La série Caroline de Pierre Probst. Une « série-géographe »

Abstract

Caroline by Pierre Probst is a series that marked the Glorious Thirties. The little heroine, created in 1953 for the collection « Les Grands Albums Hachette », accompagnied at least three generations of young readers with 44 adventures in 54 years. More than a half of these picturebooks have mobility and tourism as main theme. Pierre Probst seems to use the series like a « metaphor » of the journey, in accordance with an important proposal by Michel de Certeau. He is a geographer in the etymological meaning : he tales and draws (graphêin) the Earth (gê). In this paper, we will analyze the 26 picturebooks with a spatial theme in order to show that Probst is a « spaces maker » and that he uses serial, diegetical and pictorial spaces to turn the series in what we decided to call a « geographer-series ».

Keywords

• Probst (Pierre)
• geography
• series
• space
• serial picturebook
• iconotext