Tightrope Walker During the Occupation – Part 2/4[1]
by Antoine Sausverd
Translated by Annick Pellegrin
Edited by Harriet Earle
Original publication: Sausverd, Antoine. « Les Aventures du professeur Nimbus : Funambule sous l’occupation. » La Crypte tonique septembre – octobre 2013: 13-18. Print.[2]
Daix, Francist Partisan
To add to his money-related dissensions, the artist had political conceptions. One part of his personality did not show in the drawings that he created for the general press: his ferocious political engagement. Indeed, the artist became a member of the French fascist movement, Francism, shortly after its creation, in September 1933, and he remained a faithful partisan throughout the 1930s and 1940s.
Close to both Mussolini’s Italian fascism and Hitler’s national-socialism, Francism was led by the charismatic Marcel Bucard, a former ultranationalist fighter. His theses were radical: the party attacked Freemasons, Jews (starting from 1936), and Léon Blum, before going after all the capitalists of the US. He is also a self-declared opponent to the parliamentary regime and of the “front socialo-communiste” [social-communist front]. But on the political playground, Francism was mostly isolated and did not have much weight.
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Tags: bande dessinée, Belgium, Franco-Belgian Comics, La Crypte Tonique, newspaper strips, Translations, WWII
Tightrope Walker During the Occupation – Part 1/4
by Antoine Sausverd
Translated by Annick Pellegrin
Edited by Harriet Earle
Original publication: Sausverd, Antoine. « Les Aventures du professeur Nimbus : Funambule sous l’occupation. » La Crypte tonique septembre – octobre 2013: 12-18. Print.[1]
Before World War II broke out, in France Les Aventures du professeur Nimbus were one of the most popular bandes dessinées of the 1930s. The gags of this strip feature an always elegant, glassed scientist, whose distinguishing feature is his sole hair, raised as question mark on his bald head. His absent-mindedness, which is nowadays legendary, was the source of many misadventures that made many readers laugh.
The history of bande dessinée would retain that it was the first French mute newspaper strip. It also marks one of its darkest moments. The German occupation that followed the defeat of 1940 would reshuffle the cards of the game in which professeur Nimbus was at stake. Broadly speaking, we know our history but today, it is possible, thanks to the various sources kept in the national archives,[2] to bring to light the then tumultuous relationships between the different actors at the origins of Les Aventures du professeur Nimbus: the press agency Opera Mundi, the artist André Daix and Le Journal, the first daily to welcome the strip in its pages.
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Tags: bande dessinée, Belgium, Franco-Belgian Comics, La Crypte Tonique, newspaper strips, Translations, WWII
Small Detour in the Country of the Bleeding Sun
by Christian Heymans
Translated by Annick Pellegrin
Original publication: Heymans, Christian. “Go Nagai Go !! : Petit détour au pays du soleil sanglant.” La Crypte tonique jan-fév 2012: 10-11. Print.[1]
The 60s in Japan were marked by outstanding economic growth. The country that had been vanquished and wrecked, practically wiped out in 1945, was recovering, driven by the willpower of the Japanese people to rebuild. In 1968, Japan became the second world power; people started talking about the Japanese economic miracle, also known as the Izanagi boom.[2] The standard of living rose rapidly and the rural exodus turned the lives of Japanese people upside-down. Televisions appeared in homes and while Tokyo was preparing to host the Olympics in 1964, Osaka was preparing to host the 1970 World Exposition.
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Tags: Japanese manga, La Crypte Tonique, manga, manga studies, Nagai Gō, Translations
by Philippe Capart
Translated by Annick Pellegrin
Original publication: Capart, Philippe. “École de Marcinelle.” Capart, Philippe. “École de Marcinelle.” La Crypte tonique nov/déc 2012: 21-27. Print.[1]
In 1998, I was thousands of kilometres away from Belgium, poring over a light table in an animation studio under the Californian sun. I had brought with me issues of the magazine Spirou from the late 50s. The magazine contained in its pages some of the most beautiful creations by Franquin, Morris, Tillieux, Roba, Peyo, Jijé. I was trying to share my enthusiasm for these works with my US colleagues. Flipping through the pages of one issue, one of them had this naively violent reaction: ‘Did the same artist illustrate the whole issue?’. Appalled, I went through the magazine with him, trying to explain the profound originality of the authors of my childhood… only to gradually perceive, insidiously, the accuracy of his remark. The noses, the eyes, the ears, the attitudes, the mouths, the speech bubbles, the lettering, the framing, the colours all plotted to reinforce this appearance of uniformity. I was discovering the automatic graphic processes scattered in the pages of the magazine Spirou and that swarmed and gratified us with the famous ‘école de Marcinelle’ (Marcinelle School).[2]
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Tags: bande dessinée, Belgium, Comics Forum 2016, Franco-Belgian Comics, La Crypte Tonique, Marcinelle School, Translations
The comic market in the Western world today is heterogeneous and complex. However, I suggest it can be divided into three main segments, or groups of readers (see also the American market commentaries Alexander 2014, Alverson 2013): the first segment are manga fans, many of which also like anime and other kinds of Japanese pop culture. The second segment are comic fans in a narrower sense, who, at least in America, read mostly superhero comic books, and other comics from the genres of science fiction and fantasy. These are the ‘fanboys and true believers’ that Matthew J. Pustz writes about in his book Comic Book Culture (Pustz 1999). Finally, the third segment is the general public. These readers are not fans, but only casual readers of comics – mostly so-called “graphic novels”, newspaper strips and collections thereof, and the occasional bestseller such as the latest Asterix album.
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Tags: Akira, Albin Michel, Archie, autobiography, Barefoot Gen, Bleach, censorship, Comics Buyer's Guide, Der Spiegel, Dragon Ball, economics, fandom, Fantasy Advertiser, First Comics, First Publishing, Frank Miller, Frederick Schodt, gekiga, Graphic Novels, Gōseki Kojima, I Saw It, Ittō Ogami, Japan, Japan Inc., Japanese manga, Katsuhiro Otomo, Kazuo Koike, Keiji Nakazawa, Kozure Ōkami, Lone Wolf and Cub, Lynn Varley, Macao, Mai the Psychic Girl, manga, Manga Nihon Keizai Nyūmon, Martin Skidmore, Matthew J. Pustz, medieval comics, Naruto, Negative Perceptions of Comics, Norman Rentrop, One Piece, Peter Odrich, Rraah!, Sailor Moon, Sexual Violence, Shōtarō Ishinomori, superheroes, Superman, The Legend of Kamui, Translations, University of California Press, USA, Weekly Manga Action
Comics Forum 