by Fransiska Louwagie and Simon Lambert
On 13 March 2020 the University of Leicester hosted an International Symposium titled “Tradition and Innovation in Franco-Belgian bande dessinée” organised in collaboration with Wallonia-Brussels International. This one-day symposium – for which the progamme can be found here – was organised with generous support from the ASMCF, the Society for French Studies and the School of Arts at the University of Leicester.
The day was opened by Simon Lambert as Academic and Cultural Liaison Officer for Wallonia-Brussels in the UK, in conjunction with Fransiska Louwagie (University of Leicester). Keynote speakers were Professor Laurence Grove from the University of Glasgow and graphic novelist Michel Kichka, who also delivered a public seminar on his work. Across three panels, the day focussed on various forms of tradition and innovation in Franco-Belgian bande dessinée: the first panel was dedicated to “Revisiting the classics”, the second panel to “Contemporary perspectives”, and the final ASMCF panel to “Reshaping Franco-Belgian bande dessinée”. The closing remarks were organised as a roundtable session on collaborative international research projects.
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Tags: Abrégé de bande dessinée franco-belge, Émile Bravo, bande dessinée, Belgium, Deuxième génération, digital comics, education, France, Franco-Belgian Comics, Gaston Lagaffe, Gender, Hergé, History, Holocaust, Ilan Manouach, Mad, MAD Magazine, memory, Michel Kichka, Pilote, racism, Spirou, The Adventures of Tintin, Tintin, Transnational Comics, UK, University of Leicester, violence
by Andrea De Falco
‘Fluid Images – Fluid Text’ was the title of an interdisciplinary conference that took place at Cardiff University (Wales) on 23-24 January 2020. The conference, organised by Dr Tilmann Altenberg (School of Modern Languages) and Dr Lisa El Refaie (School of English, Communication and Philosophy), hosted eighteen speakers from twelve institutions spread across seven different countries, featuring a wide range of backgrounds and approaches. The conference received financial support from Institute of Modern Languages Research (London), University Council of Modern Languages, Cardiff Comics Storytelling Network, Cardiff School of Modern Languages and Cardiff School of English, Communication and Philosophy.
The aim was to investigate from a transdisciplinary perspective three different and interlinked dimensions underpinning comics’ mobility: time, space and artistic media. The chronological dimension covers a broad field including the relationships between comics and history and the transformations investing their editorial and reading practices. Translation is the key word to understand how comics have been able to transcend national borders, by means of transmission in different languages and cultures. The last dimension leads us to comics’ adaptation in other media, investigating their relationships with different forms of artistic expression.
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Tags: A Borrowed Life, A Distant Soil, adaptation, Aka B, Alessandro Tota, Alison Bechdel, Ana Penyas, art, Asterix, autobiography, Ángel de la Calle, Bea Enriquez, biography, Caterina Sansone, classroom, Colleen Doran, dictatorship, digital comics, Disney, Edgar Clement, family, film, Fumettibrutti, Fun Home, Gender, Graphic Novels, Greece, heritage, History, humour, identity, Il tempo materiale, intermediality, intertextuality, Italy, Je est un autre, Kobane Calling, Luigi Ricca, Martin Lemelman, memory, Mendel’s Daughter, Mexico, nationalism, Núria Tamarit, Non-fiction Comics, Operación Bolívar, P. La mia adolescenza trans, Palacinche, Paperinik, Phoebe Gloeckner, Photography, Pinturas de guerra, place, Politics, Race/ethnicity, social conflict, Spain, Storia di una madre, Taiwan, The Adventures of Tintin, The Diary of a Teenage Girl, The Story of a Mother, theatre, time, Tintin, Translations, transmediality, Transphobia, transsexual abuse, UK, Wales, Women, Zerocalcare
by Morgan Podraza
French Comics Poster
During the weekend of 28–29 February 2020, scholars from France, Belgium, the United States and the United Kingdom came together for “Drawing Gender: Women and French-language Comics,” a symposium presented and sponsored by the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum in partnership with the Department of French and Italian at the Ohio State University. Framed by the events surrounding the 2016 Angoulême International Comics Festival in which the nominations for the Grand Prix included all men and happening in coordination with the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum’s exhibit “Ladies First: A Century of Women’s Innovations in Comics and Cartoon Art,” the symposium was dedicated to the representation of and contributions by women in comics within the Francophone world. Thus, central discussions during the symposium were concerned with not only bringing the work of women to the foreground but also calling attention to the ways that women’s experiences and identities are conveyed through such work. Importantly, these conversations also highlighted and engaged with artists and works that expanded beyond the boundaries of any one identity—including a range of languages; nationalities; sexual and gender identities; and social and cultural backgrounds—in order to further emphasize the incredible contributions of creators who have not been historically canonized.
