'Les Sorties Tardives de Zénon d'Elée' (Mormoil #1, 1974). Translation: "Nature has given us two ears and only one tongue, so we could listen better and talk less."
Jean Mulatier is a French caricaturist and photographer. Together with his colleagues Patrice Ricord and Jean-Claude Morchoisne, he gained fame with his "Grandes Gueules" ("Big Mouths") celebrity caricatures, made in photo-realistic colors. Taking off in the pages of Pilote, their grotesque portraits also found their way to numerous French and international magazines. A 1978 caricature by Mulatier of Soviet leader Breznhev personally offended the Russian head of state. Together with Morchoisne, Ricord and Jacques Rampal, Mulatier was co-founder of the short-lived humor magazine Mormoil (1974-1975). At the turn of the 1960s into the 1970s, Jean Mulatier also made a couple of gag comics for Pilote and Mormoil.
Life and career
Jean Mulatier was born in 1947 in Paris. At age five, he made his first caricature, drawing himself with a large head on a tiny body. Among his graphic influences were André Franquin, Mort Drucker, Sempé, Serguei, Walt Disney, Hergé, Peyo, Gotlib and Albert Uderzo. Later in life, he also expressed admiration for René Hausman, André Geerts and Marc Wasterlain. As a high school student at the Paul-Valéry Lyceum, Mulatier met Patrice Ricord, with whom he also studied together at the Parisian atelier Met De Penninghen (nowadays the ESAG Penninghen). Between 1967 and 1972, Mulatier studied at the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs (ENSAD) in Paris. In 1984, he became professor with the Design faculty at the École Émile Cohl in Paris.
'Le Vioque' (Pilote #499, 29 May 1969), caricaturing film actor Jean Gabin.
Cartooning and caricaturing career
In the mid-1960s, Mulatier made humorous postcards in collaboration with the Italian cartoonist Guillermo Mordillo, under the collective pseudonym Mic-Max. In 1967, Mulatier published his first gag comic in the comic magazine Pilote. Starting in 1969, he returned in Pilote's pages with a couple of satirical comic stories: 'La Belote' (Super Pocket #3), scripted by Christian Godard, 'Le Vioque' (Pilote #499) and 'Le Sous-Chef de Bureau' (issue #500), the latter two scripted by editor René Goscinny. 'Le Vioque' spoofed legendary French actor Jean Gabin. In 1970, Mulatier made his first hyper-realistic caricatures for the French TV weekly Télé 7 Jours, when he livened up the column 'Le Croqué de le Semaine' with portraits of film and TV stars. While his drawings are usually blown up to a full page, Mulatier actually makes them as miniatures, "not bigger than a hand", as he describes it. Yet, he first studies a person's facial structure before he puts a line on paper. He then tries to envision the face from memory, since this automatically exaggerates people's physical features, making it easier to spot which parts of the face make the person recognizable. Only when his caricature captures the personality of his subject, he considers the portrait a successful accomplishment.
Les Grandes Gueules
Between 1969 and 1973, Mulatier was much in demand as one of Pilote's house caricaturists, adorning their "latest news" pages and magazine covers. He joined fellow caricaturists Jean-Claude Morchoisne and Patrice Ricord in creating celebrity caricatures for the magazine under the title 'Les Grandes Gueules' ("The Great Mugs", a "gueule" is a pejorative term for a face). The three men become Pilote's main providers of grotesque celebrity portraits, rendered in photo-realistic colors. Other Pilote cartoonists like Jean-Louis Goussé, Jean-Michel Renault and Jean Solé also contributed caricatures to the series. After 1973, the 'Grandes Gueules' title was no longer used in Pilote, but the team continued to make similar caricatures for the magazine throughout the year. Among the caricatures credited to Mulatier alone were French president Georges Pompidou, German chancellor Willy Brandt and Hollywood actors Kirk Douglas, John Wayne, Jerry Lewis and Steve McQueen. His caricature of McQueen was reprinted in 1981, after the actor's death in the previous year.
'Les Grandes Gueules' were very popular with readers. Rival magazine Tintin copied the idea with their 'La Tibetière' column (1971-1972), with caricatures made by Tibet. In 1974, Mulatier, Morchoisne and Ricord left Pilote. Decades later, Mulatier made two new caricatures for a Pilote summer special (2003), depicting French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin, and a Pilote Christmas special (2004) of Pilote, portraying French president Jacques Chirac.
Cover illustrations for Mormoil issue #1, portraying Pope Paul VI, and #6, the latter celebrating 1975 as the "Year of the Woman".
Mormoil
In 1974, Mulatier, Jean-Claude Morchoisne and Patrice Ricord – accompanied by author/playwright Jacques Rampal – founded their own magazine, Mormoil. Seven issues appeared until 1975. Mulatier drew several caricatures, including the portrait of Pope Paul VI on the cover of the first issue. He additionally made various gag comics, often in collaboration with cartoonist Jean-Jacques Loup. One of his contributions was the comic 'Tintin au Pays de l'Underground' (issue #2), in which Hergé's Tintin character receives an underground comix treatment. Other contributors to Mormoil were Christian Binet, François Boucq, Patrice Leconte, Régis Loisel, Jean-Jacques Loup and Lucques.
Jean Mulatier's infamous caricature of Leonid Breznhev.
