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Above are a pair of covers by French illustrator Jacques Leclerq, aka Jihel, who by coincidence went in a similar direction on both, though it looks to us like the top book, 1957’s 3 filles en folie, features his trio of filles in a somewhat paradisiacal setting, while the the bottom one, 1953’s Le temps des filles, features them in a place that looks a lot like hell. We bet the trio in hell are more fun. See more from Jihel by clicking his keywords just below.
We could have added this cover for Arthur Jacmi’s 1958 novel Les affriolantes to our recent collection of women in bars, but it especially appealed to us, with its femme fatale sipping a drink through a straw, so we decided to give it a separate post. It was painted by Jihel, a pseudonym for French caricaturist Jacques Leclerq. There was another Jihel—French caricaturist Jacques Camille Lardie. Lately he’s had a revival, so when you look up Jihel online you’ll get more hits on Lardie than on Leclerq, but they were different people. When you look up Arthur Jacmi you’ll find that virtually no info about him exists. That’s a real shame. We won’t be able to make more quips about his name. C’est la vie. See more Jihel here and here.
More from France today. Above you see Envoûtement sensuel, by Pierre Sénard for Éditions C.P.E., published in 1958. The title translates to “sensual enchantment,” and enchanting is a perfect word to describe this cover, which has a very romantic feel. The art wraps around onto the book’s spine too, which makes it even nicer. We assume the cover figure is contemplating something other than her right shoe, but maybe not—we know a couple of women that get this way about footwear. The artist here is Jacques Leclerc, who signed his work as Jihel, and we think it’s among his best.
Souris à croquer means “chewable mouse.” Nothing more to add there, really, except to speculate that maybe it’s a slang phrase. French friends help us out. Moving on, you may already know the master illustrator Jean David, who signed his work J. David. Did he write this book? We have no idea, and neither did anyone else we asked. Considering J. David painted from the 1940s onward, and this book by Jean David appeared in 1958, it’s certainly possible they’re the same person. Note to selves: more research. Souris à croquer, by the way, means “chewable mouse.” Did we mention that already? Well, it bears repeating. The cover art here is not by J. David, but by Jihel, aka Jacques Leclerc.
Update: Jo B. from Marseille has the answer, writing: “Souris à croquer” means “a mouse to eat.” “Mouse” is a little slang term (not vulgar) to designate a pretty girl. “Croquer” is the way you eat an apple, a bar of chocolate or something like that. I don’t know the real word in English (munch, crunch?). Maybe we have two mice to crunch on the cover as “souris” can be one mouse or many mice.
Thanks so much Jo.
Below: La Vie Parisienne #79, published July 1957, with Roger Brard cover art along with beautiful interior pieces from Jihel, Donnés, Jac, Denis, van Homme, and others.
Above: the cover and assorted interior pages from La Vie Parisienne, October 1956, with art from Jihel, aka Jacques Leclerc, in panel two. You can see five prime examples of Jihel at his best here.
Five brilliant La Compagnie d’Edition Parisienne erotic pulp covers, circa 1950 to 1954, featuring the work of French illustrator Jacques Leclerc, who painted under the name Jihel (there was another French illustrator who used Jihel as a nickname—caricaturist Jacques Camille Lardie, not the same person). Leclerc/Jihel also painted illustrations for the classic French erotic magazine La Vie Parisienne, and we have a few copies we picked up in Paris that we’ll show you in the near future.
Above: two editions of Ellen Edisson’s Aller simple pour Moscou, aka One Way to Moscow. The first was published in 1956 by Thill in its Stop-Espionnage alter-ego as part of its Serie Le Loup, and the second appeared in 1959 from Champ de Mars, and was the first in its popular series Le Moulin Noir.
U.S. President Woodrow Wilson sails to Europe for the World War I peace talks in Versailles, France, becoming the first U.S. president to travel to Europe while in office.
In the U.S., a manslaughter trial against actor/director Roscoe ‘Fatty’ Arbuckle ends with the jury deadlocked as to whether he had killed aspiring actress Virginia Rappe during rape and sodomy. Arbuckle was finally cleared of all wrongdoing after two more trials, but the scandal ruined his career and personal life.
In California, Police arrest over 800 students at the University of California, Berkeley, following their takeover and sit-in at the administration building in protest at the UC Regents’ decision to forbid protests on university property.
Unemployment figures are released revealing that the U.S. unemployment rate has fallen to 3.3 percent, the lowest rate for almost fifteen years. Going forward all the way to the current day, the figure never reaches this low level again.
In the United States, after standing idly by during years of communist witch hunts in Hollywood and beyond, the U.S. Senate votes 65 to 22 to condemn Joseph McCarthy for conduct bringing the Senate into dishonor and disrepute. The vote ruined McCarthy’s career.
In the U.S., in Montgomery, Alabama, seamstress Rosa Parks refuses to give her bus seat to a white man and is arrested for violating the city’s racial segregation laws, an incident which leads to the Montgomery Bus Boycott. The boycott resulted in a crippling financial deficit for the Montgomery public transit system, because the city’s African-American population were the bulk of the system’s ridership.
