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Comic Book / Joe Bar Team

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Joe Bar Team is a French comic book created by Bar2 (real name Christian Debarre) and carried on by Fane (real name Stéphane Deteindre). It concerns the lives and times of a group of Parisians bikers who hang out at the eponymous Joe Bar.

The first album introduced a first generation of bikers in The '70s, the second album introduced a new generation hanging out at the bar with the older ones in The '90s. The following albums are about the antics of both generations as they interact, and as motorcycle technologies evolve.


Joe Bar Team provides examples of:

  • All Bikers are Hells Angels: Subverted; the Joes are pretty average joes, who happen to enjoy riding motorbikes. Very fast. Some actual Hell's Angels show up when Édouard insults Harley Davidsons.
  • Badass Biker: Subverted, again, due to the Joes' complete averageness. Any fight will usually end with at least one Joe in bandages.
  • The Bartender: Joe, owner and proprietor of the Joe Bar.
  • Cool Bike: Naturally. All of the Joe Bar group's bikes are existing models. They encounters fictional models at times (usually futuristic) which don't last very long in their hands.
  • Dream Sequence: Many.
  • Explosive Overclocking: By way of Tim Taylor Technology. Nitroglycerinemethanol gives immense power to any engine, but is extremely unstable and has been known to scatter pistons across the countryside.
  • Friendly Rivalry
  • Grease Monkey: All the Joes are shown to do their own repairs to some extent, but Jean acts as the team's most competent mechanic, as well as owning and running a repair shop.
  • Identical Grandson: Édouard's nephew.
  • The Klutz: All of the Joe Bar bikers are notoriously clumsy. Especially Édouard and Jérémie.
  • Local Hangout: Again, the Joe Bar.
  • Police Are Useless: The police are recurring antagonists, wanting to get their hands on the Joes for a large number of motor vehicle code violations, mostly excessive speed. Occasionally, they succeed (in one case, a policeman on a police bike completely outclasses them without even trying). Sometimes, they will also outright race with the team, and they'll all compare each other's peak speed with the scanner.
  • Punny Name: Everyone except Joe. A "jobard" is, basically, an idiot. Guess what "Joe Bar" sounds like in French.
  • Readings Blew Up the Scale: Poor, poor police scanners... One particularly hilarious instance had one of the team insist that the reading was wrong: he was going much faster than what the scanner said.
  • Serious Business: Drag racing. There is no conflict that cannot be settled in a quarter-mile.
  • The Slacker: The young trio, Paul, Pierre and Jérémie all work in the same offices in the fourth album, and they completely botch the only thing their boss asked them to do because they are in a hurry to go on holidays.
  • Still Wearing the Old Colors: Jean-Raoul traded in his Kawasaki for a Suzuki between albums 1 and 2, but still wears the same Kawasaki-green leathers.
  • Suicide as Comedy: One strip had one of the team about to hang himself over a breakup. One of his friends comes along and tries to get him down and do something before it's too late, before digging up the guy's bike papers and asking him to write "Sold to...".

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