Success
In addition to Pilote and Mormoil, Mulatier and Ricord's caricatures were published in other French magazines like Elle, L'Express, Le Figaro, Fluide Glacial, Libération, Lui, Le Nouvel Observateur and Paris-Match. Internationally, they also livened up pages in The Daily Telegraph, European Illustration, Esquire, Graphis, Japan Illustration, Jornal do Brasil, Hugh Hefner's Playboy, Der Spiegel, Stern and Time.
In April 1978, a caricature by Mulatier depicting Russian head of state Leonid Brezhnev, appeared in the German magazine Stern. A month later, Brezhnev made an official state visit to the German city Bonn, where he happened to see the drawing. He felt so offended that it caused a diplomatic incident with a spokesperson of the German press. The same year, Mulatier was commissioned to make a caricature of U.S. President Jimmy Carter for Time magazine. It took him three months to complete the drawing, far exceeding his deadline. By far the most popular and well-known celebrity caricature by Mulatier is his full frontal portrait of grimacing French comedian Louis de Funés, lifting an eyebrow. It has been often reprinted and used on book and magazine covers.
Caricatures by Jean Mulatier of film actors Louis de Funès and Clint Eastwood.
'Les Grandes Gueules' spawned several book collections, starting off with 'Les Grandes Gueules' (Éditions du Pont-Neuf, 1976). Éditions de l' Atelier published a book with caricatures of famous Frenchmen and women - 'Grandes Gueules de France' (1980) - followed by 'Grandes Gueules Par Deux' (1981) and 'Grandes Gueules Superstars' (1981). Dervish Publications brought out 'Grandes Gueules à Pils' (1983), 'Le Livre d'Or des Grandes Gueules' (1983) and 'Le Ciné-Club des Grandes Gueles' (1983). 'Quoi Choisir, 50 Millions de Grandes Gueules' (Glénat, 1986) was a compilation.
Two solo books with caricatures by Mulatier were published under the titles 'Gueules de Ciné' (La Sirène, 1993) and 'Sketchbook' (Comix Buro, 2011). In 1980, the three caricaturists founded Les Éditions de l'Atelier, but Mulatier left them six years later to concentrate on his career as a photographer. In the 1990s, he rejoined his two friends to make caricatures for L'Express. Together with Patrice Ricord, Mulatier published 'Gueules d'État' (Glénat, 1995), portraying French politicians. For the book, they also made parodies of paper money, replacing the faces of French historical figures with current French politicians.
'Gueules d'État' (1995), caricaturing French president François Mitterrand.
Photography career
Mulatier is also active as a freelance photographer for Gamma-Rapho. In 1977, he took a sabbatical year to travel to South America to snap travel pictures and subsequently visit North America. He arrived in Rio de Janeiro during the annual carnival, but loved the city (and the journalist who interviewed him) so much that he stayed there for six months. To pay for the extra costs, Mulatier made a caricature of Brazilian president Ernesto Geisel for a local newspaper. Since Brazil was a dictatorship at the time, he was anxious about the consequences of caricaturing their head of state, so out of precaution, he left the country shortly afterwards.
Since 1986, Mulatier has been active as a nature photographer for the magazine Le Figaro and the gardener's magazine Vivre Au Jardin. A collection of his fall landscape impressions was published under the title 'Autumn' (Rizzoli International, New York, 2003).
Graphic and written contributions
In 1973, the Morchoisne, Ricord and Mulatier team designed the film poster for 'Le Grand Bazar', by the comedy group Les Charlots. Mulatier made a graphic contribution to Marion Vidal's 'Monsieur Schulz et ses Peanuts' (Albin Michel, 1976), an essay about Charles M. Schulz' 'Peanuts', illustrated with subversive parodies of the comic. Mulatier's caricature of comedian Bernard Haller was used on the cover of his live album 'Un Certain Rire Incertain' (1977), while a reissue of a musical album by comedian Jerry Lewis, 'Just Sings' (1977), sported a Pilote caricature of Lewis. In 1985, Mulatier also contributed a parody comic to 'Rocky Luke' (Goupil, 1985), a collective parody tribute to Morris' western series 'Lucky Luke'.
In 1981, Mulatier provided colorization for a book publication of the Spirou magazine story 'Les Robinsons du Rail' (Éditions de l'Atelier, 1981), scripted by Yvan Delporte and drawn by André Franquin and Jidéhem. He also made a contribution to 'Il Était Une Fois Idées Noires' (Fluide Glacial, 2017), a book about André Franquin's classic adult comic series 'Idées Noires'.
Recognition
Between May and October 2010, Mulatier's caricatures were exhibited at the Festival Quai des Bulles in Saint-Malo. On 6 April 2011, he received a city medal from the mayor of Dijon. Between 5 and 29 May, his '40 Years of Caricatures' exhibition was held in the cultural center of the Sainte-Anne chapel. Between 26 August and 12 October 2017, Jean Mulatier, along with Mexican caricaturist Arturo Kemchs and Colombian colleague Raul Zuleta, were the guests of honor during the 44th edition of the Humor Salon in Piracicaba in São Paulo, Brazil.
Legacy and influence
Jean Mulatier has been cited as an influence by Daniel Goossens and Jean-Pierre Gibrat.
Self-portrait.