DAY 2/2
by Eva Van de Wiele and Dona Pursall
Gert Meesters chaired Panel 4: A Space for Girls. Early research into the relationship between comics and their readers was central to Sylvain Lesage’s presentation. Through a study of reader correspondences he analysed the reception of and discourse provoked by the comics strip “Corinne et Jeannot” in the communist comics magazine for children Pif Gadget (1969- 1993/2004-2009). The serial performance of Jeannot, a boy in love being pranked by Corinne, the girl he adores, sparked a feedback loop between publishers, creators and readers and was also referred to within the comic. The curiosity of the readers’ letters is their desire to negotiate the morality of a fictional character, to communicate ideologies such as the extent of acceptable meanness for girls and suitable levels of temperance and kindness. It speaks to readers’ genuine investment in these comics, showing that fictional characters in humour strips are subject to such socially normative constraints. Aswathy Senan’s research on the childhood of Malayalis considered the extent to which the context of publication shapes the comics themselves. This notion was explored through a comparison of the comics strip “Bobanum Moliyum” as published in the women’s magazine Malayala Manorama and in Kalakaumudi, a literary magazine. Whilst the characters and the concept of their strip remained constant, the humour, the interests and the agency of the characters adapted to the flavour of the different magazines.
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Tags: A Man Among Ye, abjection, affect, Ana Caspão, autobiography, autographics, Belit, blackness, Bobanum Moliyum, body, Charlotte Solomon, children readers, choice, civil rights, comics, coming of age, Corinne et Jeannot, creative practice, culpability, diary, education, feedback loop, female influence, female superheroes, Feminist Cultural Studies, friendships, Fundo do nada, gender roles, genre, girlhood, gothic motifs, graphic narratives, grotesque, heteronormative-queer dynamic, horror, humour, identity, individuality, isolation, Jackie Ormes, Kalakaumudi, Lynda Barry, Malayala Manorama, Martha Newbigging, memory, Misty, monstrosity, morality, narrative, origin stories, Paddy Jo, Pif Gadget, polyvocal identities, possession, power, prejudice, reader response, readers’ letters, representation, restrictions, segregation, self-sacrifice, Skim, social interactions, socially normative constraints, songplays, Spellbound, superheroine, teenage culture, trauma, Valeria, women’s magazines, Wonder Woman, WWII
Attracting Mature Readers[1]
By Peter W. Y. Lee
Among the 1954 Comics Magazine Association of America’s Comic Code’s many regulations was a directive to company admen: “Liquor and tobacco advertising is not acceptable” (Nyberg 168). The ubiquity of alcohol in mainstream media certainly concerned social guardians in post-war America (Rotskoff). However, liquor manufacturers did not solicit to minors in the comics, but another demographic group: their parents.
The first part of my article looked at how Lev Gleason Publications responded to the public alarm over comic books. Gleason and his chief editor, Charles Biro, pushed comics as a progressive medium with educational and artistic merit. This second part explores their second strategy: courting adults. Gleason hoped that an expanded readership would bolster support and offset rising production costs. However, critics rejected comic books’ potential beyond that of disposable children’s entertainment. The Comics Code sanitised comic books and stigmatised readers beyond middle-school age.
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Tags: Abraham Lincoln, adult readership, Alan Valentine, Amazing Adult Fantasy, anticrime comic magazines, Association of Comic Magazine Publishers, Atlas, Boy Comics, Charles Biro, comics code, comics industry, crime comic books, Crime Does Not Pay, Dell Comics, economics, education, educational comics, Frederic Wertham, Fredric Wertham, Great Depression, Henry E. Schultz, History, juvenile delinquency, Lev Gleason, Lev Gleason Publications, mature readers, Mortimer Smith, pre-code, sexual imagery, social progressivism, St. John Publishing, superheroes, USA, violence, WWII
by Philippe Capart
Translated by Annick Pellegrin
Edited by Lise Tannahill
Original publication: Capart, Philippe. “La Culture de la bande dessinée, une culture physique ? MUSCUDERZO !” TONIQUE avril 2017. Print.[1]
A School for Unlearning
Bande dessinée gives one the impression of reading without thinking. Like a laxative that transforms the literate person into a savage and the illiterate person into a criminal. After the industrial and methodical pulverisation of millions of people—World War II—Western educators, be they Communist, secular or Christian, agreed on the source of juvenile delinquency: THE ILLUSTRATED PRESS FOR CHILDREN.[2] They worked hand in hand, fighting to control, restrain or ban the series of little figures on paper. For many of those literate men and women, only single-panel illustrations, the statue-like figure firmly attached to its textual pedestal allowed one to preserve the model, the exemplary and the ideal. But a sequence of images was the victory of the trivial over the sacred. Thus, in their eyes, bande dessinée became a manual leading the pseudo-reader to mimic a series of figures. When they were noble actions, no problem, but when they were burlesque exaggerations, violent actions, sex, they were veritable manuals for troublemaking, guides to lust and crime.
“En ce temps, la bédé était un divertissement pour minus !” [At the time, comics were a form of entertainment for wimps!] Morris[3]
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Tags: Albert Uderzo, Asterix, bande dessinée, Body-building, Franco-Belgian Comics, Goscinny, Negative Perceptions of Comics, Physical Culture, Translations, WWII
A Deceptive Crusade In Flanders Fields – Part 3/3[1]
by Danny de Laet
Translated by Lise Tannahill
Edited by Annick Pellegrin
Original publication: de Laet, Danny. « La BD flamande sous l’occupation : Entre croix gammée et croisade faussée. » La Crypte tonique septembre – octobre 2013: 35-44. Print.[2]
Lots of young people got their break with Henri Winkeler, who was already interested in animated cartoons before the war, so much so that he wanted to create a studio, funded by Wilfried Bouchery (who, after the war, would produce Claude Misonne’s animated version of Hergé’s Tintin adventure The Crab With The Golden Claws). To achieve this, he hired several students from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp: Bob de Moor, Ray Goossens, Jules Luyckx, Marcel Colbrandt and a few others including Jef Nys. This greatly displeased their tutor, Baron Opsomer, who threatened to expel them. Only Nys, after working on Smidje Smee for three days, would return to the fold.
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Tags: beeldverhaal, Belgium, Flanders, Flemish comics, German occupation of Belgium, Germany, Nazi occupation of Belgium, Translations, WWII
A Deceptive Crusade In Flanders Fields – Part 2/3[1]
by Danny de Laet
Translated by Lise Tannahill
Edited by Annick Pellegrin
Original publication: de Laet, Danny. « La BD flamande sous l’occupation : Entre croix gammée et croisade faussée. » La Crypte tonique septembre – octobre 2013: 35-44. Print.[2]
How Did The Situation Evolve?
The situation evolved in two ways. Firstly—as noted—with the disappearance of some existing media and then the emergence of replacement media, combined with the (political) evolution of those pre-invasion publications that remained. For some illustrators this meant certain promotion and considerable financial gain; for others, more cautious or politically opposed, it meant putting their careers on ice. Two young artists made the most of this new situation, by hook or by crook: DeBudt and Vandersteen.
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Tags: beeldverhaal, Belgium, Flanders, Flemish comics, German occupation of Belgium, Germany, Nazi occupation of Belgium, Translations, WWII
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