Date: Sun, 31 Oct 1993 11:10:37 +0000 From: goukens <[Lode Goukens] at [sp1.y-net.be]> Subject: Comic history part 2 Comic-history of Europa part 2 The European comic history of the sixties starts in October 1959 when Rene Goscinny, Andre Uderzo and Jean-Michel Charlier started their own magazine: Pilote. Goscinny and Charlier where two of the most productive scenarists that wanted to write for another public. Until then Charlier wrote the realistic comics for Dupuis (Spirou/Robbedoes) and Goscinny wrote the scenario's for Lucky Luke. Charlier continued his work for Buck Danny and other Dupuis series. During the sixties Pilote resulted in lots of French comics for adult readers. Some of the most popular are Asterix (1968!) and Blueberry. Maurice De Bevere (Morris) left Dupuis for Pilote, but most of the artists were French. The western comic was renewed by Jean Giraud and Charlier who made Bleuberry. Bleuberry resembled the young Jean-Paul Belmondo and all characters were more or less bad (cfr spaghetti western). The art was still rather primitive but developed during the years and during the nineties three different series with three different authors appeared around Bleuberry. Giraud still draws one of the series and writes some of the others. Giraud also practices another style under the pseudonym Moebius, but sinces the mid 80's the two styles converge. Most of the other comics (Tanguy et Laverdure, Ramiro, Dan Cooper etcetera) lived a short succes. Other French publishers tried to imitate this adult comic magazine, but most disappeared rather quickly. The ones that remained became mixtures between soft-porn, photo-novels and sexist humour (eg. l'Echo des Savanes). In 1978 the Belgian publisher Casterman (eg. Tintin, Alix,...) founded the magazine 'A Suivre' with lots of black and white comics for adult readers. It was an immediate succes. The Dutch version disappeared after ten years because of low sales in the Netherlands (different comics culture than Belgium and France). Nowadays A Suivre is almost full color. With A Suivre a new kind of comic was born: the graphic novel. Authors as Jacques Tardi, Ted Benoit, Sokal, Schuiten, Peeters made thick, intellectualist comics. The style was very personal. Hugo Pratt (who published Corto Maltese in Tintin Magazine) came to A SUIVRE and so did Milo Manara. Casterman published these comics in paperback and left the 44-page frame to specialize in "Roman A Suivre" (novels) and "nouvelles A Suivre" (kind of short stories, 48p). The graphic novels were also more expensive. In France Glenat founded the magazine "Vecu". Vecu is in fact a sort of a comic school. The magazine focused mainly on realistic, historical comics. During the seventies the school of the Annales (a historical publication with contributions by Braudel, Favre, Aries, Le Roy Ladurie...) made historical books bestsellers in France and Belgium. These historians took the common man as object of their historical research. Peter Burke is an English adept of this school (histoire des mentalites, cultural history). The comics of Glenat became a big succes in the 1980's. Authors and artists as Andre Juillard, Cothias, Francois Bourgeon, Hermann, Makyo... drove this vogue to literary hights, but in 1990 the crisis started. Too much of the same and Vecu disappeared. The biggest successes (Juillard, Bourgeon, Hermann..) kept their audience, but the younger artists lost ground. Bourgeon now works for A Suivre. Hermann who broke with his scenarist (Greg) at Tintin and left for Dargaud (the publisher of Pilote) made some 'classics', but imitates nowadays is best works (published at Glenat). Hermann now works for the publishers Dupuis and Big Balloon. The biggest difference between the sixties and the seventies lies in the rate of albums published. In the sixties all publishers in France and Belgium published only a couple of dozens of albums a year. During the seventies the number passed 600 titles yearly. Young artists didn't need to prepublish in magazines or newspapers to get published and this tendency announced the death of the good old comic magazines. In 1989 about 42 percent of the books sold in Belgium were comics. After 1989 the comic-publishers got into a crisis, but the sales increased. Quality decreased and the number of publishers boomed. The crisis is very serious in the classic 44-page comics. Only the established titles as the Tuniques Bleus sell very well. Since a year the graphic novels also entered morousity. Casterman only published 6 albums in Dutch last year! Studio Vandersteen who had dozens of series (Suske en Wiske, Jerom, Bessy, Karl May, de Rode Ridder, Robert en Bertrand, de Geuzen...) changed a lot when Willy Vandersteen died. Vandersteen managed a comic factory, but still drawed two series "Robert en Bertrand" and "De Geuzen". He controlled the artistic work, but although is had a limited talent all other series became third rate comics. After his death most series were stopped. Suske en Wiske is the best sold comic in the Benelux, but the guy who makes it since the late seventies is a real zero. The Studio started redrawing the clasics, but the new version is inferior (Bessy). Robert Merhotein left Studio Vandersteen to draw his own comic (newspaper) "Kiekeboe". He's becoming the only valuable replacement of Vandersteen, because he draws better and has the same way of telling stories. Biddeloo who took over "De Rode Ridder" uses a lot of xeroxes and his tendency for soft-porn is pathetic. The other collaborators are too bad to mention. A friend of mine his involved in a new magazine called "Suske en Wiske Magazine". The zero and first issues were disappointing. Studio Vandersteen and Merho have almost a monopoly on newspaper comics in Flanders and the Netherlands. In France the newspaper comcic disappeared during the seventies. Some French newspapers publish comic gags (Boule et Bill) and some Belgian newspapers as Le Soir publish all kind of good comics from the franco-belgian school. The other newspapers publish the American gags from the syndicates or some awful Dutch look-alikes. It is clear that the European comic-scene is on the brink of change. Editions Vents d'Ouest, Glenat and Delcourt in France and Oranje in Belgium give young, skilled artists a chance. Mazan, Bruynickx, Plessix, Garrigue, Cromwell... unluckily don't reach the masses because of the small number of stores selling comics in the Netherlands. What we really need is a good magazine. The Dutch start buying lots of American comics (but no Vertigo or Piranha...). Last week I forgot to mention the Dutch comics in the Netherlands (one has Dutch-speaking Flemish in Belgium and Dutch-speaking Dutch in the Netherlands). In 1936 Sjors appeared in some Dutch newspapers. The Dutch comic-scene existed mostly out of newspaper-comics. Sjors became very popular in the magazine Panorama (a Dutch weekly comparable to Paris-Match). The publisher of Panorama (VNU) bought the single comic magazine in the Netherlands (the rest were imports from Belgium) and renamed it several times. Now it is called "Sjors en Sjimmi Stripblad". VNU also publishes Donald Duck Stripblad (the most popular in the Netherlands). The quality of drawing is mostly low. Maarten Toonder made a newspaper comic called Tom Poes for 40 years. He never used phylactheres or balloons. His dialogues and language are proverbial because of their contrast with the drawings. The Dutch had an other big comics artist: Hans G Kresse. Kresse for years made a realistic newspaper comic about Eric the Viking. During the seventies he started a comic for Casterman about the Indians in New Mexico when it was a Mexican province (17th century). De Indianenstrip was the first that showed the native Indians as a normal community encountering foreign Spanish soldiers. It was a bit to idealistic but very well documented and extremely well drawn. Excuse me if a made some typo's or mistakes but I don't have the time to make this history properly. I'm writing it in Ascii while I'm waiting in the press room of the European Community. Maybe I'll rework it all later into one article. Additions, corrections etcetera are welcomed. Greetings, Lode Goukens ------------------------------------------------------------------------- End part 11, more to follow...