Week Nine: European Comics

From Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis

This week we are considering other traditions of the comics, especially the work of European artists.  The American magazine, Heavy Metal, was instrumental in bringing a number of European artists, especially fantasy illustrators, to the attention of the American audience. These artists had a great influence on the development of graphic science fiction and fantasy worldwide which has been especially apparent in movies. 

The autobiographical genre of comics has also been strongly pursued by a number of contemporary European cartoonists. On the syllabus listing for this week and the course resource pages you will find a wide range of works that encompass a number of genres.  Some stories are personal, some stories are in classic genre like westerns or sci-fi.  Most are in the long form of European comics called the "album," a cardboard bound book. 

While occasionally suppressed for political or religious reasons, the comics as a medium in Europe generally shared the same distribution system as typical books or magazines. Graphic storytelling assumed an audience that included adults. This meant that European comics always had modes of storytelling that included serious subjects and works that received serious consideration by critics and readers.

Persepolis, by Marjane Satrapi is a must read for anyone interested in the Graphic Novel.  If you haven't read it before you might want to read it now.  And if you didn't read any TinTin before now, please read some this week, he is the fundamental figure in Franco-Belgian Comics. 

But European Comics (Bandes Dessinées) are especially effective in genre graphic narratives like adventure stories, westerns, science fiction, fantasy, noir, erotic comics and satire.  In part, because storytelling for adults through comics was able to develop more directly in main stream publishin and distribution in Europe.

Among the artists and works you should consider reading this week are anything by Moebius, perhaps the most influential artist in post-war European comics; the Nikopol Trilogy by Enki Bilal; Ranxerox by Tambourini and Liberatore (very adult content warning on this work); any Asterix album, some of the adventure tales of Hugo Pratt and Milo Manera; the erotically charged narratives of Crepax; and some of the Space Operas of Barbarella or Valerian & Laureline.  There is a fullsome set of resources for you to read and some background videos to watch and enjoy on this week's Activity Page.

Here is a link to a new archive of Heavy Metal magazine on the internet.

For a more complete list of alternate readings and resources for this week look at this week's Activity Page.