Arthème Fayard's Magazines and the Promotion of Picture Stories 'à la française'

Abstract

Abstract In this article I propose to elucidate the pioneering role played by the publishing house Fayard at the beginning of the twentieth century in the promotion of French comic strip and in the development of its distinctively national characteristics. I firstly review the chronology of events and publications, situating the picture stories in the wider context of the company's output, and considering their function as part of its marketing strategy. I then go on to discuss Fayard's innovations in relation to the choice of publishing formats, which cemented the link between comic strip and mass-circulation weekly newspapers, and defined it for almost three-quarters of a century as a popular genre aimed mainly, if not exclusively, at young readers. Finally, I will analyse the major formal, graphic and thematic features of the comic strips created in these magazines. Picture Stories in Search of a New Readership The Fayard publishing house2 was founded in 1857 by Joseph-Francois Artheme Fayard, with the aim of selling inexpensive books to the widest possible readership. Artheme ensured the success of his business by selling non-fiction for the general reader, popular fiction and multi-part editions of the classics. On his death in 1894, his son Joseph-Artheme (Arteme II) carried on his father's business model and widened its scope considerably, by producing books at very low cost thanks to large print runs. He ushered publishing in France into the mass-market era3 with two collections, launched in 1905 and 1906, which had initial print runs of 50,000 and 60,000 or more. These were Modern [sic] bibliotheque ['Modern Library'], which offered 95-centime reprints of books by wellknown contemporary writers in an elegant format, illustrated by contemporary artists, and the 65-centime Livre populaire ['Popular Book'], which consisted of books by popular writers, and was inaugurated by Charles Merouvel's Chaste et fletrie ['Chaste and Wilted']. It would later include the Fantomas series by Souvestre and Allain. Ten years earlier, propelled by the same dynamic of reaching new types of readership, Fayard had launched his first magazines. In the early days, these publications contained mostly illustrated novels for adults, but the publisher very quickly moved on to material in the humour genre, a rapidly expanding sector since the 1880s, with publications like Salis's Le chat noir ['The Black Cat'] and Le rire ['Laughter'], launched by Juven in 1894. In January 1897, Fayard bought Robida's La caricature, and in April of the same year he launched his first magazine for young readers, La jeunesse amusante ['Young People's Own Comic Stories'], which included caricatures, humorous short stories and illustrated novels. At the turn of the century, he started two illustrated family magazines: Le bon vivant in 1899 and La vie pour rire ['Life's for Laughing'] in 1900. Le Bon vivant (18 November 1899 - January 1911) was a large-format, 16-page weekly, at ten centimes per copy. It was modelled at first on Le chat noir and Rire, where some of its contributors had previously worked, interspersing caricatures, cartoons, illustrated stories and a few short picture stories. But, as from 1902, these picture stories became longer and increased in number, beginning to play a key role in the publisher's marketing strategy: the main story was advertised and then started off on the cover.4 Encouraged by the success of Le Bon vivant, Fayard once more turned his attention to younger readers, and successively launched La jeunesse illustree ['Young People's Own Illustrated Magazine'] on 1 March 1903, and Les belles images ['Pretty Pictures'] on 21 April 1904 - two ten-centime weeklies, prototypes of modern magazines for children and teenagers, which would survive until 1935 and 1936, respectively,5 reaching a total of 3,333 numbers, according to Paul Nollet and Patrice Caillot6 (see Figs. 1 and 2). The pioneering Fayard publishing house had other publishers hot on its heels from 1904, mining the same vein: Felix Juven with La joie des enfants ['Children's Delight'] in March; Jules Tallandier with Le jeudi de la jeunesse ['Young People's Thursday'] in April; Offenstadt with Le petit illustre ['The Little Illustrated Magazine'] for a youthful and family readership in May; J. …