The Studio Graton , or Studio Jean Graton is a drawing studio that helped French cartoonist Jean Graton draw various comics series, among them the famous series Michel Vaillant .
164-525: In 1962, Jean Graton hires an assistant, the young Christian Denayer, to help him with the drawing of the sets and cars and the colorization of the Michel Vaillant plates. After eight years of collaboration, Denayer left to work for Tibet and what was already the embryo of the Graton Studio was expanded to include Daniel Bouchez and Christian Lippens. The studio was created by Jean Graton in
328-493: A Germanic ethnic group native to Flanders , Belgium , who speak Flemish Dutch . Flemish people make up the majority of Belgians , at about 60%. Flemish was historically a geographical term, as all inhabitants of the medieval County of Flanders in modern-day Belgium, France and the Netherlands were referred to as "Flemings" irrespective of their ethnicity or language. The contemporary region of Flanders comprises
492-535: A questionable character . Both were, however, already very popular before the war and the hardships of the war period only seemed to increase the demand. This created an opportunity for many young artists to start working in the comics and animation business. At first, authors like Jijé in Spirou and Edgar P. Jacobs in Bravo continued unfinished American stories of Superman and Flash Gordon . Thus, by imitating
656-578: A BD artist and something the de facto inventor of the Franco-Belgian BD, Hergé, has never achieved even once, not even from his own native country Belgium (presumably because of the lingering impressions left by either the criticisms regarding his early Tintin stories, the post-war collaboration allegations, or both and neither of which he had ever managed to fully free himself from in his lifetime). Exemplary of Mœbius' standing in French culture,
820-522: A Dutch-language version as well under the name Robbedoes for the Flemish market. Export to the Netherlands followed a few years later shortly after the war. The magazine was conceived and published by publisher Éditions Dupuis S.A. (as of 1989, simply: Dupuis ), which was established by its founding namesake Jean Dupuis [ fr ] as a printing business in 1898, but changed to being
984-517: A book-like format about half the former size. The albums, usually colored all the way through, are almost always hardcover for the French editions and softcover for the Dutch editions—though the hardcover format has steadily gained ground from the late-1980s onward as customer option alongside the softcover format, contrary to Francophone Europe, where the hardcover format is the norm. When compared to American comic books and trade paperbacks (such as
1148-556: A children's publication – but also because communist members of the commission had issues with the strong anticommunist sentiment expressed in the comic according to writer Charlier. Both volumes remained prohibited in France until 1969, though French fans on holiday in Belgium, Switzerland or Luxembourg could pick up the albums unhindered over there. The law also came in handy to somewhat regulate – though not prohibiting –
1312-483: A few. It was not just the BD scene these new publications and their artists changed, the perception of the medium in French society also changed radically in the 1970s–1980s, in stark contrast to the one it held in the 1940s–1950s. Recognizing that the medium-advanced France's cultural status in the world, the cultural authorities of the nation started to aid the advancement of the medium as a bonafide art form, especially under
1476-416: A group of artists who were as much responsible for its success and then some as it was this group that defined the rejuvenated magazine in the post-war era. Upon war's end three artists from the defunct animation studio CBA were hired by Dupuis as staff artists for Spirou , Eddy Paape (before he switched over to World Press), André Franquin and Maurice "Morris" De Bevere , and it was Morris who created in 1946
1640-944: A long tradition in comics, separate from that of English-language comics. Belgium is a mostly bilingual country, and comics originally in Dutch ( stripverhalen , literally "strip stories", or simply "strips") are culturally a part of the world of bandes dessinées , even if the translation from French to Dutch far outweighs the other direction. Among the most popular bandes dessinées are The Adventures of Tintin (by Hergé ), Spirou and Fantasio ( Franquin et al.), Gaston ( Franquin ), Asterix ( Goscinny & Uderzo ), Lucky Luke ( Morris & Goscinny ), The Smurfs ( Peyo ) and Spike and Suzy ( Willy Vandersteen ). Some highly-regarded realistically drawn and plotted bandes dessinées include Blueberry ( Charlier & Giraud , a.k.a. "Moebius"), Thorgal ( van Hamme & Rosiński ), XIII (van Hamme & Vance ), and
1804-422: A major element for the revolt at Pilote . That changed as well after 1968, when more and more artists decided to ply their trade as free-lancers , the L'Écho des Savanes founders having been early pioneers in that respect, and has as of 2017 become the predominant artist-publisher relationship. While contracts tend to be long-term for specific series at a particular publisher, they no longer prevent artists, like
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#17327877165641968-418: A more traditional style with more text and fewer drawings. This meant that in France, magazines like Pilote and Vaillant (relaunched as Pif gadget in 1969), and Spirou and Tintin for French-speaking Belgium, gained almost the entire market and became the obvious goal for new artists from their respective countries, who took up the styles prevalent in those magazines to break into the business. With
2132-519: A museum in the capital of France, Paris. These politicians did have a point however, as Angoulême is somewhat located off the beaten tourist track, resulting in that the museum only draws in about roughly half the visitor numbers its smaller Belgian counterpart does annually, and most of them visiting the museum during the festival season, whereas the Belgian museum draws in a steady stream of visitors all year round. A further revival and expansion came in
2296-580: A number of mannerist structures, and Willem van den Blocke also has sculpted multiple lavishly decorated epitaphs and tombs in Poland. Flemish people also emigrated at the end of the fifteenth century, when Flemish traders conducted intensive trade with Spain and Portugal , and from there moved to colonies in America and Africa . The newly discovered Azores were populated by 2,000 Flemish people from 1460 onwards, making these volcanic islands known as
2460-471: A number of publishers in place, including Dargaud ( Pilote ), Le Lombard ( Tintin ), and Dupuis ( Spirou ), three of the biggest influences for over 50 years, the market for domestic comics had reached (commercial) maturity. In the following decades, magazines like Spirou , Tintin , Vaillant (relaunched as Pif Gadget in 1969), Pilote , and Heroïc-Albums [ fr ] (the first to feature completed stories in each issue, as opposed to
2624-525: A part of this historical county, as well as parts of the medieval duchy of Brabant and the medieval county of Loon , where the modern national identity and culture gradually formed. The sense of "Flemish" identity increased significantly after the Belgian Revolution . Prior to this, the term " Vlamingen " in the Dutch language was in first place used for the inhabitants of the former County of Flanders. Flemish, however, had been used since
2788-504: A printing and publishing company) had somewhat limited itself as the album publisher of Hergé's Tintin since 1934, slightly expanded upon after the war with a couple of Hergé inspired creations by closely affiliated artists such as Jacques Martin, François Craenhals and the Danish C. & V. Hansen couple. It was with the specific intent to expand beyond the somewhat limited Hergé boundaries with other, more diverse high quality work, that
2952-455: A publishing house in 1922, publishing non-comic books and magazines. Since the launch of Spirou however, Dupuis has increasingly focused on comic productions and is currently, as of 2017, a comics publisher exclusively and one of the two great Belgian Franco-Belgian comic publishing houses still in existence. As post-war exports to France (like in the Netherlands, the magazine was not available in France until 1945-46), Spirou – featuring
3116-638: A result of their deviating from the American 32-page comic book standard. In recent decades the English "graphic novel" expression has increasingly been adopted in Europe as well in the wake of the works of Will Eisner and Art Spiegelman , but with the specific intent to discriminate between comics intended for a younger and/or general readership, and publications which are more likely to feature mature content, literary subject matter or experimental styles. As
3280-638: A result, European BD scholars have retroactively identified the 1962 Barbarella comic by Jean-Claude Forest (for its theme) and the first 1967 Corto Maltese adventure Una ballata del mare salato ( A Ballad of the Salt Sea ) by Hugo Pratt (for both art, and story style) in particular, as the comics up for consideration as the first European "graphic novels". During the 19th century, there were many artists in Europe drawing cartoons, occasionally even utilizing sequential multi-panel narration, albeit mostly with clarifying captions and dialogue placed under
3444-411: A short time thereafter, transforming the magazine into a purely French one. However, while the magazine was now targeted at an older adolescent readership with stories featuring more mature themes, Goscinny stopped short of letting the magazine become a truly adult magazine. Yet, the magazine was unable to regain the dominant position it had held in the previous one-and-a-half decade, due to the flooding of
