History ComicBook / IlEtaitUneFoisEnFrance

* WetBlanketWife: Eva's main role is to remind Joseph how immoral his crimes are.

* NeighbourhoodFriendlyGangsters: Being the benefactor of LaResistance makes Joseph popular in his neighbourhood, but he remains a criminal.

** After a bombing, Lafont is furious to find out Joseph has been trafficking behind his back and is ready to shoot Joseph, but Joseph defuses the situation by publicly proclaiming his relief and his love for Lafont.

* TraumaticHaircut: Joseph nervously observes a mob shaving the head of women who had relations with German during the Occupation.

* AdultFear: Half of the story is set during the Occupation of France by Germany. Joseph is rightfully afraid of what the Nazis will do to him and his family if he ever stops making himself useful. Later Joseph becomes afraid of what the French will do to him and his family should they learn that he collaborated with the Nazis.
** A local gangster harasses a young Joseph by "kindly returning" Thérèse, Joseph's young daughter, to her family after hours of anguish.
** Legentil's wife is raped by two masked thugs who break into her house and threaten to kill her sons.
** Eva is killed during a robbery that turns horribly wrong.

* YourCheatingHeart: Joseph cheats on his wife Eva with Lucie, his secretary/partner in crime. Eva was at first furious, but as her love for Joseph fades, she eventually thinks nothing of it anymore. However, Lucie is angry when she sees that Joseph still has feelings for Eva.

* SwissBankAccount: In his later years, Joseph built a second secret fortune and put the money into a Swiss bank account since they do not look too much at the money. However it turns against him when the French order the assets frozen, and the Swiss keep Joseph's money to thelselves, ruining him with hope of ever recovering the money.
* TooDumbToLive: Joseph is furious when he sees that Eva continues to expose her menorah in the appartment, even when the Nazi can come search his house at any moment.

* LesCopsSportif: The French Police resistance ring "Honneur et Police" is Joseph's main contact with LaResistance.

''Il était une fois en France'' (''Once Upon A Time In France'')is a French comic book written by Fabien Nury and drawn by Sylvain Vallée published from 2007 to 2012 in six volumes. It is a VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory historical thriller centered around the life of RealLife figure [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Joanovici Joseph Joanovici]]. The comic was a commercial and critical success, gathering several distinctions and selling more than 1 million volumes in France.

* HeWhoFightsMonsters: Legentil's frustration at his inability to bring Joseph to justice gradually uses more and more dishonorable ways to get back at him, culminating with the AccidentalMurder of Eva Joanovici.

* HowThemightyHaveFallen: In 1965, Joseph is a ruined emaciated and withdrawn old man who just got of his second prison term. One journalist and his cameraman, hoping to have an interview with the former biggest shot of France are surprised and disappointed to see him in this pitiful state.
* InformedJudaism: Joseph is Jewish, but never believed in his religion. During the Occupation, Joseph naturally doesn't act his religion, but his true nature is an open secret. The one time Joseph uses his status as a Jewish to flee to Israel, Mordhar calls him out on his hypocrisy.

** One doctor who is forced at gunpoint to attest that Joseph is Aryan casually tells him that "He's Aryan now." Seconds later, the words sink into Joseph as he realizes how far he's fallen.

* JustifiedCriminal: Joseph's fall into criminality is as much due to his own faults as the circumstances he find himself in. His uncle who took him in France was already involved with local gangsters and the corrupt Police, thus Joseph, had to live with both. Then a couple of German force him to sell them iron at gunpoint, and he finds himself a collaborator. It all goes downhill until Joseph is obliged to kill someone else for his own safety, a crime he regrets dearly.

* KarmaHoudini: Jo Attia and George Boucheseiche manage to come unscathed from the story despite being part of LesCollaborateurs, having committed murder and having blackmailed Joseph into giving them 2 million Francs each month until Joseph goes to prison again. The last time they're seen, they are eating at a luxurious restaurant.

* MalevolentMaskedMen: Two thugs adorn ski masks in order to harass judge Legentil's wife and rape her.

* TheMistress: Lucie to Joseph. She is Joseph's lover and cares deeply for him, even being satisfied to simply remain by his side as Joseph still loves Eva.
* TheMobBossIsScarier: Robert Scaffa's girlfriend who wanted to testify that Scaffa didn't know anything about the German raid on "Honneur et Police", is frightened, by policemen no less, into remaining silent.
* MomentOfWeakness: After months of frustration, especially after one of Joseph's organisation's goons raped his wife, Legentil cracks and publicly call Joanovici a "Damn Jew!"[[note]]"Sale Juif!" in French[[/note]]. His partners are appalled and immediately throw him out of the investigation team.

