Michel Vaillant

Capitalist Realism

Few manufactured objects in Europe bear the stamp Made in Belgium, but the country made an outsize export contribution to European culture: comics (BD, bande dessinée pronounced bédé) such as Tintin, the Smurfs and many others like the immortal Gaston Lagaffe. Because they are in French (native language to half of Belgium), they are often assumed to be French. Until high school, most of what I knew about the world came from Tintin. One of my favorite comics used to be Michel Vaillant. Its author Jean Graton could not draw a likeness to save his life, and everyone in Vaillant stories has the same chiseled jaw, tiny nose, and face built on a grid plan. Graton clearly had some form of prosopagnosia. Human faces eluded him and the entire cast of MV looked like a 1950’s hairdresser model, but the faces of the cars (cars had faces until very recently) were lovingly drawn with perfect accuracy. The cover of the very first MV book, Le Grand Défi (the great challenge) introduces Michel Vaillant and his nemesis, Texas-born Steve Warson. Warson and Vaillant in the foreground are rather wooden, but the Ferrari, Maserati and Porsche contenders in the background are faultless.

Jean Graton’s greatest contribution to the art of the comic is his depiction of sound as text. Huge letters floating around the cars supply the soundtrack in French onomatopoea. Engines go wrooaw, brakes squeal iiiiiii. This is the painterly version of noises made by a child when pushing Dinky Toy models of cars around on the living room carpet.

When I was a kid, cars were an object of passion. I will never forget the first time I saw my first Citroën DS, Lamborghini Miura, or Bizzarrini GT. I was seized with emotion every time I saw a 1961 Valiant (actually a Plymouth), thinking it was a real live Vaillante. Sixteen Vaillante sports cars were actually built for the 40th anniversary of the comic strip, and every one was instantly sold to fanatics. One day people will find it hard to picture the intensity of the love affair between humans and machines. In fact, that day is now: my grown children care little about cars and look at me askance when I comment on some sublime sports car in local traffic (I live close to Silverstone race track and petrolheads abound). Electric cars have no mouth, smaller eyes and are mute. Ferrari’s beautiful Jony Ive-designed Luce has loudspeakers to make engine noise. It’s all over. Maybe the petrol car will survive as a luxury product like mechanical watches, a “dress car”, or maybe it will simply turn to rust.