A few weeks before its 50th anniversary edition, from January 26 to 29, the Angoulême International Comics Festival is shaken by a lively controversy.
The programming of the exhibition
In the eyes of Bastien Vivès,
planned at the paper museum
,
does not pass.
Since its announcement, at the end of November, threats and abusive messages reflect the anger and the indignation of the detractors of the author of
Polina
and Une
Soeur
, taxing his work of child pornography.
“Bastien Vivès continues to be seen and treated in the media as a turbulent and talented teenager.
Whereas it is a reaction of 40 freelancers, certain works of which participate actively and in broad daylight in the trivialization of pedophilia and the culture of rape”;
an author
"smelling of incest and child pornography"
relays
Liberation
in an article of December 9.
In addition to the agitation of social networks, two petitions demand the deprogramming of the retrospective.
One is launched by students from art schools in Angoulême, believing that the work of the designer presents
"openly child pornography works".
A second is orchestrated by Arnaud Gallais, co-founder of the Prévenir et Protéger collective and of the #BeBraveFrance movement, denouncing "
the trivialization and apology of incest and pedocrime organized by the cartoonist of comics Bastien Vivès through his works and his dangerous words
”, bringing together nearly 82,000 signatures to date.
An action supported by the director of
Chatouilles,
Andrea Bescond, on her Instagram account.
“I don't care that this guy has the right to make his filthy comics (I'm not for banning it).
We can just ask that the main comic book festival avoid putting it forward
, ”said feminist activist Caroline de Haas on Twitter.
Jean-Marc Rochette (Grand Prix RTL de la BD 2022) came to the defense of Bastien Vivès on Facebook, believing, for his part, that the author is nailed “in the pillory
without any other form of trial”
.
“In the context of #MeToo, when the world of comics is already struggling to question itself, what message does this exhibition give about our environment? “,
also wonders on Instagram the designer from the independent scene Jérôme Dubois (
Citéville, Your eyes have seen...
).
Excerpts from interviews and drawings from the comics of Bastien Vivès are unearthed to support their accusations.
Like the designer said in an interview with the women's magazine
Madmoizelle:
“
Incest excites me to death.
Not the real life one, but the narrated one, I think it's great.
All of that stuff makes for amazing stories.
When you transgress, when you do something you have no right to do, it's nice to read.
Faced with these numerous accusations, Bastien Vivès filed a handrail.
“I have plenty of room to file a complaint.
I am encouraged to do so but I am not very procedural
, ”he told Le
Parisien
on Monday.
An approach that he illustrated on his Instagram account, in a series of drawings featuring him facing the policeman who questions him: "I
have been a comic book author for more than fifteen years, four years ago I released an album that caused controversy and since then I have suffered harassment on the networks (...).
They try to demonstrate by all means that I am a pedophile, by isolating quotes in interviews or on social networks, by making dishonest proofreadings of my works.
It started as a conspiracy theory
,” he wrote.
The work in question is called
Petit Paul
.
Released in 2018, the album opens the new pornographic collection of Glénat editions, PORN'POP.
Two days after its publication, a petition was circulating demanding the withdrawal from the market of the work described as child pornography.
“Presented by its author as a humorous book, but intended to be exciting because it is based on his fantasies, Petit Paul shows the adventures of a ten-year-old child with a huge penis that the women around him will use willy-nilly.
We therefore question the relevance of publishing such a book.
We want this book to be withdrawn from the market and for Glénat to apologize, or at least pay more attention to the content of what they publish.
, then demanded the anonymous DGREENE, launching hostilities.
Read also Taxed child pornography, Bastien Vivès' comic book Petit Paul removed from the shelves
At the time, Bastien Vivès assumed this unbridled imagination:
“It's a comic strip that talks about ass in an uninhibited way.
It's clearly for adults and it's under seal.
We are more in fantasy than in reality.
(…) My thing for me is rather big breasts, not children… This book is like a big joke, to make people laugh.
Certainly not an apology for pedophilia”
, he then declared to the
Parisian
.
“To represent something is not to glorify it
, defended the author to our colleagues from Le
Monde
on Monday.
I think we can represent everything, it depends on how we do it.
I can laugh at a subject without praising it.
I bring especially to reflect on the fantasies.
»
The announcement of an exhibition in Angoulême, at the end of November, therefore revived the indignation of the detractors of Bastien Vivès.
If the mystery persists around what will be presented there during its retrospective in Angoulême, the festival hopes, on its official site, to
"appeal to the sensitive part of each one by intensifying the feeling of closeness between the artist and the visitor "
.