BAR2 - Lot 31

BAR2 JOE BAR TEAM Volume 5, Vents d'Ouest, 2003 Racing booklets, original plate no. 25. Signed. India ink and white gouache on paper 35.5 × 46.4 cm (13.98 × 18.27 in.) Contemplating this plate, one might well wonder why the Joe Bar owner is so friendly with his biker customers. After all, on at least three occasions, one or other of these brutes has massacred either the front of his bar or one of its bay windows. Not to mention the time Guido Brasletti shattered his beloved Moto-Guzzi. Can Bar2 explain why, despite all this, this brave barman manages to remain friends with these four madmen? "It's true that they don't spare him much, poor Joe. But, in the end, without their presence, their antics and their vicissitudes, what would the barman's daily life be like? I'd say he'd be bored stiff. That his working days would be limited to dragging his heels between the beer pump and the percolator, listening wearily to the inanities of a few drunks huddled around the counter. But thanks to Édouard and his clique, there's always something unexpected! Movement!... And movement that's sometimes a little too haphazard and brutal, as this panel proves."