* PetTheDog: Joseph's involvement with LaResistance is intended to one big PetTheDog moment for Joseph in order to clear his name when the German are eventually driven out and the French hunt down any collaborator. He still has genuine instances of when he selflessly helps someone and he always shows care for his family.
* PragmaticVillainy: The Nazis and their French counterparts. Germany needs more metal than they need one useful Jew dead and everyone profits from the iron supply. Lafont, who was ready to execute Joseph, spares him when Joseph says:
-->"Better milk the cow than slaughter it."

''Il était une fois en France'' is a French comic book written by Fabien Nury and drawn by Sylvain Vallée published from 2007 to 2012 in six volumes. It is a VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory historical thriller centered around the life of RealLife figure [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Joanovici Joseph Joanovici]]. The comic was a commercial and critical success, gathering several distinctions and selling more than 1 million volumes in France.

In 1925, [[VillainProtagonist Joseph Joanovici]] is a penniless Romanian Jew who has just emigrated in France. Joseph doesn't even know how to read but through cunning, expertise on metal and [[CorruptCorporateExecutive dishonesty]], and with the help of his loyal brother Mordhar and secretary Lucie Schmidt, Joseph [[RagsToRiches goes from scrap merchant to biggest supplier of iron in France]], just in time for UsefulNotes/WorldWarII. As the German invade and occupate France, Joseph realizes that to survive as a Jew under Nazi rule, he has to make himself useful and actively [[LesCollaborateurs collaborates]] with the German to supply them with France's iron, but at the same time, predicting that when the Allies eventually wins, he'll need to have a solid reputation, supplies and assists in various way LaResistance, notably the resistance ring "Honneur et Police". This double dealing proves difficult to maintain, and one night, he is forced to betray Honneur et Police. Joseph uses one young man, Robert Scaffa, as a [[TheScapegoat scapegoat]] and assassinates him to silence him. When the war ends, Joseph is hailed as a war hero.

However in 1946, Robert Scaffa's mother draws attention on Robert's murder, and the local judge [[CrusadingLawyer Jacques Legentil]], feeling personally invested in the case, spends the next decades trying to bring Joseph to justice. However, Joseph is a powerful man and harasses Legentil in order to stop him. As time passes, this case degenerates into a personal feud between the two, and both's lives are ruined because of the other. By 1965, Joseph is discredited, ruined and lives in constant fear of Legentil while Legentil is a lone old man separated from his family and obsessed by Joseph. The night of February 6th 1965, Joseph dies and Legentil is here to witness an ambulance take him away.

* AccidentalMurder: When Legentil stages a shakedown to frighten Joseph's wife, Eva, and his daughters to get at him, the encounter turns horribly wrong when one mugger shoots Eva and kills her.
* AdaptationalHeroism: Although the story keeps Joseph's most heinous moments, such as his assassination of Robert Scaffa, the authors went on their way to humanize Joseph's reasons for doing so, portraying his misdeeds as more motivated by pragmatism than greed as is usually accepted by historians, and Joseph has several PetTheDog moments. He is also visibly shaken by the horrible things he's done although he keeps it to himself.
* AdultFear: Half of the story is set during the Occupation of France by the German. Joseph is rightfully afraid of what the Nazis will do to him and his family if he ever stops making himself useful. Later Joseph becomes afraid of what the French will do to him and his family should they learn that he collaborated with the Nazis.

* BeingEvilSucks: Joseph doesn't enjoy the unsavory things he has to witness or do for his survival and all his crimes blow up to his face one way or another. His family rejects him and he dies a broken, ruined, and fearful man who expects going to Hell.

* CantGetAwayWithNuthin: Each and everyone of Joseph's crimes have a negative repercussion on his life, even if it takes years for it to happen.
* CantKillYouStillNeedYou: Joseph figures that the German still need a local businessman to help them supply French iron to the war industry. Despite being a Jew, Joseph is kept alive since he's the best scrap merchant of France.
* CategoryTraitor: Eva accuses Joseph of being a traitor to the Jew, having acquired his wealth by selling their possessions and indirectly contributing to the Nazis' industry.
* ChekhovsGun: Joseph's Gestapo card which after he shows it to Piednoir, comes in handy when he smuggles weapons to the resistance, but also is the instrument of his demise when after the war, a patrol of zealous resistance fighters arrest him because of said card.
* ChekhovsGunman: The petty gangsters Joseph gets rid of in Vol. 1 come back in Vol. 2, forcing Joseph to call the German and the French Gestapo for help.
* ChekhovsSkill: Joseph's ability as a scrap merchant. After years of plotting unrelated to scraping, Joseph is exiled in the small village of Mende and he uses his craft to build a second fortune.

