For example I am just the right age to remember when the Tim Burton movie caused an avalanche of Batman out of thin air. The first time the 60s series aired in Germany was just weeks later. From then on everyone knew Batman, but comic books had very little to do with it directly.
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Thanks. We can definitely agree that the art you posted in the original post is gorgeous, and maybe a starting point for more exploration into the Franco-Belgian tradition.
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I’ll have to look into it… there are definitely lots of sociologists and historians who have studied fandom, but I don’t know if there has been a transnational/translocal studies of that phenomenon in academia… Many that I can think of tend to be focused on specific national contexts rather than looking across national boundaries. The Culture Cold War stuff I’ve read over the years tends to be focused on either high culture, academic culture, or popular music culture. But I’ll see what I can dig up on the transnational history of comics…
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So this might answer our questions…
https://press.pace.edu/the-journal-of-comics-and-culture/
The most recent issue seems to have an article about US and Franco-Belgian comic markets!!! Let me see if I can get access to it via my library…
OH! And I found this page in my googlings!!!
Okay… made a couple of ILL requests for two articles on both American comics in France and French comics in the US… Probably take a couple of days, so I’ll let you all know what I dig up on this history.
ETA: updating this since we have the rule where we can only post 2 in a row… it was not until the 1980s, that DC started looking to Europe (specifically, the UK) for talent… at least according to Neil Gaiman in this ask on his tumblr:
I “landed something with DC” by making things I liked, and showing them to DC when they came to the UK on a talent scouting expedition, which got me a foot in the door. I was working on an independent graphic novel called Violent Cases at the time, with Dave McKean. And then giving them an outline for Black Orchid after meeting them before they went back to the US.
So it shows that the key American comic producers probably weren’t thinking of an international audience until that time… come to think of it, that’s around the same time you start to see greater access to international TV via satelite dishes… seems like I have book on Egyptian media that discusses th shift to satellite TV that happened during the 1980s… Can’t remember the name off the top of my head, though… here it is… of course it was Lila Abu-Lughod!
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I’ll add my 2c to the discussion on European and American comics.
In terms of origin, Tintin predates both Superman and Batman by about ten years. Spirou and other Franco-Belgian classics originated about the same time as Superman and Batman.
Globally, these days I am sure that American comics, especially Marvel obviously, are more well known. In terms of influence, as far as influence on other comic artists goes, the merit of American vs European comics is probably debatable. The typical American Superhero comics are quite a closed ecosystem within America in terms of character design and storytelling.
Because of the more varied types of characters, art styles and stories, I would argue that Franco-Belgian comics have probably been more of an influence on other comic artists globally.
For German speaking countries and I guess Europe in general, Marvel, DC and other Superhero style comics surely have historically been far less of an influence than Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse. In my childhood in the 80s, everyone and their parents knew Donald and Mickey, while the most well-known and „acceptable“ series was the French Asterix. Because of its historical setting, Asterix was regarded as more high brow among conservative parents, superior to the other „Schund“ (shlock).
Personally, I got into comics mainly through Asterix and Lucky Luke as well as Donald Duck and the rather low brow German Fix und Foxi series. Later I expanded my horizon with other Franco-Belgian series, Spirou, Tintin and more lesser known series, and still a bit later to Manga, starting with Akira.
I read the odd Marvel book and I especially appreciated Frank Miller‘s Batman books, but I grew tired of the Superhero format very quickly. I did and do very much appreciate other, non Superhero kind of American series and singular books.
The reciprocal influence of different comic styles from Europe, America and Asia over history on readers and artists would probably be a good subject for an academic work if one doesn’t exist already.
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I remember holidaying in Denmark at about 12 or 13 learning to read and speak some Danish from Donald Duck comics belonging to my host’s youngest children. And Asterix was used in a school library to give French and German exposure (there was one Latin translation). There were also comics brought over (to UK) by exchange students from Spain and France that were exchanged for various UK comics.
But back to the topic, Instagram is a fabulous access to artists and illustrators from around the world (all magnified by lockdowns and online drawing groups). Within the broad theme of art, the only reason I use Instagram, there is great support, communication and resource.
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I already liked your post before the update, but consider it liked again
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Oh yeah, I had overlooked that strand of comic book influence because it wasn’t important for me personally, but the Donald Duck collections in the form of Das Lustige Taschenbuch were probably the most important comic books in Germany at the time.
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Moebius did some Silver Surfer, and that’s Marvel. I didn’t think it was remotely as good as his original work, but he certainly did it.
American comics are popular enough in France, with some shops having separate sections for Bandes Dessinees, Comics and Manga.
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I just bought and read the first volume of Glorious Summers, the series that the second picture is from. The reason I went with that one is that I decided that I was in the mood for something slightly more lighthearted than the one about the stillborn baby, but actually this one turned to be pretty bittersweet. Now I am seriously tempted to buy the rest.
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