Legitimising Comics in France and Australia: a brief history and contrast

Another article from the "Uni Assignment Hell" archive. This one is a companion piece to my other article on Australian comics and Government Policy. Until the ill-fated maybe-death of Angouleme FIBD I was (actually, still am) taken by its history and how it became instrumental to turning comics into a 9th form and an accepted part of culture in France. I see a lot of similarities and parallels to early days of France comics legitimisation and the current era of Australian comics, and I want to be a part of helping to push Australia's scene by learning how it worked in the past.

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The field of comics is undergoing a period of revitalisation in recent decades. A constant in popular culture, comics have evolved from the days of being marginalised as so-called lowbrow pulp material into acceptance as a diverse form of entertainment, leisure and artistry enjoyed by millions worldwide.

As a fertile source of inspiration for intellectual property, comics are commonly adapted into multi-billion dollar cultural juggernauts which transformed the landscape of film and television forever, or classics in their own right regardless of box office. Many beloved comics characters such as the Moomins by Tove Jansson, the cast of Tintin by Herge, and the ensemble cast of Peanuts characters by Charles M. Schulz are proudly honoured as national icons of their countries of origin, with a portfolio of media adaptations, merchandise sales and soft power behind them. Additionally, comics by themselves and their cultural products draw in global fandoms that congregate physically in some of the largest annual pop culture festivals: for example, San Diego Comic Con in the United States boasted an attendance of 135,000 in 2019 (Dougherty, 2022). The draw and success of these festivals can be so great that some even were instrumental to the development of cultural policy of their host cities (see Salvador et al. (2022), Lesage and Gabilliet (2020), Marzo et al. (2020), and Lemmi et al. (2018) for case studies in France, Italy and Spain). Furthermore, comics are also becoming more widely included in the programming outside of comics-centric venues and festivals, with the increasing appearance of comics practitioners and their works in literary spaces, residencies, exhibitions, libraries, syllabuses and prizes for literature or visual arts.

This renaissance is long overdue. Despite their shared origins as products of popular, mass media entertainment at the turn of the 19th century (film as carnival novelty and comics as broadsheet content) and their similar nature as multimodal mediums (film employing picture and sound; comics employing picture and text) (see Cohn (2016) for an argument of comics as a multimodal medium), comics lags behind film as an artistic institution in the realm of cultural policy and programming. Although movement towards inclusion of comics in cultural policy had been active since around the late 1960s, the recognition is uneven at an international level: some nations are well-developed, others remain ambivalent despite the popularity of the medium in their country, and the rest still are far behind.

In my view, the legitimisation of comics across the global stage may be divided into three tiers. Inhabiting the first tier are countries where comics culture has matured and become part of cultural policy and life, supported by substantial institutional and private resources (Korea, Japan, France, Belgium). The second tier is occupied by countries where comics are slowly gaining recognition as an art form, usually as a commercial venture, yet continues to face barriers in both market and policy due to long-held stigmas (most of the Anglosphere, including the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia). The third and final tier consists of the remaining nations that either have little to no recognition of comics, though it does not preclude the existence of either an emerging or established independent local comics scene.

What is this discrepancy and how does it occur? What are the kinds of support, whether public or private, that are provided in one country and lacking in the other? I will be analysing why this is the case, focusing on a comparison between France—a nation in the first tier—and Australia in the second. In considering how a nation’s specific history of comics affects its assimilation into culture and thus the success of which its community infrastructure transforms into policy, possible recommended strategies can be derived to be emulated in the second and third tier countries.

The General Arc of Legitimisation

Multiple theories on the origin of comics abound, depending on how loosely one defines comics or its precursors (the loosest definition includes cave paintings on the basis of its sequential imagery). (Kunzle, 1973, 1990; McCloud, 1994; Beaty, 2012) However, comics in the modern form that we recognise today were incubated in printed material for the masses between the 19th and early to mid 20th centuries, particularly magazines and newspapers which included illustrations and cartoons that satirised and commented on the discourses of the day.

It was during this period that comics developed its recognisable conventions and formalistic qualities. As formal possibilities cemented itself and character tropes, ideas and popular genres began to fill up the modern storyteller’s toolbox, comics soon explored content outside of the satirical and realistic into the fantastical and fabulist. This shift emerged simultaneously with the curation of comics as the primary content for printed collection rather than secondary, no longer needing to sit alongside journalism and serialised prose. Around this time, the early 20th century, was the Golden Age of comics in the superhero, action adventure and mystery genres—distinctly escapist realms of fiction popular with the youth and young adults. Comics’ popularity continues to remain strong even in the 21st century, though the genres and audiences have expanded and diversified greatly nowadays, in keeping with the diversification of practitioners from various backgrounds, interests and influences.

