BAR2 Lot n° 17

BAR2 JOE BAR TEAM Volume 5, Vents d'Ouest, 2003 Mechanical orgasm, original plate no. 19. The female character in panel no. 2 and the couple in panel no. 5 were produced on supports affixed to the original. Signed. India ink and white gouache on paper 35 × 49 cm (13.78 × 19.29 in.) In order to get the inventory of this catalog off on the right foot, let's start with this superb lot, which an ethnologist might have entitled: "The Art of Seduction among Motorcycle Riders". An art in which, it seems, some members of the Joe Bar Team excel. But above and beyond its graphic qualities, this plate is a marvellous illustration of the symbiosis that often exists between the motorcyclist and his machine. Here, at any rate, you'd swear they're one and the same! "Yes, and this touching fusion of man and steed was quite fun to draw. As for the pedestrians, however, I had less fun. Their anatomy had to be harmonious and, at the same time, sufficiently caricatured to avoid too obvious a stylistic break with the other characters. In fact, I think that all cartoonists - at least those who work in the "big nose" style - have come up against this problem. Even the greatest! In Asterix, for example, Falbala, Tragicomix's lovely fiancée, is drawn in a downright realistic style! For my part, I'd have liked to take the caricature a little further, but that was probably asking too much. Incidentally, the hairy weirdo who appears in the second panel is none other than Michel Bidault, a famous figure in the motorcycle press, whose devastating humor brought tears of laughter to all readers of L'Encyclopédie imbécile de la moto, a book I had the great pleasure of illustrating in the late 1990s."