Comics in French: The European Bande Dessinée in Context (review)

Laurence Grove is the President of the International Bande Dessinée Society (<www.arts.gla.ac.uk/ibds>), which raises high expectations for this volume, a comprehensive assessment of bandes dessinées (hereafter 'BD') as an art form and a social phenomenon. Grove does not disappoint — Comics in French is a well-documented and well-written work that will not only be a valuable resource for research but should also be a livre de chevet for anyone teaching a class linked to BD: 'it may be the accessibility of popular culture ("comics are fun"), or the inherent attraction of an image that retains the learner's global attention while the text pinpoints the specific message to be retained' (p. 286). Since there are already classics in the field, Grove gives due credit to such works as Matthew Screech's Masters of the Ninth Art (2005) and Ann Miller's Reading Bande Dessinée (2007). Grove's book is divided into three sections. The first is devoted to an attempt at describing and evaluating BD in formal and aesthetic terms. Beginners in the field will be most interested in this section, which includes contextualized definitions of technical terms. In the second part Grove provides a detailed history (or 'chronological approach') of BD, from its earliest initiators to its current status as a recognized and sophisticated art form: 'it is no longer surprising to find BDs that experiment with case size, break the 48-page format and/or question our place in society' (p. 198). The last part, a review of the 'cultural phenomenon', situates le neuvième art both in critical terms and as popular culture: 'the study of bande dessinée could well be the next stage if we are to understand the exception française and full context of French intellectual history' (p. 262). The first and third parts include interesting case studies: 'How a BD Works' and 'Formal Experimentation'. The Bibliography, which includes lists of films and websites, will be particularly useful for researchers. It should be noted that Grove does not merely recapitulate or synthesize the critical work published in French and English on BD. He also stakes out original and sometimes challenging positions, as in his characterization of the German Occupation as a highly creative, if not pivotal, period for the development of BD in France (pp. 129-33), or his presentation of Le Journal de Mickey as a paradoxically 'French' publishing and cultural phenomenon (pp. 123-29), or (perhaps most provocatively) his debunking of the presumably foundational role of Rodolphe Töpffer, who has been widely described as 'l'inventeur de la BD', but whom Grove, in search of a 'pre-history' of BD stretching back much further than the nineteenth century, characterizes as 'by no means the inventor of a new genre' (p. 87). Grove is also perceptive in his linkage of BD with other art forms, such as photography and cinema. Given the scale of his achievement with this work, Grove should be excused for the somewhat narcissistic tone of his conclusion. After all, an innovative academic cannot often revel in the fact that he was assailed by a would-be journalist.