Editing Gaston (comics) (section)

===De Mesmaeker's contracts===
This is possibly the most frequent running gag in the series, and by Franquin's admission a [[MacGuffin]]: "Whatever's in the contracts is irrelevant. What we want to see is how Gaston will prevent them from being signed."<!--It's somewhere in Sadoul, IIRC-->

Aimé De Mesmaeker is a hot-tempered businessman who often visits the office (which he increasingly, and with some justification, sees as a madhouse) in order to sign some important contracts. However, the contracts are irrevocably jinxed: before De Mesmaeker can apply pen to paper, Gaston's latest gimmick comes along, provokes mayhem and causes the hapless businessman to storm out, rip the contracts up, or in some cases pass out. Even when they do get signed, Gaston can always be counted on to accidentally destroy them.

Over the years, Fantasio and Prunelle's efforts to get the iconic contracts signed become increasingly frantic and desperate. Prunelle even goes so far as to send Lagaffe to the other side of town on some wild goose chase or bound and gag him and lock him into a cupboard but even these drastic measures backfire and fail.

On two occasions, De Mesmaeker actually ended up signing other contracts with Gaston spontaneously, instead of ''the'' contracts, both merchandising deals over Gaston's inventions (the "Cosmo-clock", an [[Project Apollo|Apollo spacecraft]]-shaped [[cuckoo clock]],<ref>{{cite comic | writer=[[André Franquin|Franquin, André]] | story=Gag #604 | title=[[Gaston Lagaffe|Gaston]] | volume=11 | date=1997 | publisher=[[Dupuis]]}}</ref> and a soup recipe).