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#17327877165643608-403: A single so-called "hero" in sight anywhere in his series. To hammer home the point, both artists had their medieval knights , around whom both narratives were centered, die violent deaths nowhere near the fulfillment of their respective quests, thereby reinforcing the futility of such endeavors. With such series driving home the point that real history is made by mere humans and not "super-humans",
3772-419: A very prolific comic script writer, becoming his trademark henceforth, Charlier also became an editorial driving force and spokesperson for the agency, because of his background in law and his assertive personality. As such, he was responsible for introducing the two Frenchmen René Goscinny (who also starting out his comics career at the agency) and former Bravo artist Albert Uderzo to each other in 1951 at
3936-422: A younger, post-war generation of French BD artists like Yves Chaland , Édika and Philippe Foerster [ fr ] debuted, whereas veterans like Gotlib and Franquin found a home for their later, darker and more cynical work. A major player in the field became French publisher and newcomer Glénat Éditions (founded in 1972, and who actually started out publishing graphic novels directly as albums before
4100-405: Is currently also a prolific publisher of children's books. Yet, it remained French publications and French artists who would continue to dominate the field from the late-1970s onward to this day, with such (sometimes short-lived) magazines as Bananas , Virus , Mormoil , the feminist Ah ! Nana [ fr ] , Casablanca and Fluide Glacial . It were in these such magazines that
4264-800: Is primarily based on the Hollandic dialect (spoken in the northwestern Netherlands) and to a lesser extent on Brabantic, which is the most dominant Dutch dialect of the Southern Netherlands and Flanders . Approximately 75% of the Flemish people are by baptism assumed Roman Catholic , though a still diminishing minority of less than 8% attends Mass on a regular basis and nearly half of the inhabitants of Flanders are agnostic or atheist . A 2006 inquiry in Flanders showed 55% chose to call themselves religious and 36% believe that God created
4428-443: Is the majority language in Belgium, being spoken natively by three-fifths of the population. Its various dialects contain a number of lexical and a few grammatical features which distinguish them from the standard language. As in the Netherlands, the pronunciation of Standard Dutch is affected by the native dialect of the speaker. At the same time East Flemish forms a continuum with both Brabantic and West Flemish . Standard Dutch
4592-425: Is why they are nowadays sub-categorized as Flemish comics , as their evolution started to take a different path from the late 1940s onward, due to cultural differences stemming from the increasing cultural self-awareness of the Flemish people. And while French-language publications are habitually translated into Dutch, Flemish publications are less commonly translated into French, for cultural reasons. Likewise, despite
4756-470: The Journal de Mickey , a weekly 8-page early "comic-book". The success was immediate, and soon other publishers started publishing periodicals with American series, which enjoyed considerable popularity in both France and Belgium. This continued during the remainder of the decade, with hundreds of magazines publishing mostly imported material. The most important ones in France were Robinson , Hurrah , and
4920-698: The Fleurus presse [ fr ] (on behalf of the Action catholique des enfants [ fr ] a.k.a. Cœurs Vaillants et Âmes Vaillantes de France) publications Cœurs Vaillants ("Valiant Hearts", 1929, for adolescent boys), Âmes vaillantes [ fr ] ("Valiant Souls", 1937, for adolescent girls) and Fripounet et Marisette [ fr ] (1945, for pre-adolescents), while Belgian examples included Wrill and Bravo . Coeurs Vaillants started to publish The Adventures of Tintin in syndication from 1930 onward, constituting one of
5084-629: The German-speaking Community of Belgium lies within the territory of the Walloon Region , so that French is the most utilized (second) language in that area and has caused the handful of BD artists originating from there, such as Hermann and Didier Comès , to create their BDs in French. Born Dieter Hermann Comès, Comès actually "Frenchified" his given name to this end, whereas Hermann has dispensed with his (Germanic) family name "Huppen" for his BD credits, though he maintained
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5248-576: The Netherlands , but are still host to people of Flemish descent and some continued use of Flemish Dutch. Namely, these are Zeelandic Flanders and the Arrondissement of Dunkirk (historically known as French Westhoek ). The people of North Brabant also share related ancestry. There were migrations of Flemish people to medieval and early modern Poland. The Flemming noble family of Flemish origin first settled in Pomerania and modern Poland in
5412-568: The Western comic series Jerry Spring , that started its run in Spirou in March 1954. Jijé incidentally, had magazine tenure, but closely cooperated with the World Press artists before embarking on his own creation. Successful series Charlier himself created in this period were the educational short series Les Belles Histoires de l'oncle Paul (serving as proving ground in order to develop
5576-404: The below-mentioned Frenchman Claude Moliterni [ fr ] , the article series was in itself an example of a Franco-Belgian BD project. The publication of Francis Lacassin 's book Pour un neuvième art : la bande dessinée in 1971 further established the term. In North America , Franco-Belgian BDs are often seen as equivalent to what are known as graphic novels — most likely
5740-535: The seal of Philip d'Alsace , count of Flanders of 1162. As of that date the use of the Flemish coat of arms ( or a lion rampant sable ) remained in use throughout the reigns of the d'Alsace, Flanders (2nd) and Dampierre dynasties of counts . The motto "Vlaanderen de Leeuw" (Flanders the lion) was allegedly present on the arms of Pieter de Coninck at the Battle of the Golden Spurs on July 11, 1302. After
5904-552: The standard) or, to a lesser degree, 62 pages (discounting the two disclaimer, and title pages) for print and binding technical reasons as printers traditionally printed eight double-sided pages on one sheet of print paper, though albums with a larger page count—provided the total page count is a multiple of eight—are not that uncommon, the graphic novel album publications of À Suivre publisher Casterman in particular. Flemish people Flemish people or Flemings ( Dutch : Vlamingen [ˈvlaːmɪŋə(n)] ) are
6068-519: The " Asterix " series as an almost instantaneous success. The audience radicalized at a faster pace than the editors, however, which had trouble keeping up. The French satire magazine Hara-Kiri was launched, also aimed at an adult audience. In the 1960s, most of the French Catholic magazines, such as the Fleurus publications, waned in popularity, as they were "re-christianized" and went to
6232-548: The "Flemish Islands". For instance, the city of Horta derives its name from Flemish explorer Josse van Huerter . Prior to the 1600s, there were several substantial waves of Flemish migration to the United Kingdom . The first wave fled to England in the early 12th century, escaping damages from a storm across the coast of Flanders, where they were largely resettled in Pembrokeshire by Henry I . They changed
6396-431: The 'cultural extremes' of both Northern and Southern culture. Alongside this overarching political and social affiliation, there also exists a strong tendency towards regionalism , in which individuals greatly identify themselves culturally through their native province , city, region or dialect they speak. Flemings speak Dutch (specifically its southern variant , which is often colloquially called ' Flemish '). It
6560-537: The (early) creations of Belgian greats like Morris , Franquin and Jijé – became a significant inspiration for future French bande dessinée greats such as Jean "Mœbius" Giraud and Jean-Claude Mézières , eventually setting them off on their comic careers, but who were schoolboys at the time they became acquainted with the magazine. When Germany invaded France and Belgium, it became close to impossible to import American comics . The occupying Nazis banned American animated movies and comics they deemed to be of
6724-483: The 13th century with the village of Buk becoming the first estate of the family in the region. The family reached high-ranking political and military posts in Poland in the 18th century, and Polish Princess Izabela Czartoryska and statesman Adam Jerzy Czartoryski were their descendants. There are several preserved historical residences of the family in Poland. Flemish architects Anthonis van Obbergen and Willem van den Blocke migrated to Poland, where they designed
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6888-557: The 14th century to refer to the language and dialects of both the peoples of Flanders and the Duchy of Brabant . In 1830, the southern provinces of the United Netherlands proclaimed their independence. French-dialect speaking population, as well as the administration and elites, feared the loss of their status and autonomy under Dutch rule while the rapid industrialization in the south highlighted economic differences between
