Book Review: The Anxiety Club, a graphic guide to understanding anxiety

 reviewed by Ishita Sehgal

Frédéric Fanget, Catherine Mayer and Pauline Aubry (ill.). Translated by Edward Gauvin. The Anxiety Club, a graphic guide to understanding anxiety. SelfMadeHero, 2024. https://store.abramsbooks.com/products/the-anxiety-club

 

Modern life definitely demands a guide to navigate the daily obstacles and attempts to achieve a sense of composure in the daily grind. The presence of anxiety and other psychological troubles keep creeping in trying to detour oneself from the path of the daily hustle bustle. French creators psychiatrist Dr. Frédéric Fanget, co-author Catherine Meyer and illustrator Pauline Aubry explain how anxiety can manifest itself, how it can cause threatening scenarios, and most importantly how anxiety, in whatever intensity it may show up, can be treated through Anxiety Therapy. The book itself is divided into five chapters that discuss in detail the many aspects of anxiety and how it is imperative to recognize them and find the right kind of treatment.

 

In the authors’ own words, the book is to “decatastrophize anxiety.” This graphic novel is a guidebook about surviving with anxiety as this psychological problem is depicted and then shown being dealt with. In the first two chapters of the book, readers are introduced to the multiple ways of how anxiety can show up and how one can try and identify it. This is done by using day-to-day terms and phrases which makes identifying the problem accessible and easy. The quirky titles of the chapters such as “anxiety’s disaster camera” or the “faces of anxiety” and the lingo the authors use are not only relatable, but also help in retaining information.

 

Even though the authors have fictionalized the anxious people, renamed and anonymized them, the book keeps the character of Dr Fanget as himself. This choice to not fictionalize the doctor gives the reader a sense of security and confidence in receiving correct information. The chapter on anxiety treatment is the key element of this book. It brings together all the questions that people suffering from anxiety might raise and the ways in which they could be answered. The treatments are divided into three parts depending on the intensity of the anxiety one is under.

 

This book is a delightful read about a very serious problem faced by people of all ages as the world is progressing disconcertingly faster technologically. The question one asks of a self-help type of book is about its authenticity and reliability, which Dr Fanget’s presence in the book as a narrator answers. However, those who seek this as self-therapy for anxiety, may or may not find one here, but between the gutters, they may identify their own symptoms.

 

Book review: The Road: A Graphic Novel Adaptation, by Cormac McCarthy and Manu Larcenet

reviewed by Luke C. Jackson

 Cormac McCarthy and Manu Larcenet. The Road: A Graphic Novel Adaptation. Abrams ComicArts, 2024. US $26.99. ISBN:  9781419776779. https://store.abramsbooks.com/products/the-road-a-graphic-novel-adaptation

The Road, released by Cormac McCarthy in 2006, was a publishing sensation, winning several prestigious awards, including the Pulitzer Prize. In 2009, it was adapted as a film, starring Viggo Mortensen and directed by John Hillcoat. Now, for the first time, the novel has been adapted as a graphic novel, by French writer/illustrator Manu Larcenet, with the blessings of its creator. Larcenet is known for his work on several comics series, including Cosmonauts of the Future, written by Lewis Trondheim, and Ordinary Victories, which Larcenet wrote and drew. But it is his series Blast that most clearly foreshadows his work on The Road, with its more contemplative pacing, its white spaces, and its silence.

In the endpapers to The Road: A Graphic Novel Adaptation, the reader is presented with a letter, written by Larcenet to Cormack McCarthy. Entitled ‘A plea for The Road’, it represents Larcenet’s attempt to convince the famous author to allow him to adapt his novel. In this letter, he promises that, if he does so, he will ‘not rewrite anything, or change the feel of the story’. Instead, he sought to ‘draw [McCarthy’s] words.’ We cannot know what, in particular, appealed to McCarthy about Larcenet’s plea. Perhaps it was his impressive experience as both a writer and illustrator, his evident humility, or his clear love for the novel. But it is easy to see the throughline from McCarthy’s novel to Larcenet’s adaptation in Larcenet’s claim that ‘I draw violence and kindness.’ This is a story of violence – of murder, and rape, and cannibalism; and of kindness – of charity, and occasional laughter, and the bonds between people brought together by tragic circumstance.

‘You have to carry the fire.’ With these words, an unnamed father communicates his son’s purpose to him. They are the words that drive the narrative forward. The fire that this father speaks of is the belief that the next day is worth living, no matter what it brings. This is a belief that the boy’s mother could not sustain. Her suicide preceded the journey of father and son down The Road. