Gédéon meccano
With its engraved and heightened color plate, both numbered 44 at upper right and “cachet 42” on the verso of the original plate.
“I’m bored,” said Gédéon the good duck one day to his friend Placide. “To cure boredom, I know no better remedy than to travel, to see new places”: this is the theme of Gédéon mécano, the fifth adventure of Benjamin Rabier’s celebrated duck, published by Garnier in 1927, following Gédéon, Gédéon Sportsman, Gédéon en Afrique and Placide et Gédéon. Gédéon, Placide the dog and Bout-de-Zan the monkey set off along country roads aboard their automobile, in an escapade as noisy as it is comic.
Created in 1923, Gédéon is one of the great characters of interwar children’s imagery. With him, Rabier — already celebrated for having “made animals smile” and for the image of La Vache qui rit — brought his contour line, the mobility of his figures and the immediate effectiveness of his storytelling to a rare degree of clarity. This clarity has often been regarded, even by Hergé, as one of the sources of the ligne claire.
The first sheet reveals the sureness of line, the expressive economy and the mastery of movement characteristic of Rabier; the second shows the transition to the published image, with the decorative brilliance of color.
A rare testimony to the artist’s working method, the interest of the group lies in the pairing of the original drawing with its heightened printed state, allowing one to follow at a glance the transformation of a creative image into a published album image.
Excellent condition.