7052-618: The 1870s, when Saint Boniface proved a popular destination for work in local flour mills, brick yards and railway yards. Similarly, Flemish were drawn to smaller villages in Manitoba , where jobs in farming were available. In the early 20th century, Flemish settled in significant numbers across Ontario , particularly attracted by the tobacco-growing industry, in the towns of Chatham , Leamington , Tillsonburg , Wallaceburg , Simcoe , Sarnia and Port Hope . The original County of Flanders encompassed areas which today belong to France and
7216-452: The 1968 revolt in the editorial offices, but he now found himself suddenly confronted with the magazine hemorrhaging its most promising BD talents and diminishing sales. The magazine was eventually turned into a monthly magazine, its artists who had not yet left given more creative freedoms and the Belgian influence terminated definitively with the departure of co-editor Charlier in 1972 and the last Belgian artists Hubinon and Jijé following suit
7380-477: The 1979 Angoulême comics festival with its most prestigious award), along with the magazines they created their work for. It has been observed that, unlike the Belgian publications, these mostly secular native magazines were largely left alone by the Commission de Surveillance, save for one notable exception; Pierre Mouchot, creator and editor of American inspired comic magazines in the immediate post-war era,
7544-805: The 1990s with several small independent publishers emerging, such as L'Association (established in 1990), Le Dernier Cri , Amok , Fréon (the latter two later merging into Frémok ), and Ego comme X . Known as "la nouvelle bande dessinée" (similar to the North American alternative comics ), these books are often more artistic, graphically and narratively, than the usual products of the big companies. Dupuy and Berberian , Lewis Trondheim , Joann Sfar , Marjane Satrapi ( Persepolis ), Christophe Blain , Stéphane Blanquet , Edmond Baudoin , David B , and Emmanuel Larcenet all started their careers with these publishers, and would later gain fame with comics such as Donjon (Trondheim & Sfar), Isaac
7708-528: The 20 December 2006 - 19 February 2007 Hergé exposition in the even more prestigious Centre Georges Pompidou modern art museum (likewise located in Paris and incidentally one of President Mitterrand's below-mentioned "Great Works") on the occasion of the centenary of that artist's birth. Giraud's funeral services in March 2012 was attended by a representative of the French nation in the person of Minister of Culture Frédéric Mitterrand , who also spoke on behalf of
7872-526: The 76,000 copy circulation of Tintin , and it was but one of the many American comics published in France in the immediate post-war era. It was the very reason for the unlikely French Catholic-Communist alliance in this regard, and a very effective one at that as American comics all but disappeared from the French comic scene for the time being, the Le Journal de Mickey excepted, which only reappeared three years later in former occupied western Europe. It
8036-575: The American ones in particular (even though they were not mentioned by name in the law), and in this the French law actually foreshadowed the 1954 publication of the comic condemning treatise Seduction of the Innocent by Fredric Wertham in the United States itself. But there was an equally important, but unofficial, reason for the law as well; American comics were doing so well in post-liberation France, that native comic magazines, particularly
8200-471: The Catholic Church, in the form of its then powerful and influential Union des œuvres ouvrières catholiques de France [ fr ] , was creating and distributing "healthy and correct" magazines for children. In the early 1900s, the first popular French comics appeared. Two of the most prominent comics include Bécassine and Les Pieds Nickelés . In the 1920s, after the end of
8364-503: The Catholic ones, became threatened in their very existence, and the law therefore became concurrently a veiled market protection mechanism . An added sense of urgency was, besides the huge popularity the American magazines enjoyed among France's youth, that the native publications had at that time a distinct disadvantage over their American counterparts as the country still experienced a serious post-war paper shortage (reflected as such in
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#17327877165648528-496: The Franco-Belgian BD with the Japanese manga format (see below ). But it is however Jean "Mœbius" Giraud, coined "the most influential bandes dessinées artist after Hergé" by several academic BD scholars , who is considered the premier French standard bearer of "Le Neuvième Art", as he has received two different civilian knighthoods with a posthumous rank elevation of his Arts and Letters knighthood to boot, an unicum for
8692-623: The Franco-Belgian historical BD had come a long way since their first romanticized and/or idealized appearances in the 1940s–1970s, particularly in Tintin and Pilote as portrayed by such artists as the Fred Funcken [ fr ] ( Le Chevalier blanc , Harald le Viking , Lieutenant Burton ), William Vance ( Howard Flynn , Rodric , Ramiro ), François Craenhals ( Chevalier Ardent ) or Victor Hubinon ( Barbe Rouge ), to name but
8856-471: The French counterparts of the slightly earlier American underground comix , also conceived and popularized as a result of the counterculture of the 1960s , of which the French May 1968 events were only a part. But unlike their American counterparts, the French magazines were mainstream from the start when they eventually burst onto the scene in the early 1970s, as publications of this kind could not escape
9020-502: The French language's cultural status. Belgium is officially a trilingual country as there is a German-speaking Community of Belgium . Belgian BD home market first print releases, be it in Dutch or in French, are rarely translated into that language with German-speaking Belgians having to wait for internationally released editions for reading in their native tongue, typically those from licensed publishers stemming from neighboring Germany . Though Dutch and German both are Germanic languages,
9184-405: The French to exercise self-censorship. Having already embarked on their divergent evolutionary path, Flemish comics escaped this kind of scrutiny, as they were at the time rarely, if at all, translated into French. In 1959, the influential French weekly Pilote launched, already from the start an attempt to be a more mature alternative to Spirou and Pilote , aimed at a teenage audience, with
9348-531: The French-language BDs extends beyond Francophone Europe, as France in particular has strong historical and cultural ties with several Francophone overseas territories. Of these territories it is Quebec , Canada , where Franco-Belgian BDs are doing best, due – aside from the fact that it has the largest BD reading Francophone population outside Europe – to that province's close historical and cultural ties with France from colonization , in
9512-484: The Frenchman Rob-Vel (and thus another early cross-fertilization example) and who served as the mascot and namesake for the new magazine, and Tif et Tondu created by Belgian artist Fernand Dineur . Both series would survive the war and achieve considerable popularity after the war, albeit under the aegis of other artists (see below). Published in a bi-lingual country, Spirou simultaneously appeared in
9676-573: The Germanic spelling for his first name. Due to its relative modesty, both in size and in scope, and despite the close historical and cultural ties, no German-Belgian artists are as of 2018 known to have created BDs specifically for the German comics world, when discounting commercial translations of their original Francophone creations. A similar situation exists in France, which has several regional languages , of which Breton and Occitan are two of
9840-611: The Pirate (Blain), Professeur Bell (Sfar). Léo Quievreux , a key artist in the 1990s scene, founded and ran his own publication house, Gotoproduction, which he ran along with Jean Kristau and Anne-Fred Maurer from 1991 to 2000 or 2001, and which published over 60 books. Before the Second World War, comics were almost exclusively published in tabloid newspapers . Since 1945, the " comic album " (or " comics album ", in French " album BD " for short) format gained popularity,
10004-528: The Wind , seven volumes, set in 18th-century seafaring and slave trading Europe, becoming one of the first BD series to deal realistically in considerable detail with the dark slavery chapter in human history) and Les Compagnons du crépuscule (1983–1989, Companions of the Dusk , three volumes, set in 13th-century Europe and published by Casterman incidentally). Both series made short work of any romantic notion about
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#173278771656410168-553: The Youth") and passed in response to the post-liberation influx of American comics, was invoked as late as 1969 to prohibit the comic magazine Fantask [ fr ] —which featured translated versions of Marvel Comics stories — after seven issues. The formal and official justification for the law was the legislative desire to protect the youth of France from the perfidious and corruptive influence perceived to permeate foreign comics, especially in regard to violence and sexuality,
10332-518: The acquisition of Flanders by the Burgundian dukes the lion was only used in escutcheons. It was only after the creation of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands that the coat of arms (surmounted by a chief bearing the Royal Arms of the Netherlands ) once again became the official symbol of the new province East Flanders . The first sizeable wave of Flemish migration to Canada occurred in