However, despite its persistence and growth, comics remain a dominated and underserved art form, in contrast to its fellow popular art forms which emerged and developed around the same time (film, popular music, music theatre). Until recently, comics struggled to be received seriously or at least, on its own terms, partly due to a long-standing historical stigma that damaged its reputation with the public and policymakers, alongside dismissal by cultural critics as the scapegoat of mass culture at the time.

During the early to mid 20th century, it was not uncommon to find critical commentary which deemed the emergent field of comics as degraded due to its association to contemporary mass culture, separate from the so-called highbrow culture (Greenberg, 1939; Brown & Cripp, 1948; Mannes, 1947). The detachment of comics from any desire for institutional recognition or participation also did not help to counter these commentaries (Beaty, 2012). In the Anglosphere, the largest stigma against comics originated with the 1954 publication of Dr Fredric Wertham’s book, The Seduction of the Innocent. Wertham argued that comics were harmful to children’s sense of morality via its depiction of violence and so-called dubious content (which included homosexuality), directly equating the rise of juvenile delinquency to consumption of reading material (Wertham, 1954). The resultant public outcry against comics arising from Wertham’s book and led by Wertham himself pressured governments in the US, UK and the Pacific to intervene. In response, comics publishers agreed to self-censor and self-regulate works they publish via a voluntary, preemptive set of restrictions called the Comics Code Authority. Similar to the earlier Hays Code in film, the Comics Code Authority effectively curtailed the ability of comics to produce nuanced and challenging material and restricted the types of content or audience it could serve (Beaty, 2012; Tilley, 2012). But the damage to comics’ reputation had already been done.

The Wave in France

In France, cultural recognition of comics (bande-dessinées to refer to comics produced within Franco-Belgium) emerged with the founding of several key interest groups by enthusiasts and their associated journals during the 1960s. Among these were Club de Bandes Dessinee and La Société civile d'études et de recherches des littératures dessinées)(SOCERLID), both of which focused on the promotion of comics via scholarship and criticism.

In 1967, the latter curated the Bande dessinée et figuration narrative exhibition (Comics and the Figuration Narrative) at the Musee de Arts Decoratifs in Paris, one of the earliest, most significant of comics exhibitions in France, which sought to positively contextualise comics with the contemporary Pop Art and Narrative Figuration movements (Méon, 2015). The success of the Parisian exhibition led to an opportunity in the regional town of Angoulême, which itself was experiencing a period of cultural and image revamp in the aftermath of deindustralisation. Further success with SOCERLID-led initiatives as well as support from the governance in Angoulême culminated in the creation of the world-renowned Angoulême Comics Festival in 1974 and the establishment of a permanent original bande collection in the museum in 1978 (Lesage, 2020).

Meanwhile, the election of the socialist Mitterrand government in the 1980s brought on a reform in approach to cultural policy (Lesage, 2020; Benneworth & Dauncey, 2016). The new Minister of Culture, Jack Lang, moved beyond the previous elite, high art conception of cultural policy and instead actively embraced the inclusion of popular arts, which included photography, street art and comics. The broadened scope of cultural activities and arts facilitated the development of comics within French culture and economy, with the festival and efforts at Angoulême as its locus. A milestone in cultural recognition was achieved in the founding of the National Centre for Comic Strips and Images in Angoulême—now known as the International City of Comics Strips and Images, the Cité.

This public progression went hand-in-hand with the shift of primary publication format from periodicals to book (album) for bande-dessinées. In addition to the boost of perception when placed alongside books in bookstores and libraries, the shift enabled bande-dessinées to carve its own substantial niche in the traditional book market (about 10%, with imports and exports); and redefined the way French society created, distributed and read comics (Lesage, 2023).

In the following forty years, the Angoulême Comics Festival grew to become a global hub of comics. In addition to its academic-oriented programming of lectures and discussions centering on comics studies, the festival hosts exhibitions and invites guests from the various parts of the world to interact with their French counterparts, such as the United States, United Kingdom, Japan and other parts of Europe and Asia. This mix of academic and cross-cultural interactions has helped to rehabilitate the image of comics as a global creative industry capable of bringing cultural and economic benefits to the nation.

