History of French comics no laughing matter<\/p>\n
By Izabel Deuff<\/p>\n
JAKARTA (JP): Foreign comic strips are quite popular here.
\nBoth children and adults enjoy reading them, and it is no secret
\nthat most people prefer foreign comics to local ones.<\/p>\n
Three of the favorite comics are from France: Asterix, Lucky
\nLuke and Tintin (whose hairstyle has become a fashion here).<\/p>\n
\"As the editor of Pilote, I was able to break the shackles
\nthat have imprisoned comics,\" said Ren Goscinny, the famous
\nfather of Asterix, summarizing the 1960s liberation of French
\ncomics from censorship and childish pictures.<\/p>\n
Pilote was a comic strip magazine which marked a turning point
\nin comics, to what the French consider art, the history of which
\nis displayed in an exhibition held at the French Cultural Center,
\nJl. Salemba Raya, Central Jakarta, until Oct. 10.<\/p>\n
Twenty-four storyboards with texts and illustrations from the
\nNational Center of Comics and Images in France, are displayed in
\ntwo rooms. They tell Une histoire de la BD en France (A History
\nof Comic Strips in France) from their beginnings in the 19th
\ncentury to the late 1980s.<\/p>\n
Strip cartoons were born in 1833 as an autonomous form of
\nexpression and were the first printed illustrations in books.<\/p>\n
The creator of francophone comic strips was Rodolphe Tpffer
\n(1799-1846), a writer and teacher in Geneva who published seven
\nalbums. Two boards show plates by l'cole du chat noir (The Black
\nCat School of Comic Strips). Founded in 1892, this school
\nintroduced satire to comic strips.<\/p>\n
From that time on, magazines for children were increasingly
\nfilled with comic strips and within 60 years, comics had vanished
\nfrom publications for adults altogether.<\/p>\n
Due to the Socit parisienne d'dition (the Parisian
\nPublishing Society), French comics became solely the domain of
\nchild publications. Each comic strip was dedicated to a
\nparticular type of people: for girls or boys, well-off people or
\npeople from the lower classes and for the religious press and
\nother denominations.<\/p>\n
In 1928, Herg, the creator of Tintin marked a watershed in
\nthe history of French comics because he succeeded in writing long
\nstories thanks to simple drawings and changes in scenery.<\/p>\n
At the end of the 1930s and after the war, the coming of
\nAmerican comics such as Mickey, Robinson, Tarzan and Mandrake
\nheralded the birth of the adventure comic strips ranging from
\nwestern stories to science fiction adventures.<\/p>\n
After the war, the magazine Le coq hardi (The Bold Cock)
\ndisplayed popular comic strips relating stories about the French
\nResistance or adventures in America such as Vaillant or Le
\njournal de Pif (Pif's Newspaper).<\/p>\n
Comic strips were also politically directed. Both Catholics
\nand communists had their own publications disseminating their
\nideas: Vaillant was a communist publication, whereas Coeurs
\nvaillants (Valiant Hearts) was part of the large Catholic press.<\/p>\n
However, both backed the censorship of comic strips. The 1949
\nlaw on youth-directed-publications stipulated that comic strips
\nshould not deal with violence, eroticism or extreme satire.<\/p>\n
Later in the 1960s, Goscinny and Jean-Michel Charlier imposed
\na new style in several series: Iznogoud, Tanguy et Laverdure or
\nLieutenant Blueberry.<\/p>\n
Following Goscinny and Charlier's daring example, the movement
\nbdphile (comic strip mania) installed the modern French comic
\nstrip. It took advantage of the crisis of May 1968 to eradicate
\nthe prejudices and limits laid down by censorship and put an end
\nto American and Belgian domination.<\/p>\n
Pilote illustrated this progress as well as Hara-Kiri, a
\nsatirical magazine by Reiser, Willem and Wolinski. But Mtal
\nhurlant (Screaming Metal), a magazine launched in 1972, found
\nunlimited freedom thanks to modern graphics, free speech and
\ndrawings for adults.<\/p>\n
The exhibition closes with \"alternative Futuropolis\", a black
\nand white magazine which promotes new authors and heralds the
\n1990s' comic strips.<\/p>\n
The exhibition gives visitors some hints about the changes
\nwhich have occurred in the comic strip genre. Displaying
\nsequential stories on several pages, comic strips became more
\norganized in the 1900s through the child press's vignettes.
\nBetween the two world wars, imitating the American designers,
\nAlain de St. Ogan, Zig et Puce's designer introduced speech
\nballoons.<\/p>\n
The French comic strip took the form of long stories only in
\nthe 1950s when female figures were still banned.<\/p>\n
In 1978, Casterman, Tintin's editor, launched a black-and-
\nwhite monthly magazine for adults called A suivre (the French
\nword for \"following\"). It displayed Corto Maltese, the famous
\nhero by Hugo Pratt. Since then, comic strips have been largely
\nconsidered like novels and become products in bookshops.<\/p>\n
When looking at the boards, people recognize famous
\ncharacters. The renowned characters of the French-speaking
\ncomics: Asterix, Tintin,Spirou, Gaston Lagaffe, Lucky Luke, Alix,
\nBlake et Mortimer were born in the 1950s and the 1960s. All are
\npart of the French culture and can teach people about French
\nhabits and history.<\/p>\n
For instance at the beginning of each Asterix album is the
\nfollowing sentence: \"The whole of France is occupied\" referring
\nto France's situation during the second world war.<\/p>\n
Bcassine featuring a naive Breton maid who discovers Paris,
\ngives visitors a picture of the French Capital at the beginning
\nof the century as well as an insight into how Parisians viewed
\nprovincial people at that time.<\/p>\n
It is interesting to learn about the history of the French
\ncomic, however unfortunately, there is no translation of the text
\nin the exhibition.<\/p>\n
Aji Yahuti Ramyakim, the FCC's public relations officer,
\nadmitted that it would have been better to have an Indonesian
\ntranslation of the exhibition but she expected that people would
\nstill be interested in coming because: \"Even if people don't
\nspeak French, they like looking at the pictures. Moreover, it
\ncould induce them to read French.\"<\/p>",
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