10496-619: The advent of Pilote magazine and more specifically the May 1968 social upheaval . Legally, the Commission had no punitive powers, only advisory ones, but in practice Charlier begged to differ. The all powerful Commission, shielded by the Justice Ministry (which was the punitive authority, but who took any and all Commission recommendations at face value, no questions asked), convened on a weekly basis, sifting through publications and weeding out those they felt subject to prohibition under
10660-561: The area during this era, who would lay their cloths out in the sun to bleach them. These waves of settlement are also evidenced by the common surnames Fleming , Flemings, Flemming and Flemmings. In the United States , the cities of De Pere and Green Bay in Wisconsin attracted many Flemish and Walloon immigrants during the 19th century. The small town of Belgique was settled almost entirely by Flemish immigrants, although
10824-617: The arts ) as "Le Neuvième Art" ("the 9th art"), aside from becoming accepted as a mature part of French culture by Francophone society at large (in France and French-speaking Belgium it is as common to encounter grownup people reading BDs in public places, such as cafe terraces or public transportation, as it is people reading books, newspapers or magazines). Since then more than one BD artist have received " Ordre des Arts et des Lettres " civilian knighthoods, and these were not restricted to French nationals alone, as Japanese artist Jiro Taniguchi has also received one in 2011 for his efforts to merge
10988-478: The availability in France of Belgian magazines like Spirou (which actually came close to prohibition however, as the Korean War stories were serialized in the magazine, but which was narrowly averted at the eleventh hour by Charlier) and Tintin in favor of the native Catholic magazines, after the conservatives had reasserted their political predominance in the country during the 1950s. Rigorously enforced by
11152-408: The below-mentioned François Bourgeon and Hermann Huppen, to create other BDs for other publishers, sometimes even suspending a series for the one in favor of a series for the other. The advent of the new adult magazines had a profound effect on France's hitherto most influential BD magazine Pilote . Editor-in-chief Goscinny had at first refused to implement the changes demanded by its artists during
11316-413: The comic became successful in Tintin magazine in the period 1958–1962 (and thus, alongside Martin's The Adventures of Alix , one of the first purely French comics to appear in the Belgian magazine), effectively becoming the "spiritual father" of their later Asterix creation. But it were not just the artists contracted by World Press who infused Spirou with its new elan, Dupuis itself had contracted
11480-535: The comic magazine Vaillant (not to be confused with the two near-similarly named Fleurus publications) was launched in 1945 upon war's end. The secular magazine provided a platform for predominantly native comic talent born between the 1920s and the 1940s, not able or willing to work for the Catholic magazines, to showcase their work. French names of note who started out their career in the magazine were among others Nikita Mandryka , Paul Gillon , Jean-Claude Forest and Marcel Gotlib , and were less beholden to what
11644-754: The creation of the de jure social, political and linguistic equality of Dutch from the end of the 19th century. After the Hundred Years War many Flemings migrated to the Azores . By 1490 there were 2,000 Flemings living in the Azores. Willem van der Haegen was the original sea captain who brought settlers from Flanders to the Azores. Today many Azoreans trace their genealogy from present day Flanders. Many of their customs and traditions are distinctively Flemish in nature such as windmills used for grain, São Jorge cheese and several religious events such as
11808-458: The creations of Hermann . In Europe, French is spoken natively not only in France and the city state of Monaco , but also by significant portions of the population of Belgium , Luxembourg and Switzerland . The shared language creates an artistic and commercial market where national identity is often blurred, and one of the main rationales for the conception of the (English) "Franco-Belgian comics" expression itself. The potential appeal of
11972-504: The culture and accent in south Pembrokeshire to such an extent, that it led to the area receiving the name Little England beyond Wales . Haverfordwest and Tenby consequently grew as important settlements for the Flemish settlers. In the 14th century, encouraged by King Edward III and perhaps in part due to his marriage to Philippa of Hainault , another wave of migration to England occurred when skilled cloth weavers from Flanders were granted permission to settle there and contribute to
12136-484: The earliest known French-Belgian comic world cross-fertilizations, only reinforced when Abbot Courtois, editor-in-chief of Coeurs Vaillants , asked Hergé to create a series about real children with a real family as opposed to Tintin ' s ambiguous age and family (and thus more in line with the Catholic norms and values on which the magazine was founded), which resulted in the 1936 comic The Adventures of Jo, Zette and Jocko . Incidentally, as Hergé created his comics in
12300-473: The earliest. Following suit was Métal Hurlant (vol. 1: December 1974 – July 1987 from also new French publisher Les Humanoïdes Associés , founded by likewise Pilote defectors, Druillet , Jean-Pierre Dionnet and Mœbius ) with the far-reaching science fiction and fantasy of Mœbius, Druillet, and Bilal . Its translated counterpart made an impact in America as Heavy Metal . This trend continued during
12464-553: The episodic approach of other magazines) would dominate the market. At this time, the French creations had already gained fame throughout Europe, and many countries had started importing the comics in addition to—or as substitute for—their own productions. The aftermath of the May 1968 social upheaval brought many mature – as in aimed at an adult readership – BD magazines, something that had not been seen previously and virtually all of them of purely French origin, which
12628-417: The era under the shadow of the all-present Catholic publications to fill the void left by the banned American comics such as Les Grandes Séries Internationales , Cricri Journal , Mireille , Ouest-Magazine , Nano et Nanette , Héros du Far West , Frimousse , Cocorico and Allez-France , all of which filled with work from French artists, now forgotten save Marijac himself (who was honored for his efforts at
12792-422: The faith) such as Jijé (whose early realistic works were deeply steeped in the faith), or had, like Hergé did, strong ties with the as "healthy" considered scouting movement – a significant presence in Belgian society at the time, which also explains the contemporary popularity of Charlier's La patrouille des Castor series in Belgium, which was centered around a scouting chapter – and were thus, to use
12956-460: The few exceptions. It was (À Suivre) that popularized the concept of the graphic novel – in French abbreviated as "Roman BD", "roman" being the translation for "novel" – as a longer, more adult, more literate and artistic BD in Europe. Unlike its Dupuis counterpart, and while their BD catalog has expanded considerably since then, Casterman has never evolved into a purely BD publisher by completely abandoning its book publishing roots, as it
13120-459: The first world war, the French artist Alain Saint-Ogan started out as a professional cartoonist, creating the successful series Zig et Puce in 1925. Saint-Ogan was one of the first French-speaking artists to fully utilize techniques popularized and formularized in the United States, such as Speech balloons , even though the text comic format would remain the predominant native format for
13284-437: The formal status (when discounting the manga, which has achieved a near-similar status in native Japan), with its resultant strong backing from cultural authorities. A visible manifestation of the latter has become the prestigious " Centre belge de la Bande dessinée " (Dutch: "Belgisch Centrum voor het Beeldverhaal", English: "Belgian Comic Strip Center") established in 1989 in the Belgian capital Brussels , and which, as one of
13448-403: The former French resistance, although most were released soon afterwards without charges being pressed. For example, this happened to one of the famous magazines, Coeurs Vaillants . It was founded by Abbot Courtois (under the alias Jacques Coeur) in 1929. As he had the backing of the church, he managed to publish the magazine throughout the war, and was charged with being a collaborator. After he
13612-479: The government oversight committee Commission de surveillance et de contrôle des publications destinées à l'enfance et à l'adolescence [ fr ] (Committee in Charge of Surveillance and Control over Publications Aimed at Children and Adolescents), particularly in the 1950s and the first half of the 1960s, the law turned out to be a stifling influence on the post-war development of the French comic world until
13776-437: The highest court of appeal (though only receiving symbolic punishment) under article 2 of the 1949 law for real. However, the conviction did serve as an effective deterrent for other native artists – and thus firmly establishing the Commission as a force to be reckoned with, even though they had a tough time becoming so as Mouchot kept winning his lower court cases – who continued to create their comics while erring on
