History of French comics no laughing matter

History of French comics no laughing matter

By Izabel Deuff

JAKARTA (JP): Foreign comic strips are quite popular here.
Both children and adults enjoy reading them, and it is no secret
that most people prefer foreign comics to local ones.

Three of the favorite comics are from France: Asterix, Lucky
Luke and Tintin (whose hairstyle has become a fashion here).

"As the editor of Pilote, I was able to break the shackles
that have imprisoned comics," said Ren Goscinny, the famous
father of Asterix, summarizing the 1960s liberation of French
comics from censorship and childish pictures.

Pilote was a comic strip magazine which marked a turning point
in comics, to what the French consider art, the history of which
is displayed in an exhibition held at the French Cultural Center,
Jl. Salemba Raya, Central Jakarta, until Oct. 10.

Twenty-four storyboards with texts and illustrations from the
National Center of Comics and Images in France, are displayed in
two rooms. They tell Une histoire de la BD en France (A History
of Comic Strips in France) from their beginnings in the 19th
century to the late 1980s.

Strip cartoons were born in 1833 as an autonomous form of
expression and were the first printed illustrations in books.

The creator of francophone comic strips was Rodolphe Tpffer
(1799-1846), a writer and teacher in Geneva who published seven
albums. Two boards show plates by l'cole du chat noir (The Black
Cat School of Comic Strips). Founded in 1892, this school
introduced satire to comic strips.

From that time on, magazines for children were increasingly
filled with comic strips and within 60 years, comics had vanished
from publications for adults altogether.

Due to the Socit parisienne d'dition (the Parisian
Publishing Society), French comics became solely the domain of
child publications. Each comic strip was dedicated to a
particular type of people: for girls or boys, well-off people or
people from the lower classes and for the religious press and
other denominations.

In 1928, Herg, the creator of Tintin marked a watershed in
the history of French comics because he succeeded in writing long
stories thanks to simple drawings and changes in scenery.

At the end of the 1930s and after the war, the coming of
American comics such as Mickey, Robinson, Tarzan and Mandrake
heralded the birth of the adventure comic strips ranging from
western stories to science fiction adventures.

After the war, the magazine Le coq hardi (The Bold Cock)
displayed popular comic strips relating stories about the French
Resistance or adventures in America such as Vaillant or Le
journal de Pif (Pif's Newspaper).

Comic strips were also politically directed. Both Catholics
and communists had their own publications disseminating their
ideas: Vaillant was a communist publication, whereas Coeurs
vaillants (Valiant Hearts) was part of the large Catholic press.

However, both backed the censorship of comic strips. The 1949
law on youth-directed-publications stipulated that comic strips
should not deal with violence, eroticism or extreme satire.

Later in the 1960s, Goscinny and Jean-Michel Charlier imposed
a new style in several series: Iznogoud, Tanguy et Laverdure or
Lieutenant Blueberry.

Following Goscinny and Charlier's daring example, the movement
bdphile (comic strip mania) installed the modern French comic
strip. It took advantage of the crisis of May 1968 to eradicate
the prejudices and limits laid down by censorship and put an end
to American and Belgian domination.

Pilote illustrated this progress as well as Hara-Kiri, a
satirical magazine by Reiser, Willem and Wolinski. But Mtal
hurlant (Screaming Metal), a magazine launched in 1972, found
unlimited freedom thanks to modern graphics, free speech and
drawings for adults.

The exhibition closes with "alternative Futuropolis", a black
and white magazine which promotes new authors and heralds the
1990s' comic strips.

The exhibition gives visitors some hints about the changes
which have occurred in the comic strip genre. Displaying
sequential stories on several pages, comic strips became more
organized in the 1900s through the child press's vignettes.
Between the two world wars, imitating the American designers,
Alain de St. Ogan, Zig et Puce's designer introduced speech
balloons.

The French comic strip took the form of long stories only in
the 1950s when female figures were still banned.

In 1978, Casterman, Tintin's editor, launched a black-and-
white monthly magazine for adults called A suivre (the French
word for "following"). It displayed Corto Maltese, the famous
hero by Hugo Pratt. Since then, comic strips have been largely
considered like novels and become products in bookshops.

When looking at the boards, people recognize famous
characters. The renowned characters of the French-speaking
comics: Asterix, Tintin,Spirou, Gaston Lagaffe, Lucky Luke, Alix,
Blake et Mortimer were born in the 1950s and the 1960s. All are
part of the French culture and can teach people about French
habits and history.

For instance at the beginning of each Asterix album is the
following sentence: "The whole of France is occupied" referring
to France's situation during the second world war.

Bcassine featuring a naive Breton maid who discovers Paris,
gives visitors a picture of the French Capital at the beginning
of the century as well as an insight into how Parisians viewed
provincial people at that time.

It is interesting to learn about the history of the French
comic, however unfortunately, there is no translation of the text
in the exhibition.

Aji Yahuti Ramyakim, the FCC's public relations officer,
admitted that it would have been better to have an Indonesian
translation of the exhibition but she expected that people would
still be interested in coming because: "Even if people don't
speak French, they like looking at the pictures. Moreover, it
could induce them to read French."