While for a week, the little Landerneau of comics has been burning with impatience to be able to debate the Bastien Vivès affair, one of the participants, the screenwriter Benoît Peeters, has canceled his participation in the debate "Sexuality and comics: can do we draw everything?”
programmed at Espace Franquin.
Read alsoBastien Vivès case in Angoulême, many want debate, but not participate
It is the general delegate of the Festival of Angoulême Franck Bondoux who replaces at short notice Peeters, biographer of Hergé, who recently entered the College de France.
This round table organized, under the pressure of the Bastien Vivès affair and the violent divisions that are fracturing the middle of French comics, intends to lay the foundations for a debate contextualized by the history of the 9th art in connection with the freedom of 'expression.
A debate on "sexuality and comics" where "
There are too many blows to take
"
“We asked several participants, who declined the invitation considering the subject too sensitive,
declared in the preamble the moderator of this round table, journalist Romain Brethes.
There are too many blows to take
”
, is the expression that came up very often.”
The meeting was therefore made around courageous speakers: the designer Coco, the writer, journalist and publisher Bernard Joubert and Franck Bondoux.
Asked Thursday about the Bastien Vivès affair, the Minister of Culture Rima Abdul Malak, visiting the Angoulême Festival, said:
“Things took place at such a rapid pace that this debate, in the end, did not could stand
.
I would have liked it to take place more here, at the festival”.
Finally, it takes place today against all odds
.
In December, the organization of the festival had chosen to cancel the Carte blanche exhibition “In the eyes of Bastien Vivès”, because of the new bronca launched on social networks.
Three of his books, which mix minors and pornography, have earned him the charge of "paedocriminal".
Part of the comics community had not digested either that a tribute was offered to a young artist who had once been very virulent against an author, Emma.
Read alsoA very manga 50th Angoulême Comics Festival
Justice was also seized at the end of December by two associations accusing Bastien Vivès and his publishers of "
dissemination of child pornography images",
although in 2019 a first complaint for these same facts had been dismissed.
The round table debaters began by returning to the Festival's “heavy decision” to cancel this exhibition.
"You should know that Bastien Vivès has received numerous death threats,
" said Franck Bondoux
.
This is personally unacceptable.
I ask you all to imagine what it can be like to receive such hate messages on your smartphone.
Messages like: We're going to kill you and your little family!
»
The organization of the festival justified its decision to cancel the exhibition by insisting that it had to take these insults and death threats on social networks seriously.
"Because it led de facto to dramatic consequences in reality
," continued the general delegate of the event.
Without forgetting the potential public order disorders if we maintain this exhibition at all costs.
The festival also deplored above all "
the lack of dialogue around this affair
".
“If I am here today,
declared the cartoonist Coco,
it is because I find that this famous “Vivès affair” as you call it, goes far beyond her personal case.
This freedom of expression, which allows us to draw everything, must be defended.
Artists are sometimes led to draw on death, on children or on sexuality.
These are not easy topics to discuss.
But you have to be free to give your point of view.
»
“If I am here today,
declared the cartoonist Coco,
it is because I find that this famous “Vivès affair” as you call it, goes far beyond her personal case.
» DR
According to the writer and specialist Bernard Joubert,
"about fifteen Grand Prix d'Angoulême have drawn child pornography scenes in their albums."
A little red book sold under the cloak
On the sidelines of this official debate, a little red book with a fairly virulent humor is circulating secretly in the aisles of the festival.
Entitled
The reasons for anger,
stamped with the logo "Parental Advisory Explicit content", this ten-centimetre book containing around twenty illustrated, sulphurous and parodic pages, returns in its own way to the "Bastien Vivès affair".
The essential Didier Pasamonik, editorial director of the ActuaBD site has his opinion on this hoax.
“It seems that this very
“
itchy
” pirate production
is of Belgian origin,
he notes with a smile.
A great classic!”
Here is the cover of "The reasons for anger", this pirate booklet which circulates under the coat in the alleys of the "bubbles" of the Angoulême festival.
Olivier Delcroix
A fine connoisseur of the mysteries of the festival, he analyzes not without a touch of irony this "pseudo-fire" which openly calls for
"the establishment of a vigilance committee"
.
"It's obviously 24th degree,
" he said.
The booklet publishes some of the main figures of the alternative comics scene, the spearhead of radical feminism.