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Tags: Abir Gasmi, abortion, Ah! Nana, Alain Frappier, Alexis Horellou, Angouleme, Anjela, Aude Mermilliod, Aya de Yopougon, Aya of Yop City, Émilie Plateau, bande dessinée, Billy Ireland Cartoon Library, Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum, Brigande! Marion du Faouët: Vie amours et mort, Canada, Catherine Muller, Cham, Christelle Le Guen, Colored: The Unsung Life of Claudette Colvin, colourists, Désirée Frappier, Delphine Le Lay, Des salopes et des anges, Elyon’s, feminism, FIBD, Florence Cestac, France, Francophone comics, Gender, gendered violence, Gustave Doré, Hshouma, Il fallait que je vous le dise, Jean-Louis Bocquet, Josephine Baker, Julie Delporte, Kiki de Montparnasse, La Vie d’Ébène Duta, Laëtitia Rouxel, Le Choix, Lebanon, Leila Slimani, Lena Merhej, Marguerite Abouet, Martin Winckler, Moi aussi je voulais l’emporter, Moomins, Morocco, Nicole Claveloux, Noire: La Vie méconnue de Claudette Colvin, Nora Habaieb, Nour Hifaoui Fakhoury, Ohio State University, Okapi, Olympe de Gouges, parenthood, Paroles d’honneur, Plogoff, Rodolphe Töpffer, Roland Michon, Samandal Collective, sex, Sex and Lies: True Stories of Women's Intimate Lives in the Arab World, Sexe et mensonges: La Vie sexuelle au Maroc, sexuality, Studios Hergé, The Diary of Ebene Duta, This Woman’s Work, Tonino Benacquista, Tove Jansson, Women, Zainab Fasiki
by Philippe Capart
Translated by Annick Pellegrin
Edited by Lise Tannahill
Original publication: Capart, Philippe. “Natacha : Groom de l’air.” La Crypte tonique nov/déc 2012: 28-34. Print.[1]
Peyo’s Gang
Peyo, Franquin, Will, Tillieux and Roba, the creative nucleus of the magazine Spirou, were buddies. Stuck at their drawing tables for long days, they occasionally needed to get together and often went out as a gang. However, Gos specifies: “But it was their… they were friends amongst themselves, as for us, we were a generation below, hey!”. There were drinking parties that sometimes made Mondays a difficult day for the team. According to Gos,
François [Walthéry] understood psychology better than I did, he had said to me “For God’s sake! Don’t come and show your drawings on Mondays, he may have partied hard on the Saturday and still be headachy, it’s not the right time to show him what we’ve done! I never show him anything on Mondays, I show him on Tuesdays or Wednesdays.” François, he’s a “clever peasant” as Peyo used to say.
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Tags: Étienne Borgers, bande dessinée, Belgium, Bernard Hislaire, Darasse, Dino Attanasio, Franco-Belgian Comics, Frank Pé, Franquin, Gender, Gos, MAD Magazine, Mittéï, Natacha, Peyo, Renoy, Roba, Spirou, Thierry Martens, Tillieux, Translations, Vicq, Walthéry, Wasterlain, Will, Women, Yvan Delporte
by Sarah McNicol
Comics are, of course, found in many cultures, from Japanese manga and Chinese manhua to South and Central American historietas, and Filipino komiks that draw on traditional folklore as well as elements of mainstream US comics. Moreover, it has been argued that comic books “have always been attuned to the experiences of immigrant Others” (Davis-McElligatt, 2010: 137). Graphic narratives have long played a crucial role in representing and constructing immigrant subjects and the immigrant experience. Today, several of the most widely known graphic novels address issues of migration including Chris Ware’s (2001) Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth and Shaun Tan’s wordless graphic novel (2007) The Arrival. The latter is often said to depict a universal story of migration, telling “not an immigrant’s story, but the immigrant’s story” (Yang, 2007). Nevertheless, it is explicitly the story of a man’s migration as he leaves his wife and daughter behind to make a better life in a new land. At the end of his struggles, the man reunites with his family who, it would appear, settle seamlessly into their new life without experiencing any of the hardships he has endured. Discussing literature more broadly, Pavlenko (2001: 220) argues, “immigrant women’s stories were continuously ignored by the literary establishment” despite the fact that female migrant life writing often explores different themes from those of traditional male autobiographies.
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Tags: autobiography, Bangladesh, charity projects, digital comics, Gender, graphic lives, migration, UK, Women
