A Tough Guy

Richard Erickson's Paris Journal - Freelance Correspondent to the Paris Pages
All images copyright (c) 22 March 1995 Richard Erickson - used with permission

Paris:- Wednesday, 22 March 1995 - As you enter the Salon des Livres, you are confronted by an immense hall with a high ceiling, with sort of a step up, like a factory. The east and west sides of the 'step' are glassed, and light drifts down on the many opulant stands of mighty publishers; some of them heavyweights in the business - others renowned for their attention to the craft of the written word.

Over to the east, under the step where it is a bit dim and not so opulant, is stand number 203-bis. It is not a big stand, in fact it has a thick pillar in the center. A collection of colorful books - cartoon books - are suspended off the floor by a picnic table. The walls of the stand are covered by cartoons, a great many of them originals, and alsolutely all of them, done by hand.

By the hand of Monsieur JF Batellier.The cartoons are even for sale. At the Salon des Livres you can buy an original hand-made cartoon; for 400 to 3000 francs. Cash and carry. Or a hand-signed-by-the-author photocopy for 30 francs.

M. Batellier has been doing cartoons for 25 years. He has done cartoons for the most important newspapers and magazines in Europe. His work has won him major European prizes.

You have probably seen them in your paper. You know, a little bright spot of black lines and white space in the middle of all that 8 point grey stuff. And usually this little thing tells a big story, in very few words, or even none at all. It is the hardest form of communication to master and often the most effective. Cartoons can embarass powerful dictators.

However, powerful dictators are seldom impressed by cartoonists - and cartoonists by habit work alone and seldom have powerful friends. Capitalism is the most powerful dictator of all. In Europe, since 1989, captialism has decreed that cartoonists are needed less than ever.

Forget the economic excuses; the short of it is, when the going gets tough cartoonists get to go first.

Even when things are good, cartooning is tough work. They get called in when writers are at a loss for words, or are too overawed to write them; so a cartoonist gets called last and has the shortest deadline. Cartoonists always work on weekends and every national holiday.

A cartoonist is not a normal 'creative' worker. One man can make more people laugh more often - about things that are not funny at all - over many more years, than a boxcar-load of TV sitcoms.

And suddenly, the secretary of the treasury, or the bond dealers, or some political hack, says: the people are having too much fun. Take away their plastic! Foreclose their mortgages! Put everybody on the dole and then take the dole away. And fire the cartoonists so nobody will get any funny ideas!

That is why Monsieur Batellier is selling his children, his cartoons, at the Salon des Livres. There are a thousand publishers on the scene; and Monsieur Batellier is one too. A one-man publisher of hand-made communicating art. Monsieur Batellier isn't afraid to pay stand rental out of his one-man pocket in order to meet his fans in person; he likes to gab so much he almost forgets to collect the money.

Cartoonists are, after all, the only artists ordinary people can really talk to. Because they have to understand people in order to be cartoonists. Even if JF Batellier is the toughest guy of them all. I bet I see you next year at the Salon des Livres JF Batellier.

JF Batellier can be contacted at:
3 avenue de Choisy, 75013 Paris. Tel.: (1) 45 86 63 51, fax.: (1) 44 24 10 17.