13940-551: The historical town of Angoulême , already the locus of France's biggest annual BD festival since 1974. A major project in the making, involving the renovation of several ancient buildings and the designing of a new one spread over the grounds of the town's former brewery by renowned architect Roland Castro , the museum, Cité internationale de la bande dessinée et de l'image [ fr ] , only opened its doors in June 2009 (though two smaller sub-museums, eventually incorporated in
14104-612: The imperios and the feast of the Cult of the Holy Spirit . Within Belgium, Flemings form a clearly distinguishable group set apart by their language and customs. Various cultural and linguistic customs are similar to those of the Southern part of the Netherlands. Generally, Flemings do not identify themselves as being Dutch and vice versa. There are popular stereotypes in the Netherlands as well as Flanders which are mostly based on
14268-432: The in that year opened Paris, France, office of World Press, in the process creating one of Franco-Belgium's most successful bande dessinée partnerships. One of the first comics both men created together in the employ of the agency was the in colonial French-Canada era set Western series Oumpah-pah , which was already conceived as loose gags in 1951, but failed to find a magazine publisher. Reworked into complete stories,
14432-433: The increasingly popular speech balloon format, it initially led to a conflict with Cœurs Vaillants , which utilized the text comic format its editors considered more appropriate from an educational point-of-view. Hergé won the argument, and speech balloon comics were henceforth featured alongside text comics in the magazine (and that of its spin-offs) until the mid-1960s, when speech balloon comics were all but abandoned by
14596-453: The larger final one, were already open to the public as early as 1991) in the process becoming the largest BD museum in Europe. The museum is administered by the CNBDI, established in 1985 for upcoming museum, but which has since then expanded its work on behalf of the bande dessinée beyond the confines of the museum alone, as already indicated above. On 11 December 2012, one of the buildings on
14760-527: The largest BD museum in Europe, draws in 200,000 visitors annually. The museum is housed in a state-owned 1905 building designed by architect Victor Horta in the Art Nouveau style, the same style French female artist Annie Goetzinger has employed for her BDs. Belgium possesses two other, smaller, museums dedicated to individual BD artists, the Marc Sleen Museum (est. 2009), located across
14924-461: The later American graphic novel format), the European albums are rather large (roughly A4 standard). Comic albums started to receive their own individual ISBNs from the mid-1970s onward all over Europe solidifying their status as books. Conceived as a format as currently understood in Belgium with the first Tintin albums in the early 1930s—incidentally the second reason for considering Tintin
15088-612: The latter in the 1960s) other than the original creators, none of them succeeded to find a readership outside France itself and are consequently remembered in their native country only. One of the earliest proper Belgian comics was Hergé 's The Adventures of Tintin , with the story Tintin in the Land of the Soviets , which was published in Le Petit Vingtième in 1929. It was quite different from future versions of Tintin,
15252-449: The launch of Circus ) with their two main magazine publications Circus (comics) [ fr ] (1975–1989) and Vécu [ fr ] (1985–1994, with emphasis on mature stories of an accurate historical nature), featuring predominantly the work of French BD talents, but who did so with a twist; Glénat targeted their magazines at a readership positioned between the adolescent readership of Pilote , Tintin and Spirou and
15416-412: The law, every decision they took being final, under no obligation to ever provide any formal justification whatsoever and without any possibility for appeal, which amounted to de facto state censorship according to Charlier. Yet, it were also the communists who provided the comic scene in France with a single bright-spot; Having its origins in the communist wartime underground resistance publications,
15580-469: The magazine at a later point in time. Nonetheless, with Lombard Francophone Europe had received its first specialized comics publisher actually conceived as such. Le Lombard went on to become one of the three great Belgian publishing houses to produce comics in French (and in Dutch as well for that matter due to the bi-lingual nature of the country), alongside Dupuis and Casterman, and like them as of 2017 still in existence. Many other magazines did not survive
15744-403: The magazine directly after the liberation, when he started the secular comics magazine Coq hardi [ fr ] (1944–1963), France's first recognizable modern bande dessinée magazine. Marijac himself became a prolific figure of note in the French comic scene of the 1950s as co-editor and contributor for a series of native comic magazines other than his own Coq Hardi , and conceived in
15908-416: The magazine on his most popular creation Gaston in 1957. With the addition of artist Willy "Will" Maltaite , who took over the series Tif et Tondu from original creator Fernand Dineur, the group that became known as " La bande des quatre " (Gang of 4), consisting of Jijé, Franquin, Morris and Will, was complete and constituted the foundation of what was coined the "Marcinelle school"-style. However, such
16072-423: The magazine to break out on their own, after they had staged a revolt in the editorial offices of Dargaud, the publisher of Pilote , during the 1968 upheaval, demanding and ultimately receiving more creative freedom from then editor-in-chief René Goscinny (see also: " Jean "Mœbius" Giraud on his part in the uprising at Pilote "). Essentially, these new magazines along with other contemporaries of their kind, were
16236-449: The magazine — in the process introducing something new in the Belgian comic world: the comic album . The 1930 Tintin au pays des Soviets title is generally considered the first of its kind – even though there are three similar Zig et Puce titles from French publisher Hachette , known to predate the Tintin title by one to two years, but which failed to find an audience outside France however. The magazine continued to do so for
16400-590: The magazine(s), the general trend notwithstanding. In 1938, the Belgian Spirou magazine was launched. Conceived in response to the immense popularity of Journal de Mickey and the success of Tintin in Le Petit Vingtième , the black and white/color hybrid magazine featured predominantly comics from an American origin at the time of its launch until the war years, but there were also native comics included. These concerned Spirou , created by
16564-405: The main market. The situation for France's German-speaking minority is therefore identical to its more sizable counterpart in northern neighbor Belgium in regard to BD-related matters. The term bandes dessinées is derived from the original description of the art form as "drawn strips". It was first introduced in the 1930s, but only became popular in the 1960s, by which time the "BD" abbreviation
16728-512: The market with alternatives. Lagging behind the French for the first time in regard to the more mature BDs, the Belgians made good on their arrear when publisher Casterman launched the magazine ( À Suivre ) ( Wordt Vervolgd for its Dutch-language counterpart, both of which translating into English as "To Be Continued") in October 1977. Until then the old venerable publisher (est. in 1780 as
16892-521: The mature readership of such magazines as (À Suivre) , Métal Hurlant and others. French BD artists of note who were nurtured into greatness in the Glénat publications were among others Mayko and Patrick Cothias , but most conspicuously François Bourgeon and André Juillard . Exemplary of the different, older target audience Glénat was aiming at, became the two finite, historical series Bourgeon created; Les Passagers du vent (1979–2009, The Passengers of
17056-878: The mid 1980s, contributing to several albums. It was made up of various drawers. In the 1990, a new generation of artists came, and the studio was in charge of all the drawings when Jean Graton withdrawn in 2003. It is now led by Philippe Graton, the son of Jean Graton, who has designed the scenarios of the series since the 1994. This Bandes dessinées –related article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Bandes dessin%C3%A9es Bandes dessinées (singular bande dessinée ; literally 'drawn strips'), abbreviated BDs and also referred to as Franco-Belgian comics ( BD franco-belge ), are comics that are usually originally in French and created for readership in France and Belgium . These countries have
17220-423: The modern Franco-Belgian BD format was conceived after all, was somewhat slower in advancing the format as a bonafide art form, but has strongly followed suit in considering the Franco-Belgian BD as a "key aspect of Belgium's cultural heritage". While the expression "the 9th art" has been popularized in other countries as well, Belgium and France remain as of 2017, the only countries where the medium has been accorded
17384-459: The modern Franco-Belgian comic as currently understood, and as amply demonstrated in the vast majority of treatises and reference works written on the subject since the 1960s, and the first to find a readership outside its originating country. As such the Tintin series went on to become one of the greatest post-war successes of the Franco-Belgian comic world, having seen translations in dozens of languages, including English, as well as becoming one of
