Martine aux archives : appréhender l'auctorialité sérielle dans les archives Casterman

Abstract

The Martine series by Gilbert Delahaye and Marcel Marlier strikingly lacks critical attention, when compared to the immensity of its commercial success. Industrially produced in the context of a massification of young children’s literature, these serial picturebooks testify to the technical modernity of Casterman, to whom they offer a considerable windfall. The Casterman archives, deposited in the State Archives in Tournai, thus offer a fascinating insight into the making of the serial picturebook. The publishing house’s sales statistics and Marcel Marlier’s author file allow us to follow the progressive and paradoxical affirmation of authorship within the framework of a mass collection. As an illustrator of mass-produced picturebooks, Marlier was a commissioned worker for Casterman, whose fortune he nevertheless made. Paid on a flat-rate basis, Marlier gradually switched to copyright; the considerable success of the visual universe he created with Martine ended up, through a contamination effect, in the rest of the “Farandole” collection. The editorial enonciation was gradually replaced by the unexpected rise of a visual authorship.

Keywords

• picturebook
• children’s book publishers
• offset
• cultural industry
• author
• pop culture