Adults and Auteurs

Franco-Belgian Comics: Bande Dessinée

Course 1 · Chapter 6 · Adults and Auteurs: Moebius, Métal hurlant and the 1970s

By the end of the 1960s the readers of Pilote had grown up, and some of its artists wanted to make comics for them. The 1970s saw the founding of magazines for adults, a satirical press with a famous cartoonist roll of honour, and a science-fiction magazine whose images reached Hollywood. This chapter follows that change and shows how the idea of an author, a creator with a personal voice, came to the centre of French-language comics. Names, dates and figures are from general knowledge and flagged "check".

The Satirical Press

Hara-Kiri (1960)

A monthly that called itself journal bête et méchant ("stupid and nasty newspaper"), founded by François Cavanna and Georges Bernier (known as Professeur Choron) with cartoonists including Reiser, Cabu and Wolinski (check). Coarse, irreverent and anti-establishment, it set the tone of French adult cartooning.

Charlie Hebdo (1970)

After Hara-Kiri Hebdo was banned in 1970 for a cover mocking the death of Charles de Gaulle, the team relaunched as Charlie Hebdo (check). It became the best-known satirical weekly in France and a regular source of argument about the limits of satire.

A tragedy

In January 2015 two gunmen attacked the magazine's offices in Paris and killed twelve people, among them several of its cartoonists, including Cabu, Wolinski, Charb and Tignous (check the names and number). The attack, which was an act of terrorism, led to large demonstrations in France and a worldwide debate on free expression.

Leaving Pilote: The New Magazines

Magazine (check each)Note
L'Écho des savanes (1972)Founded by Gotlib, Nikita Mandryka and Claire Bretécher after they left Pilote, as a magazine of humour for adults, with sex, politics and satire of daily life. Bretécher's strip Les Frustrés (1973) in Le Nouvel Observateur satirised Parisian left-wing intellectuals.
Fluide Glacial (1975)Gotlib's second venture with Jacques Diament: a humour magazine of the absurd, with grotesque and parodic series, which has run ever since (check).
Métal hurlant (1975)A science-fiction and fantasy magazine published by the group Les Humanoïdes Associés, founded by Jean Giraud (Moebius), Philippe Druillet, Jean-Pierre Dionnet and Bernard Farkas (check). Large format, full colour, adult themes and richly drawn.
(À suivre) (1978)A monthly from the publisher Casterman for longer serial novels in comic form (check), preparing the ground for the graphic novel (Chapter 7).

Moebius

Two names, one artist Jean Giraud (1938 to 2012) worked in two styles under two names. As "Gir" he drew Blueberry, a realistic western written by Charlier (Chapter 5). As "Moebius" he made dreamlike science fiction in a fine, detailed line, among them the wordless desert fantasy Arzach (from 1975) and The Airtight Garage (check). He later collaborated with the writer Alejandro Jodorowsky on the long space opera L'Incal (1980s, check).
  • The look. Vast landscapes, strange machines, tiny figures, and a free, imaginative use of the page. It was a deliberate break from the tight, plot-driven page of the Belgian weeklies.
  • The influence. His designs were used in films, and critics often cite Métal hurlant as an influence on the look of science-fiction cinema of the late 1970s and 1980s, including Alien and Blade Runner; Giraud worked directly on a number of films (check which, and how much; the influence is argued).
  • The export. An American edition, Heavy Metal, began in 1977 and brought the French artists to a wide English-language audience (check).
  • Other voices. Druillet's operatic Lone Sloane, Mandryka's Le Concombre masqué and many more (check).

The Author Arrives

These magazines shared an idea: the comic creator is an author, with a personal vision, not a craftsman working for an editor. Artists signed their work and kept their characters, and critics started to treat comics seriously. Readers, now adults, bought albums for themselves. The idea has a long reach into the later chapters: the graphic novel (Chapter 7), the independent press, the festival prizes (Chapter 9). It also changed what the content could be: sex, violence, politics and philosophy appeared in comics, and with them arguments about censorship. In France a 1949 law governing publications for young people had long shaped what could be printed for the young, and the adult magazines were partly a way round it (check the law and its effects).

A British comparison The British adult-comics story runs on a different track. 2000 AD (from 1977) brought Judge Dredd and a savage satirical science fiction to a young readership, with Scottish writers and artists prominent among its talent (check), and Alan Moore's work in the 1980s made British writers central to the adult comic. Viz (from 1979 in Newcastle) is the nearest cousin of Hara-Kiri and Fluide Glacial: coarse, absurd and anti-establishment (check). Heavy Metal, the American edition of Métal hurlant, was read in Britain too (check). On satire and its limits, compare German Humour: Does Germany Have a Sense of Humour?, Chapter 9.
Check the details Founders, dates and cover stories are told in several versions, and the film claims about Moebius are often exaggerated; verify them in the artists' own interviews and a standard history. The 2015 attack is a matter of public record, and the names and numbers above should be checked against a news archive. Read the satirists' cartoons in context, since their jokes about religion and politics have been argued over for decades.

Exercises

Exercise 1

Explain why artists left Pilote to found new magazines in the 1970s, and what each of the two main ventures offered that Pilote did not.

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Exercise 2

Critics claim that Métal hurlant influenced Hollywood science fiction. Say what evidence would support the claim and what would weaken it.

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Exercise 3

Describe the French satirical cartoon tradition from Hara-Kiri to Charlie Hebdo, and the arguments about its limits, giving both sides without taking one.

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Quick Reference

  • Satire: Hara-Kiri (1960), Charlie Hebdo (1970); attack on the office, January 2015
  • New magazines: L'Écho des savanes (1972), Fluide Glacial (1975), Métal hurlant (1975), (À suivre) (1978)
  • Moebius (Jean Giraud, 1938 to 2012): Arzach, L'Incal with Jodorowsky; "Gir" for Blueberry
  • Idea: the comic creator as author
  • Export: Heavy Metal (US, 1977)