Superdupont

Super Dupont, with a Gallic rooster, in a position spoofing a classic Superman pose

Superdupont is a French comic strip created in 1972 by Marcel Gotlib and Jacques Lob, with the collaboration of Alexis. It is a parody of both Superman and French national attitudes (or, rather, their caricatural perception outside and inside France).

His adventures were essentially published in the 1970s and 1980s, and ended after the death of Lob in 1990. The series was revived in the magazine Fluide Glacial in October 2006 by Gotlib with artist Jean Solé.

The character

Superdupont is the son of the unknown soldier buried under the Arc de Triomphe. He is very patriotic, sometimes chauvinist, and empowered by superpowers that help him to defend his country against a secret organization called Anti-France, a sectist and terrorist organization that wants to destroy France. Anti-France was originally a pejorative term used by the nationalist intellectual Charles Maurras.

Anti-France agents are all foreigners (non-French) and thus speak the fictional language Anti-Français, a mishmash of English, Spanish, Italian, Russian, and German. This movement is supposed to ridicule the paranoia of certain French people who consider the foreign and unfamiliar as a threat against France.

Also, the physical appearance of Superdupont is a superhero version of a caricatural Frenchman (specially, as seen by the Anglophone world): he wears a beret, a striped jersey, charentaises, a baguette of bread under the arm, a tricolour belt held by a safety pin, a long blue cape. He also supports economic patriotism, as he smokes Gauloise cigarettes, he drinks red wine, he eats French cheese and refuses to be painted using China ink.

Like Superman, Superdupont is able to fly but seems less superpowered than Superman. By luck Superdupont is a master in the savate also known as boxe française ("French boxing"), which gives some superiority over his opponents.

Dupont is believed to be one of the most common surnames in France and is equivalent to the Smith (surname) in the US or UK. Thus, the equivalent in English would be something like "Superjohnsmith". Superlópez is a Spanish parody of Superman whose name is also based on a very common surname (López).

Publications

• Tome 1 : Superdupont (by Jacques Lob, Gotlib and Alexis)
• Tome 2 : Amour et forfaiture (by Jacques Lob, Gotlib and Solé)
• Tome 3 : Opération Camembert (by Jacques Lob, Gotlib and Solé)
• Tome 4 : Oui nide Iou (by Jacques Lob, Gotlib, Alexis, Solé, Daniel Goossens, Neal Adams and Coutelis)
• Tome 5 : Les âmes noires (by Jacques Lob, Gotlib, Alexis, Solé)