Jean Marcellin, Vacances en Provence

To the fifty ways to discover Provence, add a fifty first: the one by Jean Marcellin. It's an approach made up of a keen sense of observation, a humour stamped with a healthy Rabelaisian verve, an impressive love of detail and a lot of culture.

In the more than fifteen years that he contributes to the magazine "L’accent de Provence", his plates - where he never misses out mischievously portraying the magazine itself - are always waited for with impatience.
It's all there : design, colour, information - being Marcellin, we don't dare say didacticism! - often just plain good fun.

We have a real good time with Marcellin, but not just that... Naturally, seemingly innocently, each of his creations is a goldmine of information. Under his jolly exterior, the colourful Marcellin, liking a bit of slap and tickle, reveals himself as a cultivated man of great learning. But he has uncovered the secret to lite culture, 0% indigestible fats.

With him, we learn while laughing, and boredom is not on the programme. Pontiff of comics, he is never pontificating, and he is just at ease in evoking - through his speech ballons and pencil strokes - the early eras of Man: the dry stone civilization, our Ligurian and Gallo-roman ancestors, the Middle Ages, the good king René, the Félibrige poets or Tartarin of Tarascon...

With Marcellin, you have to take your time. First the gaze takes in the whole scene and revels in its richness. Then, irresistibly carried along by curiosity, it sets off on the tracks of the multiple characters, discovering little scenes in the big one, a multitude of details, with the fear of losing a few along the way. The speech balloons and dialogues are delightful; historcai and cultural references abound but don't weigh things down.

With the professor Marcellin, history and culture become games and the reader needs no coaxing to go on vacation with him.