(Montreal) Comics deal with much more diverse subjects than the stories of two Gallic friends or a famous Belgian reporter: In recent years, this medium has increasingly moved from fiction to reality by humanizing complex subjects, says a researcher .
Published at 12:10 p.m.
Coralie Laplante The Canadian Press
These questions were explored 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 artists and researchers spoke in particular about the connections of comic strips to geopolitical boundaries, the boundaries between media, the boundaries between comic strips and the world of research, but also the formal boundaries that characterize the creation of comics.
Anna Giaufret, assistant professor at the Department of Modern Languages and Cultures at the University of Genoa in Italy, chaired the scientific committee of the conference, which took place in Montreal.
“Comics, there are a lot of people who think it’s a genre, but in reality it’s a medium that can talk about all kinds of topics, that can address all kinds of topics, and does it with different methods. very different,” says Ms. Giaufret, in an interview.
She explains that the “comic dealing with reality” is not new. For example, some works by journalist Joe Sacco were published in the 1990s.
However, “we all feel like this genre is comics.” […] has gained momentum in recent years. And even today we see joint projects between cartoonists and researchers, so it is not just a transfer of research work to comics, but also a joint work between the cartoonist and the researcher,” explains Ms. Giaufret.
“We are experiencing new forms of success,” she summarizes.
More humanity through reporting on comics
The professor points out that reporting on comics allows for the representation of realities that may be difficult to report on using other media.
“The designer often has access to sensitive areas that, for example, a film director or someone who shows up with a camera or camera wouldn’t necessarily have access to,” explains Ms. Giaufret.
She adds that reporting comics also make it possible to humanize complex issues. A panel at the conference also featured the comic “Humans: the Roya is a River” on the subject, which is about migrants arriving from Italy and seeking to enter France via the Roya Valley in the south of the country.
“Comics have the effect of separating the individual from a crowd that in France, and in this case in Italy, is almost always stigmatized by the media and political authorities,” explains Ms. Giaufret.
To achieve this, comics tell the personal stories of individuals, focusing on their faces, specific body parts such as their hands, and some of their personal items.
“Comics also have the ability to really take us into people’s experiences and memories. It all becomes very concrete because we have a drawing, we have a face that we can look at, that looks the reader in the eyes,” she says.
In addition, the authors of reportage comics, such as Quebecer Guy Delisle, often portray themselves in their works, “which also gives the work of reportage comics an aspect of reflexivity and humanity,” says Ms. Giaufret.