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Le poulpe (Gabriel Lecouvreur)

kevinburtonsmith

Created by Patrick Raynal, Jean-Bernard Pouy, & Serge Quadruppani
Written by Patrick Raynal, Jean-Bernard Pouy, Serge Quadruppani, Jean-Gérard Imbar, Marc Villard and others

Was it just a gimmick? Or a brave publishing experiment?

Maybe it was both.

GABRIEL LECOUVREUR, also known as “LE POULPE” was, according to co-creator Patrick Raynal, “something of an avenger, an outlaw, a Robin Hood and an anarchist… He always looks behind the scenes, to see if what we’re told reflects the truth…. It’s a character that fits in a little with a certain tradition we have in French literature…Arsin Lupin, Fantômas, Judex.”

Which means he’s not exactly a private eye, a vigilante or any sort of cop– he’s just a thirty-seven-year-old do-gooder who sticks his nose into things, and isn’t easily pinned down professionally or politically. He lives in a hotel, and his “office” is just the bar he hangs out in, which is right around the corner from where his girlfriend Cheryl has her hairdressing salon. Sometimes someone comes to him with a problem; sometimes he’s spurred into action by something he reads in the morning paper.

Co-created over a few rounds at a bar with Raynal’s partners in crime Jean-Bernard Pouy and Serge Quadruppani, two fellow crime writers, Le poulpe was the tough guy hero of an amazing publishing phenomenon not unlike the North American concept of Men’s Adventures in the 1970s and 80s (Mack Bolan, The Executioner et al) to France. The three were longing for a return to a “pulpier” style of crime fiction, as opposed to much of the rather literary stuff currently making the rounds in France, and were wary with the right wing, “almost fascist” leanings permeating much of the pulpier crime fiction then available, and so they concocted a left-leaning detective as a kind of antidote–one who even sported the letter “A” tattooed on his left arm (for “anarchy,” of course).

“What we were interested in was having another go at this inexpensive genre of mass-market fiction by using funky titles and color covers,” Raynal explained, “while maintaining a high stylistic level and a clear ideological bent, a Left viewpoint to fight against the National Front.”

Not that he was some shrill political gasbag–Lecouvreur also had a thing for English beer, Japanese poetry and his ongoing restoration of an old Soviet fighter plane. Nor was he some po-minded loner–he had his longtime girlfriend Chéryl, who’s definitely nobody’s bimbo. She soon became a fan favorite, taking the lead in several of the books. There were other recurring characters in the books, most notably Gerard and his Spanish wife Maria, proprietors of the restaurant/bar Le Pied de Porc in Sainte-Scolasse, and numerous recurring themes–all carefully prescribed in the Poulpe “Bible,” a four-page outline of the character’s life and friends, written by Raynal, et al.

The trio then set about having some of France’s best crime writers actually write the books. Each author had to follow the “Bible,” but was urged to keep his or her own style and interests. And while the first books were by the original threesome and other well-known crime writers (including Didier Daeninckx and G.J. Arnaud), the series soon began to publish work by other writers: journalists, show business personalities, mystery novelists, beginners, friends, critics, and essayists, all lining up to take a crack at “le Poulpe.” If you wrote it, they’d publish it.

“It’s an exercise in style,” said Raynal, who’s written books about Phillippe Clerc and Corbucci (which French-speaking fans of this site will probably enjoy), and had served as editorial director of France’s legendary La Serie Noire since 1991. (It was also an exercise in wordplay, as one of the rules seems to be that every title has to have a pun in it–the worse, the better. My French isn’t as good as it used to be, but the ones I can suss out are genuine howlers).

It may have been a gimmick, but it worked. Perhaps not surprisingly, not all the books were gems, given their anything goes attitude, but the series certainly shipped more than a few units. Over two hundred le Poulpe titles were published, as well as several graphic novel adaptations and even a feature film. The books were deliberately moderately priced, and even drew praise for their original covers by illustrator Miles Hyman, which were a cut above most in the Men’s Adventure genre–a classy switch from the usual cleavage and guns themes that usually decorated these things.

Alas, such a ballsy idea apparently couldn’t last. According to our pal E. Borgers of Hard-Boiled Mysteries, in a January 2005 post to Rara-Avis, the original publisher, Baleine, was bought out in 2003 by another publisher, Le Seuil, who simply didn’t seem very interested in this type of approach and couldn’t “handle the heritage. We are now close to two years since the take over and they have published only three more titles. Everybody agrees that it’s finished, as “adventurial publishing” of real popular lit–as launched by JB Pouy with Baleine — cannot easily be assimilated by a mainstream publishing house.”

Except… somehow the series shook itself off, and has continued; with Le poulpe #291: Le Poulpe court toujours appearing as recently as 2016.

 

BY THE WAY

NOVELS

GRAPHIC NOVEL ADAPTATIONS

SHORT STORIES

FILMS

FURTHER INVESTIGATION

THE DICK OF THE DAY

Respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith. Merci à Marcel Bernadac and Etienne Borgers for their help and guidance on this one!

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