PHILIPPE GELUCK
LE CAT
www.geluck.com/en www.facebook.com/lecatofgeluck ISBN 978-2-930540-12-2 © Geluck 2014 There is a ‘Le Chat’ app for iPhone/iPad and Android
Victoria) that my large mouth spouts forth silly puns, wacko non-sequiturs, sight gags, reflections on time, space, man and the universe, and a razor-sharp, kick-in-the-face ironic distance between text and image. But then she was no writer.
I get ahead of myself Hi, I’m Le Cat Philippe Geluck and myself have decided that it’s time to Go Global, to allow the whole world to benefit from my wit and wisdom (and multiply the sales figures). I have always been a devout Francophone, and to reach my objective I have had to learn English. This has required effort and sacrifice, but I have of course done it in record time (I may be fat but I’m smart).
Of mothers and fathers I am someone to whom the not-always-flattering epithet Big in Belgium can be genuinely applied (a phrase originally coined by Queen Victoria about me during
one of her trips to visit Uncle Leopold). It has been said that my father is Mr Geluck, and my mother a mix of Belgian surrealism, the theatre of the absurd, and French satirical cartoons of the 1970s. It has also been said (again by
But I get ahead of myself. You don’t know me, do you? Which is why I’m writing this before you read the cartoons. Sorry. I was born in 1983 on a page of the leading Belgian Frenchlanguage daily ‘Le Soir’ and I quickly became the paper’s mascot. Since then, I have appeared more than 12,000 times in the paper and been syndicated in French dailies and magazines. I gracefully retired from ‘Le Soir’ on my 30th birthday, but not from public life. Oh no. I’m going global.
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Francophone Fame My Francophone Fame really started in 1986 when Mr Geluck began making albums of my cartoons and other wacko illustrations, and to date 18 albums have been published by Europe’s biggest comics publisher, Casterman. Over 10 million have been sold (and I have to say, with some pride and no modesty, that I have become a household name in Belgium and France. Oh yes).
Outreach Now that’s a word I learned in my English classes. So, my “outreach” … the CatMerchandising, which has gone viral (postcards, chocolates, children’s clothes, fluffy toys, figurines, mugs, iPhone covers …); exhibitions of kingsize paintings of me - for my 20th birthday
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Mr Geluck curated an outstanding exhibition, ‘Le Cat - Exhibitionist’ (appropriate I thought) at the National School of Fine Arts in Paris, and this travelled to Brussels, Bordeaux and Rennes, attracting more than 350,000 visitors. They loved me. And my TV series on France 2,
‘A Minute with Le Cat’, short animated cartoons broadcast every evening in 2011 on prime-time TV just before the main news. Watched by millions. Now that’s outreach.
Enjoy your meal
fois already. You have my backstory, so please turn the page and lap up the cartoons (my English teacher said that was a good feline pun, whatever that means) in this, the first venture of yours truly, Le Cat, into Angloland.
But enough, ça suffit une
Enjoy your meal!
LE CAT
Translated from the French by Alan Ward
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A deceptively simple and deadpan commentator, Le Cat reveals life’s underlying surrealism and absurdity with magnificently understated humour - ranging from silly puns, wacko non-sequiturs and sight gags to sublime reflections on time, space, man and the universe.
Philippe Geluck is an illustrator, artist, writer, actor, comic, man of stage, TV and radio, and the French-speaking world’s most popular and successful cartoonist. He is best known for Le Cat (“Le Chat” on his birth certificate), born 1983 in Belgium’s leading French-language daily ‘Le Soir’.
ISBN 978-2-930540-12-2
For over 30 years the feline appeared more than 12,000 times in the paper and was syndicated in other countries. But his fame really began in 1986 when Geluck started collecting these Cat cartoons and other wacko illustrations into albums. To date 18 have been published, and over 10 million sold. And yet ... although a household name in Francophonia, Le Cat is practically unknown elsewhere. But this is about to change. A true megalomaniac, the feline recently launched his “Cat Goes Global” campaign, and the album you are holding is one of its first products. So read, laugh, chuckle, weep, grimace, giggle, pass the word … and enjoy your meal!