History and Politics in French-Language Comics and Graphic Novels

CHAPTER FOUR: The Concept of “Patrimoine” in Contemporary Franco-Belgian Comics Production

The Concept of “Patrimoine” in Contemporary Franco-Belgian Comics Production The reeditions of Mattioli, of Forest, of Gébé by L’Association; those of Crumb by Cornélius; those of Breccia by Rackham; those of Alex Barbier by Frémok; reveal to comics its own history, and the respect with which it can and must be treated (and this is to say nothing of our own contribution to “patrimoine” [patrimony]). —Jean-Christophe Menu, Plates-bandes (2005b: 66)1 introduCtion A curious footnote appears in the indicia of the second edition of JeanChristophe Menu’s book Meder (2005a). Alongside a dedication to Paul Carali and Etienne Robial, a note by Menu reads: “The first edition of Meder was published in the‘Gros Nez’collection by Futuropolis (1972–94) in November 1988.” What is to be made of this statement? On the one hand, it is very nearly a simple declaration of fact. Yet the parenthetical dates indicate that something unusual has transpired. These dates suggest that Futuropolis is dead; it was a twenty-two-year comics publishing experiment that concluded more than a decade previously. Why mark such a passage in a new edition of a comic book? Importantly, the note serves an important discursive purpose in an ongoing debate about the ChApTeR FouR —BART BeATy 69 70 Bart Beaty French comic-book industry. In the simplest terms, Menu’s note signals his refusal to recognize the relaunched Futuropolis as a legitimate continuation of the company run by Robial. In 2005, comics editor Sébastien Gnaedig launched a comic book line under the banner of Futuropolis, the name of the comic-book publishing house founded by Robial and Florence Cestac and saluted by Menu’s footnote . The new imprint, under the joint auspices of book publisher Gallimard and comic-book publisher Soleil, created considerable controversy in the field of French comics. Robial and Futuropolis had worked with Gallimard from 1987 until 1994, when Robial left to pursue other ventures after having sold Futuropolis to the book publisher. When Gnaedig sought to revive the imprint in 2004, Robial himself dissented, and many cartoonists who had been published by the original Futuropolis objected as well. Menu (2005b), in his book-length essay Plates-bandes, was the most vocal critic. He condemned the move as a cynical marketing ploy, indicative of the consumerist ethos of the French comics industry. From Menu’s perspective, no publisher was more dedicated to commercial imperatives than Soleil, and few were less celebrated for the work that they published. Menu (2005b: 41) suggests that by aligning itself with the name of the most celebrated French comics imprint (i.e., Futuropolis), which was“the avant-garde itself,”Soleil co-opted the cultural capital that had accrued to the long-dead publishing house and took a shortcut to critical respectability. For Menu (2005b: 40), this was akin to reviving the Miles Davis Quartet with four stars taken from the French popsinging television contest Star Academy, a marketing ploy pure and simple. In light of his arguments in Plates-bandes, we can interpret his statement about Futuropolis in the republication of Meder as a death notice, suggesting that: first, there can only be one Futuropolis, and it no longer exists; second, the new Futuropolis is fake, a zombie-like creature revived to resemble the dead; third, L’Association, the publishing house run by Menu, and the publisher of the new edition of Meder, is the true heir to the legacy of the original Futuropolis, and the protector of its avant-gardist tendencies. The dispute between Menu and the new Futuropolis is a particularly visible eruption in what has been a long simmering battle over the future—and the past—of French comic-book production. Since at least 1990 (the year that Menu and five other cartoonists founded L’Association), many contemporary small-press French cartoonists have been particularly concerned with the transformation of the field of comics production from a writerly space revolving around the adventures of mass market characters, toward a space more closely aligned with painterly traditions. This transformation has 71 “Patrimoine” in Franco-Belgian Comics taken place through a reconceptualization of the place of the comic “book,” and by the adoption of new techniques and dispositions to storytelling that are rooted primarily in a series of oppositions: cultural, ideological, social, national, and aesthetic. These oppositions have led small-press publishers and associated cartoonists to reject the normative...