I’ve started to wonder whether what I read as a child wasn’t more important. […] And then there was Pif le chien, a comic book published by Editions Vaillant and sponsored by the Communist Party. I realize now when I reread it that there was a Communist bent to many of Pif’s adventures. For example, a prehistoric man would bring down the local sorcerer in single combat and explain to the tribe that they didn’t need a sorcerer and that there was no need to fear thunder. The series was very innovative and of exceptional quality.

—French novelist Michel Houellebecq, interviewed in The Paris Review No. 194

Labels: Comics Enriched Their Lives, Michel Houellebecq, propaganda