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Jean-Pierre Mercier entered the world of bande dessinée because of his passion for the medium, and he exemplifies the multiple roles comics fandom can lead to in France, from the margin to the center, from fanzines to the Cité de la Bande Dessinée et de l’Image in Angoulême. He has been an editor and a librarian, he has curated numerous comics exhibitions and in his multiple positions, he has one of the great public figures of bande dessinée in France. This interview was conducted by videoconference in February 2021, then transcribed, slightly condensed and annotated to clarify the exchanges.

Bedephilia is conceived and defined in several ways. The word may refer to a variety of practices associated with the reading of comics, suggesting a proximity between bedephiles and fans, or as a set of legitimizing discourse about the medium. This introduction first examines the way bedephiles and fans differ in contemporay French usages, by studying the various assumptions encapsulated in each term, and noting that the actual practices of bedephiles and fans are often very similar. The text then provides an overview of the history of bedephilia, paying attention to the way an institutionalized bedephilia has been commemorated and mythified, to the point of overshadowing an amorphous “everyday” bedephilia. The introduction concludes by examining the role bedephilia has played and continues to play in shaping the memory and the history of comics.

Creepy and Eerie, two horror comics magazines published by Warren Publishing after 1964 are commonly read as the heirs to the horror titles put out by EC Comics in the previous decades. This text seeks to demonstrate that these magazines can also be placed in a different genealogy, which includes the 50s and 60s monster craze, as well as horror film magazines such as Warren’s own Famous Monsters of Filmland. Close readings and quantitative analyses show that the content of the Creepy and Eerie differ significantly from the EC titles, and borrows thematic elements as well as representations not only from horror cinema but also from the horror merchandising, which the Warren magazines prominently advertised.

Les auteurs ont mis en place une expérience de réception comparée visant à identifier s’il y a écart de perception selon qu’on lit une bande dessinée dans une version en album ou en format numérique. Le récit choisi est présenté, en album, dans une mise en page très régulière, et en format numérique, sous forme de diaporama proche des turbomédias en ce sens qu’on a quelquefois intégré des animations ou des mises en surbrillance de certaines portions de case. Le questionnaire conçu pour recueillir les impressions de lecture et identifier d’éventuels écarts de perception visait à prendre en compte quelques hypothèses : 1) format papier et format numérique permettraient une hiérarchisation différente des informations narratives ; 2) l’isolement des cases en format numérique ferait ressortir la force expressive des traits légèrement caricaturaux, alors que la forme de l’album nourrirait la propension du lecteur à rendre « transparent » les caractéristiques expressives du dessin ; 3) la perception du temps pour une séquence différerait entre les lectures en format papier et en format numérique. L’échantillon était constitué de douze personnes, toutes des personnes lisant significativement plus que la moyenne de la population française. L’étude montre qu’il y a peu de différences dans la hiérarchisation des informations narratives entre le sous-groupe qui a lu le récit sous forme d’album avant le format numérique et le sous-groupe qui a lu le format numérique avant l’album, si ce n’est une différence de jugement quant à la pertinence des moments d’animation pour le récit. Il n’y a pas non plus écart de perception quant à l’expressivité du dessin. Enfin, en ce qui a trait à la perception du temps, le mode d’appréhension du diaporama conduit à l’idée d’une plus grande homogénéité en égalisant l’ensemble des cases.

Planetary, a comic book series published in the United States between 1999 and 2009, provides a striking example of the use of intericonicity as a structuring device in an erudite popular culture opus. In the series, the readers and the protagonists are invited to explore the “secret” history of a fictional world. This history is composed of visual allusions to notable works of 20th-century popular culture. The main character in the story is an amnesiac who rediscovers this buried history—seeing the images anew, yet knowing he has experienced them before—a device which allows the trajectory of the narrative and the experience of the reader to coincide. This article seeks to analyze the way Planetary uses the metaphor of archeology to make the circulation of these images possible: each icon is turned into an artifact in the diegetic world, which is investigated by the protagonists until its meaning is re-created, leading to a reactivation of the icons through a process of defamiliarization. Planetary offers a readerly contract akin to those of the “metafictions” described by Patricia Waugh, but transposes this contract into a primarily visual form. This leads to the development of various strategies, including the creation of a “master style”, a specific visual idiom into which the various icons are translated.

This article on comics purports to examine genre dynamics in Shaun of the Dead (Wright 2005). In particular, it seeks to detail the interactions between the romantic-comedy elements present in the film and its ostensible alignment with the zombie genre in the Romero mold. The article argues that a close analysis of the film’s narrative structure belies the apparent balance between the two genres, which the filmmakers sought to keep “separate and intact”. Through an analysis of the role of repetitions, references and influences, the article details the inscription of the zombie plot in the pliable structure of the romantic-comedy, along with the effect of this inscription on the subtext of the zombie genre.

This five-page comic, contextualised with a research note, provides an introduction to discursive approaches to genre, inspired by Rick Altman’s Film/Genre (1999). It seeks to demonstrate the necessity to go beyond textual or prescriptive approaches, using the example of zombie films. The comic is arguing that some films that contain zombies are not usually seen as being part of the zombie film genre. The work proposes that our perception of genre in those cases relies on various discourses that frame our reading of the texts themselves. This framing operation is at once the function and the nature of genre.

Ghost World, Dan Clowes’s 1998 graphic novel, features a geometrical and hostile diegetic space, yet does not forego a classical system of comics, which could be characterized by the notion of “transparency”. This article focuses first on the way this balance is achieved, through the use of formal devices specific to the medium, from the grid to the size of the panels to the role of speech balloons. A second part examines the solutions Terry Zwigoff used to recreate the effects of these formal devices through specifically cinematographic techniques, when he adapted Ghost World into a film in 2001. The use of color, in particular, distinguishes the graphic novel from its adaptation, leading to different readings of a similar story.

Any extensive reading of super hero comics will reveal that the representation of France within the genre borrows mostly from touristic clichés, using the country as a foreign, exotic yet not too disorientating setting. Narrative economy and gradual refinements have led to the creation of a codified, consensual and unrealistic depiction of France, centered mostly on Paris and the Eiffel Tower. However, this efficient codification is not value-free. A study of Justice League Europe, a rare example of super-hero series set in France over a long period reveals that France is consistently depicted as a place of history, while being denied a contemporary significance. The country appears as a fascinating but subordinate neighbor, and this evaluation can in turn be found, albeit in a more elliptic way, in numerous series portraying France only in short episodes. The self-consciousness of modern super hero comics, however, suggests that the notion of representation should be handled with care. The depiction of France in super-hero comics originates in part in the perception of the country in the United States, but it also derives in a significant way from the internal evolutions of the genre.