Considered by many comedians to be a genius, the French comic book author Daniel Goossens, pillar of the magazine Fluide glacial since 1977, released “La Porte de l’Univers” seven years following “Combats”.
Daniel Goossens was not formatted to do comics. He who won the Grand Prix d’Angoulême in 1997 is above all a mathematician who, alongside his activity in the 9th art, was a computer specialist and teacher-researcher in artificial intelligence at the University of Paris. -VIII. In comics, he works in a register that artificial intelligence will never be able to reduce: humor.
In this field, Daniel Goossens is a goldsmith who handles the absurd and the narration with stunning dexterity. Starting from a very simple situation, he pushes logic to the limit, to the point of absurdity. The proof in “La Porte de l’Univers” published by Fluide Glacial.
The path of derision
The cover of Daniel Goossens’ comic strip “La Porte de l’Univers”. [Editions Fluide Glacial]Unknown to the general public, Daniel Goossens counts Benoit Poelvoorde and Edouard Baer among his admirers. His latest comic strip, “La Porte de l’Univers”, features Robert Cognard, a comedian in decline who sees his life turned upside down and finds himself in prison for a bedbug prank gone wrong. His story, made up of shattered destinies and silences, catches up with him when he has no more gags to defend himself.
“The situations are abstract, the adventures that punctuate the destiny of Robert Cognard are not realistic. […] all that is a pretext to play various scenes. There is no apparent logic in the adventures, but there is on the other hand a common thread: what I don’t care regarding”, explains Daniel Goossens to the RTS. The common thread of “La Porte de l’Univers” is to show that we are always in performance and in cinema, even in our most authentic interactions.
brain incontinence
Understanding where Daniel Goossens is coming from is not very important. It is also probably impossible as the absurd prevails. “The ideas, I find them like the others, my fellow comedians, by chance. Nothing is premeditated. I’m going to make fun of it'”, explains the author who defines himself as an “incontinent of the brain”.
In his comics, Daniel Goossens tries to transcribe all the emotional state of his characters. He focuses a lot on expressions, hands, attitudes with a great sense of detail. “I’m not a realistic draftsman, but I need to make the character feel how they are arched or planted on their legs, and this is done by the folds in the pants or in the sleeves for example” explains Daniel Goossens.
Nonconsensual humor
Daniel Goossens’ comics are not always easy to read. So much the better, the author does not like big connivances. “When you feel that there is a value system that is shared by practically everyone in a society, this value system becomes heavy. Suddenly, here is a good source of desire for derision: this way of judging affectively or morally each other. I would not like my humor or the humor that I like to read to become consensual” explains Daniel Goossens.
His humor, Daniel Goossens sees it as a theory to be tested, observations he makes regarding the world. He does not pose as a philosopher, but rather as a practitioner. With “La Porte de l’Univers”, the cartoonist is undoubtedly testing a new theory on the secrets of absurd humor.
Interview by Pierre Philippe Cadert
Adaptation web: ld
