Superdupont is a French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 comic strip

Comic strip

A comic strip is a sequence of drawings arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions....

 created in 1972 by Marcel Gotlib and Jacques Lob

Jacques Lob

Jacques Lob was a French comic book creator, known for several Franco-Belgian comics creations, but most famously Superdupont.-Biography:...

, with the collaboration of Alexis

Alexis (comics)

Alexis was the pseudonym of Dominique Vallet, a French comics artist, best known for his work on the series Al Crane and Superdupont.-Biography:...

. It is a parody of both Superman

Superman

Superman is a fictional comic book superhero appearing in publications by DC Comics, widely considered to be an American cultural icon. Created by American writer Jerry Siegel and Canadian-born American artist Joe Shuster in 1932 while both were living in Cleveland, Ohio, and sold to Detective...

 and French national attitudes (or, rather, their caricatural perception outside and inside France).

Publication history

Superdupont was initially published in the comics magazine

Franco-Belgian comics magazines

Belgium and France have a long tradition in comics. They have a common history for comics and magazines.In the early years of its history, magazines had a large place on the comics market and were often the only place where comics were published. Most of them were kids-targeted.In the 1970s,...

 Pilote

Pilote

thumb|Cover of the first Pilote teaser issue, #0.Pilote was a French comics periodical published from 1959 to 1989. Showcasing most of the major French or Belgian comics talents of its day the magazine introduced major series such as Astérix le Gaulois, Blueberry, Achille Talon, and Valérian et...

on September 21, 1972. The series was continued in Fluide Glacial

Fluide Glacial

Fluide Glacial is a monthly French comics magazine and a publishing house founded on April 1, 1975 by Marcel Gotlib and Jacques Diament. During its years of publication it has featured the work of French and international authors and graphic artists such as Jacques Lob, Édika, Claire Bretécher,...

in 1975, and following the sudden death of Alexis, the artwork was created by Jean Solé. Steadily published through the 80s and 90s, the series main author, Lob died in 1990. The series resumed publication in Fluide Glacial in October 2006.

The character

Superdupont is the son of the unknown soldier

Tomb of the Unknown Soldier

Tomb of the Unknown Soldier refers to a grave in which the unidentifiable remains of a soldier are interred. Such tombs can be found in many nations and are usually high-profile national monuments. Throughout history, many soldiers have died in wars without their remains being identified...

 buried under the Arc de Triomphe

Arc de Triomphe

-The design:The astylar design is by Jean Chalgrin , in the Neoclassical version of ancient Roman architecture . Major academic sculptors of France are represented in the sculpture of the Arc de Triomphe: Jean-Pierre Cortot; François Rude; Antoine Étex; James Pradier and Philippe Joseph Henri Lemaire...

. He is very patriotic, sometimes chauvinist, and empowered by superpowers that help him to defend his country against a secret organization called '"Anti-France", a sectist and terrorist organization that wants to destroy France. "Anti-France" was originally a pejorative term used by the nationalist intellectual Charles Maurras

Charles Maurras

Charles-Marie-Photius Maurras was a French author, poet, and critic. He was a leader and principal thinker of Action Française, a political movement that was monarchist, anti-parliamentarist, and counter-revolutionary. Maurras' ideas greatly influenced National Catholicism and "nationalisme...

.

Anti-France agents are all foreigners (non-French) and thus speak the fictional language

Fictional language

Fictional languages are by far the largest group of artistic languages. Fictional languages are intended to be the languages of a fictional world and are often designed with the intent of giving more depth and an appearance of plausibility to the fictional worlds with which they are associated, and...

 Anti-Français, a mishmash of English, Spanish, Italian, Russian, and German. This movement is intended to ridicule the paranoia

Paranoia

Paranoia [] is a thought process believed to be heavily influenced by anxiety or fear, often to the point of irrationality and delusion. Paranoid thinking typically includes persecutory beliefs, or beliefs of conspiracy concerning a perceived threat towards oneself...

 of certain French people who consider the foreign and unfamiliar as a threat against France.

The physical appearance of Superdupont is a superhero version of a caricatural Frenchman (specially, as seen by the Anglophone

Anglosphere

Anglosphere is a neologism which refers to those nations with English as the most common language. The term can be used more specifically to refer to those nations which share certain characteristics within their cultures based on a linguistic heritage, through being former British colonies...

 world): he wears a beret

Beret

A beret is a soft, round, flat-crowned hat, designated a "cap", usually of woven, hand-knitted wool, crocheted cotton, or wool felt, or acrylic fiber....

, a striped jersey, charentaises, a baguette of bread under the arm, a tricolour belt held by a safety pin

Safety pin

A safety pin is a simple fastening device, a variation of the regular pin which includes a simple spring mechanism and a clasp. The clasp serves two purposes: to form a closed loop thereby properly fastening the pin to whatever it is applied to, and to cover the end of the pin to protect the user...

, a long blue cape. He also supports economic patriotism, as he smokes Gauloises

Gauloises

Gauloises is a brand of cigarette of French manufacture. It is produced by the company Imperial Tobacco following their acquisition of Altadis in January 2008.- Cigarette :...

 cigarettes, he drinks red wine

Wine

Wine is an alcoholic beverage, made of fermented fruit juice, usually from grapes. The natural chemical balance of grapes lets them ferment without the addition of sugars, acids, enzymes, or other nutrients. Grape wine is produced by fermenting crushed grapes using various types of yeast. Yeast...

, he eats French cheese and refuses to be painted using China ink.

Like Superman, Superdupont is able to fly but seems less superpowered than Superman. By luck Superdupont is a master in the savate

Savate

Savate , also known as boxe française, French boxing, French kickboxing or French footfighting, is a French martial art which uses the hands and feet as weapons combining elements of western boxing with graceful kicking techniques. Only foot kicks are allowed unlike some systems such as Muay...

 also known as boxe française ("French boxing"), which gives some superiority over his opponents.

Publications

• Tome 1 : Superdupont (by Jacques Lob
  Jacques Lob
  Jacques Lob was a French comic book creator, known for several Franco-Belgian comics creations, but most famously Superdupont.-Biography:...
  
  , Gotlib and Alexis
  Alexis (comics)
  Alexis was the pseudonym of Dominique Vallet, a French comics artist, best known for his work on the series Al Crane and Superdupont.-Biography:...
  
  )
• Tome 2 : Amour et forfaiture (by Jacques Lob, Gotlib and Solé)
• Tome 3 : Opération Camembert (by Jacques Lob, Gotlib and Solé)
• Tome 4 : Oui nide Iou (by Jacques Lob, Gotlib, Alexis, Solé, Daniel Goossens
  Daniel Goossens
  Daniel Goossens is a French cartoonist born in Salon-de-Provence, Bouches-du-Rhône on May 16, 1954.-Biography:Goossens began his career in the magazine Pionniers. After a short spell at Pilote, he began contributing to the monthly magazine Fluide Glacial in 1977, and became one of its authors...
  
  , Neal Adams
  Neal Adams
  Neal Adams is an American comic book and commercial artist known for helping to create some of the definitive modern imagery of the DC Comics characters Superman, Batman, and Green Arrow; as the co-founder of the graphic design studio Continuity Associates; and as a creators-rights advocate who...
  
   and Coutelis)
• Tome 5 : Les âmes noires (by Jacques Lob, Gotlib, Alexis, Solé)
• Tome 6 : Superdupont pourchasse l'ignoble (by Marcel Gotlib, Lefred-Thouron, Solé)

Sources

• Superdupont publications in Pilote and Fluide Glacial BDoubliées
• Superdupont albums Bedethque

Footnotes