or the same part of an image for each panel in the strip. Trondheim is known for using this method, as I believe his first comic consisted of the same image repeated for a number of pages with only the dialogue changing. Here he has four strips that all retain the same image (an airplane in the sky) with different, humorous dialogue. Ayroles repeats a character in the same pose, rather than the whole panel. Menu shows the same image of his character thinking and varies the thought balloon in each panel. Killoffer, again, is the innovator in repeating the same image. He varies it by focusing and zooming in at different levels.

Upside-Down: These strips are read normally then turned upside down and read. Naturally there are two sets of text in each panel, but the images are created so as to be different depending on the orientation of the page. These strips offer the most interesting images in the book. The need to create pictures that are readable in two opposing directions calls for unusual methods. Gerner works the turning of the page into part of his gag–an airplane is forced to turn upside down and we see the passengers inside. Killoffer’s images have the air of cubism, collage, and those paintings (the artist’s name escapes me) of the faces composed wholly of vegetables. Menu seems to have planned ahead of time for this one as the character featured in all his strips is already a mirror image of himself on top and bottom.

Morlaque (from “mord-la-queue” (biting the tail)): These strips connect beginning to end so that both disappear and the strip continues endlessly. Depending on the artist these can also be done so that any panel is an entry or exit point to the strip. Killoffer’s is a moebius strip featuring a man spinning off verbally from Descartes’ “I think therefore I am.” Trondheim’s many panelled strip features, I believe, the same character from his “Mister O” book (which I haven’t yet read) (the same strip that appears in this post). Ayroles pokes at the repetition of the everyday by fixing his strip in the bounds of the continuous work/eat/sleep circle.

Oddly this book was published previous to Oupus 2, so is really the second group publication by the Oubapo (that I am aware of). The strips are of some amusement, but I can’t say I’d be urging anyone to search this out.

(Since starting this review, I’ve gotten copies of Oupuses 1, 2, and 4, so there will be more on the Oubapo coming. Some browsing indicates that the others are more promising.)

Tags: Bande Dessinee, Comics, Constraint, oubapo

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