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Last year, I began searching French eBay for photobooth (or photomaton) items, such as the photobooth stool I noted last April. One of the items I mention in that entry is a publicity brochure for Photomaton, the French manufacturers of photobooths, and though it’s taken me awhile, I’ve finally got the item scanned and uploaded into our In Print: Ads section.

The brochure, a tri-fold piece that looks like it dates from sometime in the 1990s, is a brief bande dessinée adventure by Ted Benoît, a renowned illustrator in the “ligne claire” school of graphic artists. A private investigator, Ben Marquette, wanders Los Angeles, stopping at photobooths along the way, outside a movie theater, in a train station, and in a shopping center.

I haven’t translated the entire thing, but in the frame I’ve included here, Marquette mentions something to the effect that as he looks at the machine, he knows immediately that it will do something to his cheeks and give him the eyes of a Boston terrier. I’d appreciate any help if someone cares to expand on this poor job, and explain the last sentence (“to stripe my shelves”?) as well.

UPDATE: According to the author (see comments), that last line means “something like ‘blot out of one’s records (or note book, etc)’.”