17548-443: The modern expression, already " politically correct " in the first place, that is from the Belgian perspective at least. However, the incident Charlier had experienced with the Commission shook up the editors of Spirou and Tintin , and as France was a too important market to lose, they too henceforth chose to err on the side of caution by screening the creations of their artists before magazine publication, essentially being forced by
17712-525: The more substantial ones. But while these languages are culturally recognized as regional languages, they are not official national languages, contrary to Belgium in regard to German, with similar consequences as in Belgium for BDs and their artists. Native BDs are rarely, if at all, released in these languages by the main BD publishers, whereas artists stemming from these regions, invariably create their BDs in French – like their German-Belgian counterparts forced to do so in order to gain commercial access to
17876-434: The museum grounds, the futuristic building finished at the end of the 1980s housing the museum and CNBDI administrations, cinema, conference rooms, library and the other facilities for comics studies , was rechristened "Le Vaisseau Mœbius" (English: "The Vessel Mœbius"), in honor of the in that year deceased BD artist. When Lang had presented his plans, he was faced with opposition from some politicians who had rather seen such
18040-410: The nation at the services, and who was incidentally also the nephew of former President of France François Mitterrand , who had personally awarded Giraud with his first civilian knighthood in 1985, thereby becoming one of the first BD artists to be bestowed the honor. Giraud's death was a considerable media event in France, but ample attention was also given to his demise in press releases all around
18204-460: The native comics (aided by the fact that Belgium had not seen the massive influx of American comics in the same measure France had, as Belgium had been predominantly liberated by British and Canadian forces, whose soldiers did not bring along their comics in the same volume the Americans did), whereas the majority of Belgian comics artists were either Catholics themselves (or at least sympathetic to
18368-579: The next two to three decades in France, propagated as such by France's educators. In 1920, the Abbot of Averbode in Belgium started publishing Zonneland , a magazine consisting largely of text with few illustrations, which started printing comics more often in the following years. Even though Les Pieds Nickelés , Bécassine and Zig et Puce managed to survive the war for a little while longer, modernized in all three cases and all of them continued by artists (the most notable one being Belgian Greg for
18532-530: The panels rather than the speech balloons commonly used today. These were humorous short works rarely longer than a single page. In the Francophonie , artists such as Gustave Doré , Nadar , Christophe and Caran d'Ache began to be involved with the medium. In the early decades of the 20th century, comics were not stand-alone publications, but were published in newspapers and weekly or monthly magazines as episodes or gags. Aside from these magazines,
18696-435: The patronage of Minister of Culture Jack Lang , who had formulated his long-term Quinze mesures nouvelles en faveur de la Bande dessinée ( 15 new measures in favor of the BD ) ministry policy plan in 1982, which was updated and reaffirmed by a latter-day successor of Lang in 1997. It was consequently in the 1980s–1990s era that the medium achieved its formal status in France's Classification des arts ( Classifications of
18860-467: The people who worked there were Bob de Moor , Jacques Martin and Roger Leloup , all of whom exhibit the easily recognizable Belgian ligne claire (clean line style), often opposed to the " Marcinelle school "-style (named for the seat of Spirou publisher Dupuis), mostly proposed by authors from Spirou magazine such as Franquin, Peyo and Morris. In 1946, Hergé also founded the weekly Tintin magazine, which quickly gained enormous popularity, like
19024-467: The poor paper quality, relatively low page count and lower circulation numbers of the native magazines of that era), something the higher quality American ones did not suffer from, they receiving preferential treatment under the Marshall Plan . The first targeted American comic for example, Tarzan , enjoyed a weekly circulation of 300,000 copies, twice the one Coeurs Vaillants had and dwarfing
19188-516: The process heavily influencing its own native Quebec comics scene. This is in stark contrast to the English-speaking part of the country, which is culturally American comics oriented. While the originally in Dutch written Flemish Belgian comic books, or rather comic/BD albums (see: below ) are influenced by Francophone BDs, especially in the early years, they evolved into a distinctly different style, both in art and in spirit, which
19352-521: The publisher launched (À Suivre) , which printed BD creations by Ted Benoît , Jacques Tardi , Hugo Pratt , François Schuiten , Paul Teng and many others from French, Italian and/or Dutch origins, but relatively few from Belgian artist as there were not that many active in the adult field at that time, with Schuiten, Didier Comès – as already stated, one of the very few BD artists of German-Belgian descent, alongside Hermann Huppen – and Jean-Claude Servais [ fr ] being three of
19516-410: The relatively few European comics to have seen a major, successful, Hollywood movie adaptation as late as 2011, nearly thirty years after the death of its creator. A further step towards modern comic books happened in 1934 when Hungarian Paul Winkler , who had previously been distributing comics to the monthly magazines via his Opera Mundi bureau, made a deal with King Features Syndicate to create
19680-507: The remainder of his life, creating close to three dozen series, several of them becoming classics of the Franco-Belgian bande dessinée . Spirou magazine became the agency's first and foremost client, and the first post-war decade saw the infusion into the magazine with many new series from young, predominantly Belgian talents like Eddy Paape , Victor Hubinon , Mitacq , Albert Weinberg [ fr ] , instituting an era in which Jijé's career truly took off with his best-known creation,
19844-427: The revolt in the offices of Pilote , artists worked in a studio system, namely a tenured exclusive working relationship at the magazine or publisher, with artists having little to no control over both commercial and creative aspects of their creations – except for a few artists who also held editorial offices at publishing houses such as Goscinny, Charlier and Greg, the former of which incidentally, having also been
20008-412: The scrutiny of the Commission de Surveillance prior to 1968, as editor François Cavanna of the satirical magazine Hara-Kiri (launched in 1960) had experienced several times to his detriment, having had to reinvent his magazine on several occasions. Aside from the creative aspects, the 1960s brought in effect another kind of freedom for French BD artists as well - commercial and financial freedom. Until
20172-625: The secession; the Roman Catholic majority viewed the sovereign, the Protestant William I , with suspicion and were heavily stirred by the Roman Catholic Church which suspected William of wanting to enforce Protestantism . Lastly, Belgian liberals were dissatisfied with William for his allegedly despotic behaviour. Following the revolt, the language reforms of 1823 were the first Dutch laws to be abolished and
20336-456: The second one of the great Franco-Belgian comic classics, Lucky Luke , which made it first appearance in the Almanach appendix issue of 7 December 1946. Franquin was passed the comic Spirou et Fantasio by his mentor Jijé, who himself had taken over the series from original creator Rob-Vel in the war years, and it was Franquin who provided the series with its popularity, before he embarked for
20500-424: The series in question, Bourgeon depicted an historical reality devoid of any so-called "heroes", only featuring common people who were as often victimized as they were heroic, living in a world which was brutally hard while living a live which was therefore all too often very short for the common man, being habitually subjugated to the will of the powerful without any recourse whatsoever to objective justice, especially
20664-466: The seventies, until the original Métal Hurlant folded in the early eighties, living on only in the American edition, which soon had an independent development from its French-language parent. Nonetheless, it were these publications and their artists which are generally credited with the revolutionizing and emancipation of the Franco-Belgian BD world. As indicated, most of these early adult magazines were established by former Pilote BD artists, who had left
20828-554: The shared language, Flemish BDs do not do that well in the Netherlands and vice versa, save for some notable exceptions, such as the Willy Vandersteen creation Suske en Wiske ( Spike and Suzy ) which is popular across the border. Concurrently, the socio-cultural idiosyncrasies contained within many Flemish BDs also means that these comics have seen far less translations into other languages than their French-language counterparts have due to their more universal appeal, and
20992-433: The side of caution for the next decade. It is in this light that some of the other early French contemporary greats, such as Martin, Graton, Uderzo and his writing partner Goscinny opted to start out their careers for Belgian comic publications, neither wanting to submit themselves to the scrutiny of the Commission de Surveillance directly, nor wanting to work for either the Catholic or communist magazines for personal reasons.
