In 1973, in the comic weekly Pilote, the cartoonist Jean Solé drew a 3-page story about a blouson noir which he entitled ‘Une vie comme ça’ (‘Such a Life’). It’s a condensed masterpiece which sums up the lives of the stereotypical blouson noir of the early 1960s.
Solé was born in 1948 and so was 12 at the supposed time of this story so it cannot have been autobiographical except inasmuch as he might easily have known some blousons noirs in the period 1960-63.
In addition, the setting does not resemble where he was brought up, Vic-Fezensac, a rural market town of about 3,000 people in south-western France singularly lacking in high-rise apartment blocks. The setting resembles nothing more than Paris where he began working for Pilote in 1970.
Parisian editor, Dionnet inspired him????
Solé seems to veer towards identifying with hippy culture and certainly with the ‘rock’ and avant-garde pop music of 1967 to which he devoted a 6-page paean entitled ‘Magical Mystery Pop’ in Pilote n.664.
Big Zappa fan.
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