Teaching: Gallic Comic

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To Mary Kincaid. an Ann Arbor housewife, it seemed a shame that little boys all around were quitting French classes out of boredom. She herself had minored in French at the University of Michigan, practiced it in Paris, and developed a passion for French literature. Not long ago, she reread Victor Hugo's Les Misérables and observed, "Hugo has more adventure than Davy Crockett"—a thought that led readily to the idea of putting Hugo into a comic strip.

Amateur Cartoonist Kincaid's Contes Français now reaches 1,209,000 subscribers to five daily newspapers, from the Toledo Blade to the Detroit News. The plot is Les Misérables, "adapted to a sixth-grader's interest," and the grammar is passably taxing. Cosette : "Je voudrais alter voir cette cathedrale, père!" Valjean: "Nous irons demain." Admittedly no linguist, Mrs. Kincaid checks each strip with a retired French professor, but so far she has not failed to get an A.

Mrs. Kincaid draws the strip between trips to the washing machine and feeding her three children. Editors fault her draftsmanship but marvel at the apparent hunger for a comic strip that totally shuns English. In Toledo, where grade school French is mandatory, the Blade bought the strip after it discovered that 16,321 third-to sixth-graders were toiling at the tongue. A Toledo school official says that "most of our teachers are using the strip in one way or another." Cartoonist Kincaid now hopes to launch a strip in Spanish, based on The Barber of Seville. She draws it; a Spaniard writes it. As yet, she has not learned Spanish —but she will.