21156-435: The situation in Belgium was nowhere near as restrictive as it was in France. Catholics, who were the dominant factor in politics in the country as well at the time, did not have to contend with the negligible influence of the communists, contrary to their French counterparts. There was actually no need perceived for regulating measures in Belgium as American productions, contrary to France, were already supplanted in popularity by
21320-487: The small Belgian animation studio Compagnie Belge d'Animation – CBA), Willy Vandersteen , and the Frenchmen Jacques Martin and Albert Uderzo , who worked for Bravo . A lot of the publishers and artists who had managed to continue working during the occupation were accused of being collaborators and were imprisoned after the liberation by the reinstated national authorities on the insistence of
21484-639: The start of the industry career of the French-Belgian Jean-Michel Charlier , in the process becoming one of its most towering figures. That year and a lawyer by trade, Charlier joined the newly formed comic syndication agency World Press [ fr ] of Georges Troisfontaines , Belgium's answer to King Features Syndicate. Originally hired as an editorial draughtsman, Troisfontaines recognized Charlier's talent for writing and persuaded him to switch from drawing to scripting comics, something Charlier did with great success for
21648-399: The starting point of the modern Franco-Belgian comic, besides the art style and format—albums were usually published as a collected book after a story or a convenient number of short stories had finished their run in serialized magazine (pre-)publication, usually with a one to two year lag. Since the inception of the format, it has been common for these albums to contain either 46 (for decades
21812-594: The street of the Comic Center and dedicated to the work of the namesake Flemish BD creator, and, unsurprisingly, the especially built Musée Hergé (est. 2009) located in Louvain-la-Neuve , its interiors designed by Dutch BD artist Joost Swarte , who had worked in the Hergé tradition. In France, Minister Jack Lang – who hit upon the idea after he had visited the permanent bande dessinée exhibition in
21976-507: The style and flow of those comics, they improved their knowledge of how to make efficient comics. Soon even those homemade versions of American comics had to stop, and the authors had to create their own heroes and stories, giving the new talents a chance to be published. Many of the most famous artists of the Franco-Belgian comics started in this period, including the Belgians André Franquin , Peyo (who started together at
22140-413: The style being very naïve and simple, even childish, compared to the later stories. The early Tintin stories often featured racist and political stereotypes , which caused controversies after the war, and which Hergé later regretted. After Tintin 's early massive success, the magazine decided to release the stories in hardcover book format as well, directly after they had run their respective courses in
22304-433: The subsequent three stories until 1934 when the magazine, as such not particularly well-suited as book publisher, turned album publication over to Belgian specialized book publisher Casterman , who has been the Tintin album publisher ever since. The criticisms regarding the early stories notwithstanding and even though the format still had a long way to go, Tintin is widely considered the starting point and archetype of
22468-595: The subsequent years would see a number of laws restricting the use of the Dutch language. This policy led to the gradual emergence of the Flemish Movement , that was built on earlier anti-French feelings of injustice, as expressed in writings (for example by the late 18th-century writer, Jan Verlooy ) which criticized the Southern Francophile elites. The efforts of this movement during the following 150 years, have to no small extent facilitated
22632-553: The talents and skills of young aspiring artists like Belgians Mitacq, Arthur Piroton [ fr ] , Hermann, Dino Attanasio and the Frenchman Jean Graton among others, several of whom switching over to industry competitor Lombard at a later point in their careers, most notably Hermann), Buck Danny (with Hubinon), La Patrouille des Castors (with Mitacq after his apprenticeship on L'oncle Paul ) and Jean Valhardi (with Paape and Jijé). Aside from being
22796-596: The then booming cloth and woollen industries. These migrants particularly settled in the growing Lancashire and Yorkshire textile towns of Manchester , Bolton , Blackburn , Liversedge , Bury , Halifax and Wakefield . Demand for Flemish weavers in England occurred again in both the 15th and 16th centuries, but this time particularly focused on towns close to the coastline of East Anglia and South East England . Many from this generation of weavers went to Colchester , Sandwich and Braintree . In 1582, it
22960-435: The time of the demise of the animation studio not considered by Dupuis because of his young age. For Spirou Peyo continued with the series Johan et Pirlouit , which he had already started in 1947 for the Belgian newspapers La Dernière Heure and Le Soir . It was this series that in 1957 spawned another of the great Franco-Belgian comic classics, Les Schtroumpfs ( The Smurfs ). With both magazines firmly in place, it
23124-466: The town's art museum in 1982, incidentally inspiring his long-term fifteen points policy plan for the medium that year, which included the establishment of a national BD museum – announced in 1984 the advent of a major national bande dessinée museum as part of President Mitterrand's grand scheme of providing the nation with major public works of a cultural nature (in France coined as Grandes Operations d'Architecture et d'Urbanisme ), to be housed in
23288-477: The two Korean War volumes of the popular aviation comic series Buck Danny , created by Belgians Charlier (who as spokesperson for World Press/ Spirou was actually summoned to appear in person for a board of inquiry at the French Ministry of Information to account for himself) and Hubinon, which were prohibited in 1954 as article 2 expressly forbade any mentioning of an actual, current armed conflict in
23452-480: The two historic eras still lingering in anyone's subconscious because of imagery imbued upon them by 1940s–1960s Hollywood movie productions or Franco-Belgian bandes dessinées as published in Coeurs Vaillants , Tintin or Spirou in the same era for that matter. Renowned for his meticulous research into the subject matter of the BD series he was creating, not seldom taking as long as it took him to create
23616-416: The two. Under French rule (1794–1815), French was enforced as the only official language in public life, resulting in a Francization of the elites and, to a lesser extent, the middle classes. The Dutch king allowed the use of both Dutch and French dialects as administrative languages in the Flemish provinces. He also enacted laws to reestablish Dutch in schools. The language policy was not the only cause of
23780-557: The universe. The official flag and coat of arms of the Flemish Community represents a black lion with red claws and tongue on a yellow field ( or a lion rampant sable armed and langued gules ). A flag with a completely black lion had been in wide use before 1991 when the current version was officially adopted by the Flemish Community. That older flag was at times recognized by government sources (alongside
23944-405: The version with red claws and tongue). Today, only the flag bearing a lion with red claws and tongue is recognized by Belgian law, while the flag with the all-black lion is mostly used by Flemish separatist movements. The Flemish authorities also use two logos of a highly stylized black lion which show the claws and tongue in either red or black. The first documented use of the Flemish lion was on
