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1979 Lucien and Ricky Banlieue

In December 1978 a French comic writer Frank Margerin penned an 8-page story concerning a bunch of rock’n’rollers who had formed a rock’n’roll band. The story which was published shortly afterwards in a number of Métal Hurlant, a pioneering comic magazine, was entitled ‘Ricky Banlieue et ses Riverains – les rois du rock !’ (‘Suburb Rickie and his Locals – the kings of rock!’) and in it we were introduced to the comic creations which became the most-loved representations of the quiffed teens of the 1970s French rock’n’roll revival.

Initially, the stories were about different members of the gang and other characters in the down-at-heel suburb of Malakoff (just outside central Paris to the south-west) but little by little one of them, Lucien – an unassuming one – becomes central to the stories. The era of the stories’ setting was about 1976-78 when the characters were roughly 16-18 years old, out of school but not yet settled with a job.

1977 song by Renaud

F. Le Calvez sings over a video clip he composed showing an old friend’a account of meeting a middle-aged Lucien.

A quirky ‘walkthrough’ through an animated reconstruction of the bar where Lucien and his pals hang out, presumably by an art school student (uploaded by *Mointendo in November 2019).

Margerin was a member of Denis Twist, a group of comic writers who performed alongside rock musicians for fun (Denis was extracted from word dessin ‘drawing’). In the first clip we can see Margerin sing ‘dis moi oui’ a French version of Cliff Richard’s ‘we say yeah’ from 1986 (ok, he hasn’t the best voice!).

he is dressed in a blue jacket with the backing singers in this 1982 version of ‘j’irai twister le blues’.

 

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