The Adventures of Jodelle

The Adventures of Jodelle (original title Les Aventures de Jodelle) is a 1966 French erotic comic drawn by Guy Peellaert and scripted by Pierre Bartier. It was first published in the hardcore satiric French comix journal Hara-Kiri. Drawings and screenplay were deeply influenced by Pop Art. Many of the characters looks were taken from public pop figures of the past and present; Jodelle herself looks like French singer Sylvie Vartan, stereotyped as the girl next door fiancée, while other characters are look-alikes of Emperor Augustus, The Beatles, Pope Paul VI, James Bond, Marquis de Sade, Wright's architecture of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, and Jesus Christ. In a Pop version of Imperial Rome, neon ads promote "stripteases and Christian slaughters."

This work is associated with the sexual revolution. The struggle for sexual freedom in comics was most prominently conducted in France through emancipated female charactes like Barbarella (1962), Jodelle (1966), Pravda (1968), Saga de Xam (1967), Wolinski's Paulette (1971), and Scarlet Dream (1981). Notable works in this trend outside of France have been Phoebe Zeit-Geist (1965) and Vampirella (1969) in USA, Modesty Blaise (1963) in the UK, Valentina (1965) and Angiolini's Isabella (1966) in Italy. Jodelle is considered a more sophisticated and intellectual product than his more famous precursor Barbarella.