Nowadays, in France, bande-dessinées is known as the ninth art, a cultural industry bolstered by institutional resources. In Angoulême, surrounding the festival and the Cité, are creative infrastructures such as the bookstore, library, the Grand Prix awards, and artist residencies that support local and foreign comics practitioners in the production of their works. Such is the warm reception of comics in France that the Ministry of Culture declared 2020 the Year of the Bande-Dessinées and launched a campaign (named BD 2020) with extensive programming across the country pre-COVID 19.

Meanwhile in Australia

Australian comics were once the only kind of comics available in the continent. In the 1940s, the importation of overseas goods deemed non-essential were controlled as a result of wartime conditions—this restriction included cultural products such as comic books. During the twenty year period when this import control was in effect, the vacuum was filled in by local publishers new and existing to take advantage of the captive youth audience. Local publishers both produced new, original works from Australian artists and local reprints of licensed overseas property. The gold rush ended when Wertham’s discourse reached Australian waters. Local publishers conceded to government demands for content regulation by adopting the same strategy of self-censorship as their North American counterparts. As sales fell due to both the censorship and the increasingly poor reputation of comics, the import control finally ended, signalling the return of American comics and the end of company-backed Australian comics publishing. (Medley et al., 2021; Cliffe, 2019)

In its place was the independent DIY small press and zine-making scene, which experienced growth in the 1980s to 1990s. The small press and zine-making scene comprised of young comics creators from diverse backgrounds, producing works of various qualities made possible by the increased accessibility of printers, photocopiers and desktop publishing. The vibrancy of comics small press along with its connections to youth culture and popular culture made it a field of interest for city councils, allowing comics to be beneficiaries of policy. An example of this history, growth and integration into the cultural policy and life of the host city is the Sticky Institute in Melbourne. A volunteer-run organisation for zine culture outreach, in-kind services and distribution, Sticky Institute annually runs the Festival of the Photocopier, the largest zine festival in Australia, at their venue in Meat Market supported by the City of Melbourne.

The Future of Comics in Australia

Australian comics are gradually experiencing the early days of its own reappraisal. For the past twenty years, the once lowkey art form is gaining momentum by the strength of its community and the critical successes of its products on the international stage, such as Shaun Tan’s The Arrival and Lee Lai’s Stone Fruit. This makes Australia an interesting case study because it represents a second tier country that is transitioning into becoming first tier: the process of cultural maturation to the level of the French bande-dessinée is a work-in-progress.

Even so, the context of comics is Australia is unique, due to the combination of geographical distance and isolation with a relatively small, spread-out population. The isolation can present challenges for Australian practitioners, especially in terms of the options and types of resources they can access from international partners (unlike in Europe and Asia where partnerships are more accessible due to scale, size and proximity). Materials are hard to ship in or out, and costs to physically participate in global opportunities are high—not just financially, but time-wise when travel and preparation are accounted for. Within the country, the amount of in-person organisation that practitioners can do is limited across state lines; fortunately, the availability of online communities and social media platforms has mitigated the difficulty of networking and remote organisation.

These above factors mean that legitimisation will play out in unexpected ways. If successful, resources and institutions arising from Australian policy may present differently than France’s, which is more geographically dense and connected deeply to its longer histories and relationships with regional towns and their international neighbours.

There is also the matter of Australia’s cultural voice: its settler identity is rather young, and international participation in the canon of Western art and associated systems relatively recent. In contrast, indigenous Australians possess a deeper and ancient identification with Country and their storytelling legacies, but are not as well-represented compared to the settlers of white-British heritage who have historically dominated Australian comics (and other art forms). Initiatives such as the Comics on Country platform-slash-imprint by Gestalt Publishing in 2022 serve to correct this imbalance. It remains to be seen, however, if indigenous Australian comics practitioners will experience tension between their identities and choice of medium with the gatekeeping complexities of Western art systems.

The State of Comics in Australia

Due to Australia’s small population and isolation, local communities of Australian practitioners are drawn together to support each other, promote their craft and talk about comics academically. These tight-knit groups host occurring events such as meetups and live-draws, book clubs, and anthologies for fan projects or original ideas, held in homes, bookstores, cafes and studios. Some have even gone on to organise larger and more ambitious initiatives—the Perth Comics Art Festival was born as an extension of an already-existing network of Perth comics practitioners. The same goes for Papercuts Comics Festival in Adelaide, and Homecooked Comics Festival in Melbourne. All of these festivals have the support of their respective state and local councils as well as federal funding.

