OuBaPo is styled after the French literary movement Oulipo (Ouvroir de Littérature Potentielle), founded by Raymond Queneau and François Le Lionnais.
Some OuBapoian constraints:[1] By the late 1980s, cartoonist Lewis Trondheim had established a reputation for his various conceptual comics, such as Le dormeur and Psychanalyse, both of which were created entirely with a single photocopied panel.
After some strips, Trondheim asked for four more panels, and wrote the highly dense comic book, Moins d'un quart de seconde pour vivre.
Menu, Trondheim, six other cartoonists, and comic-book historian Gilles Ciment often frequented the Parisian artists' studio Nawak (French slang for "nonsense"), where they discussed comic book constraints over snacks and beer.
OuBaPo created a board game called "Scroubabble" — based on Scrabble but with comic-book panels instead of letters.
In 2008, founder Ciment (director of a French cultural center dedicated to comics) left after also arguing with Menu.