* LesCopsSportif: They are represented a lot in the story as the French Police resistance ring "Honneur et Police" is Joseph's main contact with LaResistance.
* CrusadingLawyer: Deconstructed with Legentil. He's not determined as he's obsessed with putting Joseph in jail for his murder of Scaffa. His committment to the case separates Legentil from his family, and he only becomes as miserable as Joseph.
* DaddyHadAGoodReasonForAbandoningYou: Joseph knows that the Nazis could use his family as leverage, thus for most of the war, he keeps away from them. However, the rest of the time, Joseph doesn't visit his family because he's managing his business.

* DeathSong: Desbois and Masiée, two members of Honneur et Police, are forced to dig their own graves. As a last act of defiance, they sing ''La Marseillaise'' just before the German shoot them.
* DeceasedFallGuyGambit: Joseph kills Scaffa and puts the blame of his treason on him.

* DirtyCop: Before and after the war, Joseph Joanovici deals with corrupt French policemen who don't look at his shady business in exchange for money, or outright commit crimes for him.

* TheExile: Joseph exiles himself to Israel in order to flee his past, to Mordhar's shame as he sees the hypocrisy in a war profiteer who sold Jew's possessions to the Nazis trying to take advantage of Israel's Law of Return, and Lucie's sadness as she cannot go with him. Israel eventually expulses Joseph back to France.
* FaceDeathWithDignity: Desbois and Masiée face their execution with calm and sing ''La Marseillaise''.
** Likewise, Lafont keeps his nerve as he is shot by a firing squad.

''Il était une fois en France'' is a French comic book written by Fabien Nury and drawn by Sylvain Vallée published from 2007 to 2012 in six volumes. It is a VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory historical thriller centered around the life of RealLife hystorical figure [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Joanovici Joseph Joanovici]]. The comic was a commercial and critical success, gathering several distinctions and selling more than 1 million volumes in France.

However in 1946, Robert Scaffa's mother draws attention on Robert's murder, and the local judge Jacques Legentil, feeling personally invested in the case, spends the next decades trying to bring Joseph to justice. However, Joseph is a powerful man and harasses Legentil in order to stop him. As time passes, this case degenerates into a personal feud between the two, and both's lives are ruined because of the other. By 1965, Joseph is discredited, ruined and lives in constant fear of Legentil while Legentil is a lone old man separated from his family and obsessed by Joseph. The night of February 6th 1965, Joseph dies and Legentil is here to witness an ambulance take him away.

* AccidentalMurder: When Legentil stages a shakedown to frighten Joseph's wife, Eva, and his daughters to get at him, the encounter turns horribly wrong when one mugger shots Eva and kills her.
* AdaptationalHeroism: Although the story keeps Joseph's most heinous moments, such as his assassination of Robert Scaffa, the authors went on their way to humanize Joseph's reasons for doing so, as they are more motivated by pragmatism than greed as is usually accepted by historians, and Joseph has several PetTheDog moments. He is also visibly shaken by the horrible things he's done although he keeps it to himself.

** Legentil's wife is raped by one of Joseph's goons.

* CantGetAwayWithNuthin: Each and everyone of Joseph's crimes have a negative repercussion on his life, even if it takes years to do so.
* CantKillYouStillNeedYou: Joseph figures that the German still need a local businessmen to help them supply French iron to the war industry. Despite being a Jew, Joseph is kept alive since he's the best scrap merchant of France.
* CategoryTraitor: Eva accuses Joseph of being a traitor to the Jew, having acquired his wealth by selling their possessions and indirectly contributed to the Nazi's industry.
* ChekhovsGun: Joseph's Gestapo card which after he shows it to Piednoir, comes in handy when he smuggles weapons to the resistant, but also is the instrument of his demise when after the war, a patrol of zealous resistant arrest him because of said card.

* ChildhoodFriendRomance: Joseph and Eva have been together since childhood and then married.

* LesCollaborateurs: Naturally, Joseph has to deal with them, most notably Lafont, chief of the French Gestapo. In fact, when Legentil asks Wybot from the [=DST=] why nothing has been done against Joseph yet, Wybot answers that he has ''35,000'' files to take care of, all businessmen and industrials like Joseph, who collaborated with the Germans for profit.

* DirtyCoward: Fournet, aka "Belette" from Honneur et Police. He always fear for his life and was ready to betray his friend Piednoir to Joseph in order to be spared.
* DistantPrologue: The first scene is one of Joseph's childhood. The narration then cuts to Joseph's deathbed.

-->'''Joseph''': Mon pays, c'est la famille. Les autres peuvent crever.[[note]]My family is my country. The others can go die.[[/note]]

* InformedJudaism: Joseph is Jewish, but never believed in his religion. During the Occupation, Joseph must naturally doesn't act his religion, but his true nature is an open secret. The one time Joseph uses his status as a Jewish to flee to Israel, Mordhar calls him out on his hypocrisy.