Australia’s smallness is also positive in that it is much easier to be seen and heard; and to offer or receive support from peers. Organisers of initiatives from different cities are likely to be aware of each other, if not already friends. Additionally, collectives are relatively easier to put together, such as the Australian Cartoonists Association, a national organisation for working cartoonists with membership in every state.

While Australian comics have consistently received support from policy, it still suffers from delegitimisation by its outgroup peers within the arts. Practitioners are not yet habitually considered in many literary festivals, outlets or prizes, although comics form a not-small segment of traditional publishing. Relatedly, another issue is that there are few editors, curators or arts managers with experience in comics as a craft or within a community. This lack of knowledge from administration becomes an accessibility barrier for comics, not by any malicious intent or sense of superiority, but by simple ignorance or non-familiarity with the form. To counter one manifestation of this. practitioner Joshua Santospirito collaborated on a recent experimental project with premier literary magazine Island to curate and commission comics for four special issues (Island, 2022).

Still, it is not completely dire. The amount of support for comics practitioners is increasing on an institutional level. The formation of ALIA Graphic Novels and Comics group, a network of librarians and information professionals advocating for the inclusion of Australian comics in programming and collections, is a welcome development. The Wheeler Centre, a hub for all literary activities and outreach in Victoria, has extended their writing fellowships to graphic novel authors—providing a stipend and space to focus on creation. The advocacy organisation Australian Society of Authors includes comics practitioners among writers and illustrators in their classification of who is part of the literary ecosystem, and provides the same services to all, including legal advice.

Crossing the Rubicon

For Australia to finally cross that threshold towards the first tier, the ecosystem of resources needs to be developed and expanded further. There are still many missing parts: the distribution of self-published or small press comics into bookstore and library systems; a centralised journalism portal for comics coverage and reviews; more education and experience regarding comics for administrators and editors; small presses and imprints in large publishers that fulfill as many genre and audience niches as prose and non-fiction publishing does. There is also no national museum dedicated to comics at the level of Melbourne’s Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI), though the ACMI does occasionally feature comics where relevant, usually connected to their film adaptation.

Pragmatically, there is the issue of income. Very few practitioners are able to live off their art, and those who pursue comics full-time often earn less than the average national income. This financial inviability provokes practitioners to take on additional jobs to subsidise their artmaking, reducing or even blocking their capacity to produce more creative output or participate in programs that advance the field (Grant et al., 2021). The income issue is not unique to comics; it is present in all art forms. Possible ways forward would be the introduction of the universal basic income, or increased arts funding specifically dedicated to support the substantial amount of time it takes to produce art (in other words, more fellowships and higher grants).

In Australia where comics festivals are typically practitioner-led, festivals, both extant and upcoming, may play crucial roles in the development of comics. In 2022, Perth Comics Art Festival debuted a new two-day format, following a 2019 symposium for scholars of comics. The first day consisted of craft-oriented talks, panels and workshops, led and attended by practitioners and scholars. The second day was their standard marketplace day. Time will tell if they will follow the path set out by SOCERLID and the Angoulême Comics Festival, gaining a quality of programming that may entice international guests and position Perth as a global comics hub.

Moving Forward

A common thread linking the histories of legitimisation in France and Australia is the committed and ongoing presence of grassroots enthusiasts. These enthusiasts—fans, practitioners and other members of the arts ecosystem, including librarians and booksellers—collectively initiate comics programming or community infrastructures within their locality. Examples of these initiatives include but are not limited to workshops, festivals, outreach programs in libraries, inclusion of comics in catalogues, and exhibits. These programs are not only important for internal affirmation of practice and the strengthening of bonds between practitioners and their audience, but for the creation of third spaces where creative opportunities, cross fertilisation and knowledge exchange can occur (Gibson & Bathelt, 2014; Marzo et al., 2020). Being familiar with their particular expression of comics within their place of residence—of what is missing and the historical, systemic barriers that led to the lack, enthusiasts are able to activate local networks, seek local resources and tailor solutions to address issues.

In second and third tier countries, with the lack of institutional resources or support, community is everything. Even in the early days of now first tier countries, the outreach, the programming, and ultimately the advocacy towards legitimisation were led by community. In the absence of pre-existing means of institutional support form policy, the best way to advance the field would be to either join or establish a piece of community infrastructure.

It is said that there is power in numbers, but there is power, too, in a stable presence. There is a need for enthusiasts with the ability, commitment and passion to sustainably be a pillar of their field, to maintain relationships, and to preserve knowledge for future leadership. The maintenance of these factors is key to preserving momentum and nurturing the growth of comics, until one day, it grows big enough to leave the margins.

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