'Le Crime Ne Paie Pas'. Script by Paul Gordeaux. Artwork by Albert Uderzo .
Paul Gordeaux was a French journalist, writer, theater critic and humorist. From 1908 until his death in 1974, he wrote for several French magazines and newspapers, and was the first editor-in-chief of the French news magazine Paris Match. He was also a scriptwriter for operettas and comedies, and was most notably the creator of the vertical comic strip format in French newspapers. For France-Soir, Gordeaux wrote thousands of strips for the true-story comic features 'Le Crime Ne Paie Pas' ("Crime Doesn't Pay", 1949-1972) and 'Les Amours Célèbres' ("Famous Love Stories", 1950-1972).
Early life and career
Philippe Georges Emanuel Gordolon was born in 1891 in Nice. His father was architect and industrialist François-Félix Gordolon (1852-1901), who had worked with French engineer Gustave Eiffel and was the founder of the local illustrated weekly Nice-Artistique et Littéraire. In October 1908, Philippe assumed the pen name Paul Gordeaux when he began his collaboration with the local Nice publications Phare du Littoral and L'Éclaireur de Nice. One year later, he also joined Le Petit Niçois. Together with another local author, Altéry, he wrote cabaret shows, most of which were performed at Les Revues de Variété, and starred some of the best actors from the Nice area, as well as the comedian Valentin Sardou from Marseille.
World War I and the interbellum
During World War I, Gordeaux served as a hussar and then as a mountain gunner. Back in civilian life, he began an association with the conservative newspaper L'Écho de Paris, one of the largest dailies in France. He was an influential critic in the showbiz section, and later became head of the theater page of the Parisian newspaper Le Soir. Gordeaux had a steady working relationship with journalist and future media tycoon Pierre Lazareff, whose career began in 1925 in Gordeaux's section. Gordeaux was also the person who coined the phrase "blablabla" for claptrap. His friend Pierre Bénard started using the expression in his paper Le Canard Enchaîné, after which it began to lead a life of its own.
World War II
During World War II, Gordeaux served as a permanent envoy of the Prouvost Group newspapers in London, where he became head of the translations of foreign newspapers. With his friend Pierre Dac, he also participated in the radio broadcast 'Les Français Parlent aux Français' on Radio Londres, in which Dac parodied popular songs to mock the Vichy government and the Nazis. When Gordeaux returned home, he joined the Nice resistance group Lenoir, and participated in the launch of the magazine Sept Jours, nowadays still appearing under the title Télé 7 Jours. In 1944-1945, he was also editor-in-chief of the Lenoir publication L'Ergot, for which he wrote several articles urging for the reclamation of the towns Tende and La Brigue, which had been part of Italy since 1860. Both towns became French soil again in 1947.
Back in 1938, Gordeaux was appointed editor-in-chief of the right-wing newspaper L'Instrasigeant by Jean Prouvost. Gordeaux decided to turn its sports supplement Match l'Intran into a French version of Life magazine. Match became a new weekly until its disappearance in June 1940. It returned in 1949, under the new title Paris Match, with Paul Gordeaux serving as its first editor-in-chief. The magazine still exists to this day, but Gordeaux left after only one year, when he became literary editor of France-Soir. He continued his work as a noted drama critic in this paper, making an equal amount of friends as well as enemies in the theater and music hall world as a result.
The vertical strips were sometimes edited to horizontal strips when they were syndicated to other publications (artwork by Jean Albert Carlotti). This 26 February 1956 episode comments on infamous French serial killer Marcel Petiot (1897-1946).
Comic features
Paul Gordeaux is also remembered for his contributions to the comics section of the newspaper France-Soir. Newspapers at the time all presented their comics in a horizontal format, but Gordeaux wanted his comics to have a cinematographic touch and resemble a piece of film. And so the typically French phenomenon of the vertical comic strip was born. When syndicated to other newspapers, the strips were sometimes remounted to the more general horizontal format.
Le Crime Ne Paie Pas
Launched on 16 November 1949, one of the features created by Paul Gordeaux was 'Le Crime Ne Paie Pas' ("Crime Does Not Pay"), a series of true crime cases, told in a text comics format. The strip shares its theme and name with the American comic book 'Crime Does Not Pay' (Lev Gleason, 1942-1955), for which Charles Biro was the main artist. Gordeaux documented the subjects and wrote the informative text captions of 'Le Crime Ne Paie Pas'. Several top illustrators of the time were assigned to provide the artwork. The first was Jean Bellus, and in the next couple of decades he was followed by Jean Ache, Regino Bernad, Jacques-Armand Cardon, Jean-Albert Carlotti, Roger Chancel, Bernard Duc, Jean Effel, Gorce, Jacques Grange, Étienne Lage, Jacques Lechantre, Jean Lenoir, William Francis Marshall, Mant, Louis Moles, Jacques Pecnard, Charles Popineau, Jean Randier, Jean Reschofsky, Andreas Rosenberg, Jacques Taillefer, and even Albert Uderzo, the future artist of 'Astérix'. About 300 crime stories were covered in about 6,200 daily strips.
'Le Crime Ne Paie Pas' also appeared as a magazine supplement, of which 9 monthly issues were published between 15 April and 15 December 1953. At the time, the series was popular enough to inspire a 1962 live-action film by Gérard Oury, starring such film stars as Gino Cervi, Michèle Morgan, Philippe Noiret, Danielle Darrieux, Richard Todd and Louis de Funès. In 1963, when film director François Truffaut was approached to direct a film adaptation of the lives of the crime couple Bonnie & Clyde, Truffaut sent the 'Le Crime Ne Paie Pas' serial about Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow (drawn by William Francis Marshall) to his scriptwriters, for additional inspiration. Eventually the film would be directed by Arthur Penn instead, in 1966.
Les Amours Célèbres
One year after 'Le Crime Ne Paie Pas', an additional feature covering famous love stories called 'Les Amours Célèbres' was launched, kicking off on 22 November 1950 with 'Romeo and Juliette'. While some stories ran for only a couple of days, others ran for weeks or even months. For instance, the publication of 'Napoléon et les Femmes' ("Napoleon and his Women") lasted 196 days.
The comic series also inspired a live-action comedy film, namely 'Les Amours Célèbres' (1961) by Michel Boisrond, starring Jean-Paul Belmondo, Philippe Noiret, Simone Signoret, Alain Delon, Pierre Brasseur and Brigitte Bardot, among other actors.
'Les Amours Célèbres'. Artwork by Charles Popineau.
Signé Furax
In addition to his two main features, Gordeaux was also responsible for the comic strip adaptation of 'Signé Furax', a famous radio play by Pierre Dac and Francis Blanche. It ran in Paris-Soir from 25 February 1957 until September 1960 and was produced by Henry Blanc (art) and Robert Mallat (texts).
Final years and death
For a long time, Paul Gordeaux was one of the most widely read comic authors of France with his daily publications in a paper that had a circulation of 1,115,700 copies (1961). With over 10,000 strips to his name, Gordeaux retired in 1966. He was succeeded as the scriptwriter for both 'Le Crime Ne Paie Pas' and 'Les Amours Célèbres' by Robert Mallat. Gordeaux additionally wrote articles for publications like Combat, Comœdia, Le Nouveau Candide, Le Rire, La Petite Gironde, Record, and Jours de France. He passed away in Nice on 4 March 1974.
Paul Gordeaux.