It hijacks the slogans of the most relentless defenders of feminism.
»
Here is the inside of the parody work “The reasons for anger” which is sold on the sly at the Festival.
Olivier Delcroix
Inside this little notebook, with furiously parodic content, we find diverted drawings by certain signatories of the petition put online by Mediapart who castigate Bastien Vivès.
“And others still, non-signatories,
continues Pasamonik,
like the Grand Prix last year Julie Doucet, a great figure in Anglo-Saxon underground comics, and four big names in the 9th art like Robert Crumb, Marjane Satrapi, Dominique Goblet or Blutch.”
The mirroring of cartoon drawings with feminist slogans creates friction, sometimes causing gnashing of teeth, sometimes a wry smile.
Olivier Delcroix
The little Landerneau from the comic strip thus seems to have made his own antibodies against this Angoumois mutant virus: “Acute Bastien Vivesitis”.
This book, even if it remains quite anecdotal, proves that the debate continues to heat the spirits among the authors present in Angoulême this year.
Even if the festival-goers of Angoulême, the general public and the children, pay absolutely no attention to it.
The 6 Voyages of Philippe Druillet
“
Basically, it's the best exhibition we've seen this year!
exclaimed a group of visitors as they left the museum
.
Olivier Delcroix
Everyone prefers to take advantage of the many retrospectives that celebrate comics in all their creativity.
The 6 Voyages of Philippe Druillet
recalls, at the Angoulême Museum, the graphic, baroque and Lovecraftian genius of the author of
Salammbô
.
Filmed partly in his studio, the last giant of the 9th art appears at 78 years old as the “Pierre Soulages of comics”.
Philippe Druillet's cathedral boards tell his science fiction stories (conceived in the 1960s) as if they were ancient epics.
Olivier Delcroix
The compact crowd of visitors discovers with amazement the work in "large eagle format" of the plates of Druillet.
Cathedral pages that tell his science fiction stories (conceived in the 60s) as if they were ancient epics, all inspired by the spiritual gigantism of Gaudi's Sagrada Familia.
“
Basically, it's the best exhibition we've seen this year!
exclaimed a group of visitors as they left the museum
.
Rock!
Pop!
Wizz!
When comics turn up the sound
A guitar representing Jimi Hendrix welcomes visitors to the
“Rock!
Pop!
Wizz!
When comics turn up the sound”.
Olivier Delcroix
At the Cité, Philippe Druillet, still himself, electrifies the walls with his boards created for Métal Hurlant in 1975, as part of the retrospective
“Rock!
Pop!
Wizz!
When comics turn up the sound”
.
A guitar representing Jimi Hendrix welcomes the visitor.
Comic strips drawn from all generations of designers, from Charles Berberian, to Joe Sacco, via Jean Solé, Luz, Serge Clerc, Denis Sire, or Gotlib illustrate the blood ties between rock and comics.
Olivier Delcroix
Comic strips drawn from all generations of designers, from Charles Berberian, to Joe Sacco, via Jean Solé, Luz, Serge Clerc, Denis Sire, or Gotlib illustrate the blood ties between rock and comics.
A “dance floor” where the drawings come alive to the rhythm of David Bowie, Michael Jackson, Beyoncé, Alpha Blondy or Donna Summer, takes pride of place in the middle of the exhibition.
Obviously Elvis Presley and The Beatles are treated like royalty.
Attack on Titan, the most popular exhibition of the festival
Children and young adults stroll through an impressive scenography restoring the oppressive atmosphere of the saga signed by the mangaka Hajime Isayama, to worldwide success.
Olivier Delcroix
The most popular exhibition of the festival,
Attack on Titan, from shadow to light
, completes the delight of the public.
Children and young adults stroll through an impressive scenography restoring the oppressive atmosphere of the saga signed by the mangaka Hajime Isayama, to worldwide success.
Frightening giant cannibalistic creatures and strikingly realistic scenes of extreme violence, this ambitious retrospective highlights a series mixing West and Far East, from Machiavelli to Sun Tzu.
Olivier Delcroix
Frightening giant cannibalistic creatures and strikingly realistic scenes of extreme violence, this ambitious retrospective highlights a series mixing West and Far East, from Machiavelli to Sun Tzu.
War is obviously omnipresent there, in an imagery that combines medieval chivalry, modern conflicts and uchronic visions.