* JustifiedCriminal: Joseph's fall into criminality is as much due to his own faults as the circumstances he find himself in. His uncle who took him in France was already involved with local gangsters and the corrupt Police, thus Joseph, had to live with both. Then a couple of German force him to sell them iron at gunpoint, and he finds himself a collaborator. It all goes downhill until Joseph finds himself obliged to kill someone else for his own safety, a crime he regrets dearly.

* MinorCrimeRevealsMajorPlot: When judge Legentil investigates Joseph on the murder of Robert Scaffa, Joseph uses the police a little too much to stop Legentil's efforts, exposing at the same time the fact that he is bribing the police on a large scale.

* MomentOfWeakness: After months of frustration, especially after one of Joseph's goons raped his wife, Legentil cracks and publicly call Joanovici a "Damn Jew!"[[note]]"Sale Juif!" in French[[/note]]. His partners are appalled and immediately throw him out of the investigation team.

* PetTheDog: Joseph's involvement with LaResistance is intended to one big PetTheDog moment for Joseph in order to clean his name when the German are eventually driven out and the French hunt down any collaborator. He still has genuine instances of when he selflessly helps someone and he always shows care for his family.

* RedBaron: Lucie is nicknamed "Luci-fer", a play on her name, the word "fer" for "iron" and of course "Lucifer". This nickname exclusive to the circle of French and German metal suppliers is a token of their respect for Lucie's competence and determination.

** When Lafont calls Joseph a "Au fond pour moi, tu n'es qu'un sale Youpin!"[[note]]"At the end, for me you're just a damn Kike!" in French[[/note]]. Joseph answers back "And how much is it to not be one anymore?" Lafont finds it ActuallyPrettyFunny.

* ShamedByAMob: Joseph storms into a doctor's office in order to get his Aryan certification done. The angry stare of the whole crowd of people here to get themselves examined shames Joseph.
* SpitefulSpit: When the police "welcomes" Joseph is Mende, one of the policemen spits at Joseph's feet to signal how much he thinks of Joseph.

-->'''Joseph''': You begin by tricking your your uncle, because he's a scrooge. You continue by giving scrap to the Krauts because it's better than a trip to Auschwitz...You carry on to the resistance because a guarantee for the future...etc, etc... and one day, you find yourself in the woods, a gun in your hand, and a kid just died.
* SwissBankAccount: In his later years, Joseph built a second secret fortune and put the money into a Swiss bank account since they do not look too much at the money. However it turns against him when the French order the assets frozen, and the Swiss keep Joseph's money.

* UndyingLoyalty: Lucie to Joseph, she remains by his side all his life, come hell or high waters. Legentil even twists this loyalty by gauding Lucie into testifying against Joseph secretly so that Joseph must return to France and depend on Lucie's help again.
* VillainProtagonist: Joseph is undeniably a dishonest businessman, an enthusiast collaborator, and a murderer. Yet the story manages to make him sympathetic by partially making him a partial victim of the circumstances and portraying him as having second thoughts about his crimes.
* VillainWithGoodPublicity: Joseph Joanovici, publicly lauded French resistant who counterfeited identity cards for his employees, financed LaResistance, and still contributes to his community. However, he is little more than a gangster who collaborated with the German for his own profit.

* LesCollaborateurs: Naturally, Joseph has to deal with them, most notably Lafont, chief of the French Gestapo.

* InformedJudaism: During the Occupation, Joseph must naturally stop acting his religion, but his true nature is an open secret.

In 1925, [[VillainProtagonist Joseph Joanovici]] is a penniless Romanian Jew who has just emigrated in France. Joseph doesn't even know how to read but through cunning, expertise on metal and [[CorruptCorporateExecutive dishonesty]], Joseph [[RagsToRiches goes from scrap merchant to biggest supplier of iron in France]], just in time for UsefulNotes/WorldWarII. As the German invade and occupate France, Joseph realizes that to survive as a Jew under Nazi rule, he has to make himself useful and actively [[LesCollaborateurs collaborates]] with the German to supply them with France's iron, but at the same time, predicting that when the Allies eventually wins, he'll need to have a solid reputation, supplies and assists in various way LaResistance. This double dealing proves difficult to maintain, and one night, he is forced to betray his resistant ring. Joseph uses one young man, Robert Scaffa, as a [[TheScapegoat scapegoat]] and assassinates him to silence him. When the war ends, Joseph is hailed as a war hero.

However in 1946, Robert Scaffa's mother draws attention on his murder, and Judge Jacques Legentil, feeling personally invested in the case, spends the next decades trying to bring Joseph to justice. However, Joseph is a powerful man and harasses Legentil in order to stop him. As time passes, this case degenerates into a personal feud between the two, and both's lives are ruined because of the other. By 1965, Joseph is discredited, ruined and lives in constant fear of Legentil while Legentil is a lone old man separated from his family and obsessed by Joseph. The night of February 6th 1965, Joseph dies and Legentil is here to witness an ambulance take him away.