(Montreal) Comics deal with much more varied subjects than the stories of two Gallic friends or a famous Belgian reporter: in recent years, this medium has increasingly moved away from fiction and towards reality, all by humanizing complex issues, says a researcher.
These issues were examined this week during the “Beyond the Borders” conference, organized by the Montreal BD Festival, in collaboration with the Center for Interdisciplinary Research in Montreal Studies (CRIEM).
From Thursday to Saturday, several comic strip artists and researchers spoke in particular about the links of comic strips with geopolitical borders, the borders between the media, the borders between comic strips and the world of research, but also the formal boundaries that mark the creation of comics.
Anna Giaufret, assistant professor in the Department of Modern Languages and Cultures at the University of Genoa, in Italy, was the director of the scientific committee of the conference, which was held in Montreal.
“Comics, there are a lot of people who think it’s a genre, but in fact, it’s a medium that can talk about all kinds of subjects, that can address all kinds of themes, and with different methods. very different,” says Mme Giaufret, in interview.
She explains that the “comic strip that deals with reality” is not new. Some of journalist Joe Sacco’s works were published in the 1990s, for example.
However, “we all have the feeling that this genre of comics […] is gaining momentum in recent years. And even today, we are witnessing joint projects between cartoonists and researchers, so it is not only a transposition of the work of research into comics, but it is also a joint work of the part of the cartoonist with the researcher”, indicates Mme Giaufret.
“We are witnessing new forms of achievement,” she summarizes.
Greater humanity through reporting comics
The professor indicates that reporting comics make it possible to represent realities that may be difficult to report using other media.
“The designer often has access to delicate areas, to which, for example, a film director or someone who shows up with a camera or camera would not necessarily have access,” explains Mme Giaufret.
She adds that reporting comics also make it possible to humanize complex issues. A conference at the conference also addressed comic strips on this subject. Humans: the Roya is a riverwhich deals with migrants arriving from Italy who wish to enter France through the Roya valley, in the south of the country.
“Comics have the effect of extracting the individual from a mass which is almost always stigmatized by the media and political authorities in France and Italy, in this case,” explains Mme Giaufret.
To do this, comics tell the personal stories of individuals, focusing on their faces, certain parts of their bodies, such as their hands, as well as some of their personal objects.
“Comics also have the capacity to really take us into people’s experiences, into their memories. It all becomes very concrete, because we have a drawing, we have a face that we can look at, that looks into the reader’s eyes,” she says.
In addition, the authors of reportage comics, like the Quebecer Guy Delisle, often portray themselves in their work, “which also gives an aspect of reflexivity and humanity to the work of reportage comics”, according to Mme Giaufret.