Paul Gillon - 13, rue de l'Espoir 1375 (May 1964)

Paul Gillon is a master of comic art like very few others. His art conjures both spontaneity and thoughtfulness, with every line carefully selected for maximum impact and clarity. When he chooses so, his detailed backgrounds are always very precise, with no details lost or blurred (on this, he is certainly helped by the very large formats he's using for his pages and strips...). His classicism may appear less flamboyant than some of his peers, but his quiet expermimentations in storytelling always deliver in spades.

13, rue de l'Espoir (13th, Hope Street) was a daily strip published in France Soir, one of the main French newspapers between 1959 and 1972. Even though the premise of the story remains quite standard (Young ingénue, Françoise Morel, discovers life and love in a generally quiet suburban Paris neighborhood, with some glamour sequences thrown in for good measure), it is, by nature, a fantastic (and affectionate) peek through the everyday life of ordinary folks in France in the 60's. And while the major social trends that have shaken this period are always in the background (sometimes quite lightly: this was a family strip, after all...), they never take the bulk of the action, as the characters are not movers and shakers at the forefront of the various movements, whether artistic or political... But, this is certainly part of the overall (and enduring) charm of this series...

Obviously, all types of situations are evoked, like here, when Françoise Morel engages in an impromptu evening girl's talk session with a friend, typically evoking boys and love. Of course, Paul Gillon makes the most of this otherwise mundane scene with Françoise Morel looking quite glamorous in her otherwise reasonable evening dress, facing her more sophisticated friend who progressively steals the scene, from her nonchalante background pose on panel one to the heavily-contrasted portrait on panel two (reflecting her internal turmoil) and, finally, the mirror image on panel three, a real artistic masterstroke, if you ask me...