24108-633: The wake of the events of 1968, their continued legal existence in the fringes does constitute the proverbial " Sword of Damocles " for the French BD world, despite artists, publishers, politicians and academics having questioned the relevance of both manifestations in a modern world in a public debate during a 1999 national conference organized on the subject by the Centre national de la bande dessinée et de l'image [ fr ] (CNBDI), France's largest and most important BD organization. Belgium, where
24272-504: The war: Le Petit Vingtième had disappeared, Le Journal de Mickey only returned in 1952. In the second half of the 1940s many new magazines appeared, although in most cases they only survived for a few weeks or months. The situation stabilized around 1950 with Spirou and the new Tintin magazine (with the team focused around Hergé) as the most influential and successful magazines for the next decade. Yet, 1944 (both France and Belgium were liberated before war's end) had already seen
24436-399: The weekly Spirou appearing in a Dutch version under the name Kuifje for the Flemish and Dutch markets. Notable Belgian comic artists who at a later point in time achieved fame while working for Tintin magazine included among others William Vance , the aforementioned Greg, Tibet and Hermann Huppen . Tintin magazine publisher Les Éditions du Lombard (as of 1989 simply: Le Lombard )
24600-460: The women. Bourgeon however, made his harsh message to his readership palatable by his relatively soft art style and his optimistic view regarding human resilience. No such respite was afforded the reader however with Hermann's 11th-century epos Les Tours de Bois-Maury (1984–1994, The Towers of Bois-Maury ), whose original ten-volume series was serialized in Vécu in the same era Bourgeon's Passagers
24764-455: The world in even as faraway places like Indonesia ( Jakarta Globe , 11 March 2012), a country not particularly known for a thriving comic culture. Yet, and despite the nation having embraced the bande dessinée , it should also be noted that both the law of 1949 and its oversight committee are as of 2017 still in existence, their legitimacy remaining as intact as it was in 1949. And while their impact and influence have significantly diminished in
24928-496: The youth market was partly written by the French Communist Party , a major political force in France directly after the war (because of their highly successful and effective resistance in the war years ), to actually exclude most of the American publications. The law, called " Loi du 16 juillet 1949 sur les publications destinées à la jeunesse [ fr ] " ("Law of July 16th 1949 on Publications Aimed at
25092-650: Was also in use for its book, or album, publications (see below ). Bandes dessinées were described as the "ninth art" in Francophone scholarship on the medium ( le neuvième art ). The "ninth art" designation stems from a 1964 article by Claude Beylie [ fr ] in the magazine Lettres et Médecins , and was subsequently popularized in an article series about the history of comics, which appeared in weekly installments in Spirou magazine from 1964 to 1967. Written by Belgian Morris with editorial input from
25256-555: Was also indicative of France rapidly becoming the preeminent force in the (continental) European BD world, eventually usurping the position the Belgians held until then. L'Écho des Savanes (from new publisher Éditions du Fromage [ fr ] , founded by Pilote defectors Nikita Mandryka, Claire Bretécher and Marcel Gotlib), with Gotlib's pornography watching deities and Bretécher's Les Frustrés ("The Frustrated Ones"), and Le Canard Sauvage ("The Wild Duck/ Mag"), an art-zine featuring music reviews and BDs, were among
25420-494: Was especially founded by Raymond Leblanc for the magazine's launch in conjuncture with Hergé as the latter could not find a publisher due to the fact that he was at that time still under investigation for alleged collaboration. Remarkably, album publications of the creations from the early group of artists centered around Hergé was, then and now, outsourced to longstanding Tintin book publisher Casterman, while Lombard itself only started album publications for those artist who joined
25584-558: Was estimated that there could have been around 1,600 Flemish in Sandwich, today almost half of its total population. London , Norwich and North Walsham , however, were the most popular destinations, and the nickname for Norwich City F.C. fans, Canaries, is derived from the fact that many of the Norfolk weavers kept pet canaries. The town of Whitefield , near Bury, also claims to owe its name to Flemish cloth weavers that settled in
25748-421: Was forced out, his successor Pihan (as Jean Vaillant) took up the publishing, moving the magazine in a more humorous direction. Likewise, Hergé was another artist who also found himself on the receiving end of similar accusations of the former Belgian resistance. He managed to clear his name and went on to create Studio Hergé in 1950, where he acted as a sort of mentor for the assistants that it attracted. Among
25912-514: Was in Circus ; Not only did Hermann's stark and uncompromising art style served to reinforce the grim atmosphere of his medieval settings, any and all redeeming optimistic commentary on human nature was also lacking in his narrative, quite the contrary actually, making his Middle Ages truly the Dark Ages where the vast majority of humanity was living short, violent lives in abject squalor, with not
26076-484: Was not just American productions which were prohibited under the law, several Belgian French-language comic creations of the era also fell victim to the scrutiny of the oversight committee charged with upholding the law for varying reasons, as stipulated in its rather sweeping article 2 (presently article 3), which allowed for almost at will prohibition of comics for reasons that suited the policies of any French government in power at any given time. A famous example concerned
26240-443: Was on recommendation of the Commission persecuted for his likewise American (and Italian) inspired comic series Big Bill le Casseur and P’tit Gars , having to appear in court no less than eight times in the period 1950 - 1954, actually winning most of his cases in the lower courts. While both he and his creations are likewise forgotten, Mouchot became the only French comics artist to be legally persecuted, and ultimately convicted by
26404-413: Was the high-status, high-profile «Mœbius transe forme» exposition the prestigious Parisian Fondation Cartier pour l'Art Contemporain art museum organized from 2 October 2010 – 13 March 2011. As of 2017, it stands out as one of the largest exhibitions ever dedicated to the work of an individual BD artist by an official, state-sanctioned art museum – art as in art with a capital "A" – alongside
26568-404: Was the success of Spirou and Tintin that initiated what many fans and scholars consider the golden age of the (Franco-)Belgian comic. As a result, the American comics didn't come back in as great a volume as before in both Belgium and France after the war, but in the case of France not for want of popularity, quite the contrary actually. In France, a 1949 law about publications intended for
26732-458: Was the success of these artists, that the work of pre-war artists Rob-Vel and Dineur, was eclipsed by that of the younger generation, causing them to slide into oblivion. In 1952, another future great working in the Marcinelle school tradition was added to Spirou , artist Pierre "Peyo" Culliford upon introduction by Franquin. Peyo was actually a former colleague of Franquin at CBA, but was at
26896-455: Was then still the Belgian bande dessinée tradition, other native contemporaries were – in essence ranking among the first native French artists to provide the "Franco" element in what later would become the "Franco-Belgian comics" expression, with comic artist Marijac having been a trailblazer. Marijac actually started out for Coeurs Vaillants in the 1930s, but distanced himself from
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