Reading Bande Dessinee: Critical Approaches to French-language Comic Strip

274 Pages·2008·1.82 MB·English

by  Ann Miller

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Bande dessinée has variously as visual narrative art. How How have different artists subjectivity and the body.
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been considered a danger to can its formal resources figured historical memory What psychic dramas are L
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literacy and morals, and an be analyzed? Can narrative and amnesia in relation enacted within the walls E
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art form worthy of prestigious theories be profitably applied to the Algerian war? And of Moulinsart? How does
national centres in France and to the medium? Why may which artists offer textbook autobiographical work
Belgium. The first section of bande dessinée be described illustrations of the cultural construct a textual self out
this book retraces the history as a postmodernist art form practices that distinguish of both images and words?
of the medium, and sets it in par excellence? prolos, petit bourgeois, And how have female
the context of debates around The third section bobos and the new artists defied dominant
cultural legitimization. takes a cultural studies managerial bourgeoisie? representations of the body?
The second section approach. How does Astérix The final section looks at
focuses on bande dessinée mythologize Frenchness? bande dessinée in relation to
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Dr Ann Miller is a lecturer ‘The work provides both SS
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on bande dessinée, and has as well as a manual for
taken a particular interest
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critical theory.’
independent publishing EE
collectives since the 1990s. – Dr Laurence Grove,
University of Glasgow
intellect / www.intellectbooks.com
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Reading bande dessinée:
Critical Approaches to
French-language Comic Strip
Ann Miller
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Reading bande dessinée:
Critical Approaches to
French-language Comic Strip
Ann Miller
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First Published in the UK in 2007 by
Intellect Books, PO Box 862, Bristol BS99 1DE, UK
First published in the USA in 2007 by
Intellect Books, The University of Chicago Press, 1427 E. 60th Street, Chicago,
IL 60637, USA
Copyright © 2007 Intellect Ltd
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without
written permission.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Cover Design: Gabriel Solomons
Copy Editor: Holly Spradling
Typesetting: Mac Style, Nafferton, E. Yorkshire
ISBN 978-1-84150-177-2/EISBN 978-184150-996-9
Printed and bound by the Gutenberg Press, Malta
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C
ONTENTS
Acknowledgements 7
Introduction 9
PART 1 11
The History of bande dessinée 13
1. From the Nineteenth Century to the 1960s: bande dessinéeBecomes a Children’s
Medium, and then Starts to Grow Up 15
2. The 1970s: Expansion and Experimentation 25
3. The 1980s: Recuperation by the Mainstream 33
4. From the 1990s to the Twenty-First Century: The Return of the Independent Sector 49
PART 2 71
Analytical Frameworks 73
5. The Codes and Formal Resources of bande dessinée 75
6. Narrative Theory and bande dessinée 103
7. Bande dessinéeas PostmodernistArt Form 125
PART 3 147
ACultural Studies Approach to bande dessinée 149
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6 |READING BANDE DESSINÉE
8. National Identity 151
9. Postcolonial Identities 165
10. Social Class and Masculinity 179
PART 4 197
Bande dessinéeand subjectivity 199
11. Psychoanalytic Approaches to Tintin 201
12. Autobiography and Diary Writing in bande dessinée 215
13. Gender and Autobiography 229
Notes 243
Appendix 247
Bibliography 249
Index 265
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A
CKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Iwould like to thank the many friends and colleagues whose interest and encouragement has
helped in the writing of this book. Hugh Starkey introduced me to bande dessinéein the first
place, and has always been a thoughtful interlocutor. I have also benefited from the advice
and critical support of Peter Fawcett, Phil Powrie and Keith Reader. The solidarity and
scholarship of fellow members of the International Bande DessinéeSociety have been much
appreciated, and I am particularly grateful to Teresa Bridgeman, Laurence Grove, Dominique
Le Duc, Wendy Michallat and Murray Pratt. Scholars from North America have widened my
perspective on bande dessinée, and I would like to thank Bart Beaty, Mark McKinney and
ClareTufts for sharing their insights with me. Many thanks too to Vittorio Frigerio, who published
amuchearlier version of parts of Chapter 13 in BelphegorVol. 4 No1,November 2004. Like
all those who work in the field of bande dessinée, I owe a considerable debt of gratitude to
Jan Baetens, Thierry Groensteen, Bruno Lecigne, Pascal Lefèvre and Benoît Peeters, whose
views I hope not to have misrepresented in the following pages. A number of bande dessinée
artists have been generous with their time and their expertise, including Baru, Charles
Berberian, Frank Margerin, Jean-Christophe Menu, Chantal Montellier, Fabrice Neaud and
Tanitoc. Needless to say, none of the above should be held responsible for anything that I have
written.
Iwould also liketo acknowledge the support of colleagues in the School of Modern Languages
at the University of Leicester, and the University itself for the granting of a semester of study
leave. I have, in addition, relied greatly on the unfailing efficiency of the librarians at the
University of Leicester and the Centre Belge de la Bande Dessinée. Sam King at Intellect has
been a great help through the process of producing the manuscript. To Tim and Chris, thanks
for IT back-up and moral support, and to Malcolm for sanity, his own and most of mine. Tintin
and Milou, thanks for sitting on all those first drafts.
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I
NTRODUCTION
This book is for students of French-language comic strip, or bande dessinée, and for more
general readers. It is divided into four sections, which offer four different ways of approaching
the medium, associated with different theoretical perspectives. Frameworks for analysis are
made veryexplicit, and no prior knowledge of terminology is assumed.
The first part offers a historical overview, with the longest and most detailed section being
devoted to contemporary bande dessinée, emphasizing the artistic impact of independent
publishing houses since the 1990s. The historyof the medium is in partthe history of its struggle
for legitimacy,and each chapter includes a section which considers the evolution of the cultural
status of bande dessinéeand of the theoretical approaches applied to it.
The second part offers frameworks within which to analyse the formal features of bande
dessinée. It is based on a case-study approach, so that the terms and concepts introduced in
each chapter are predominantly exemplified from one album, or, in the case of Chapter 7, one
series. Chapter 5 introduces basic terms and concepts of analysis for the study of sequential
visual narration and text-image relations;Chapter 6 draws on narrative theory, and Chapter 7
considers the potential of bande dessinéeas a postmodernist art.
The thirdpart adopts a cultural studies approach to the medium, discussing bande dessinéein
relation to questions of identity. Chapter 8 focuses on national identity, Chapter 9 on
postcolonial identities and Chapter 10on the intersection of class and masculinity. Each chapter
begins by resuming relevant theoretical issues, before offering detailed case studies of a small
number of albums. Readers looking for Astérix in this book will find him in Chapter 8, which
presents a survey of the multiple ways in which the character, and the series, have been taken
to represent Frenchness.
The fourth part considers the representation of subjectivity and the body in bande dessinée.
Readers seeking Tintin will find him in Chapter 11, which offers a critical discussion of the way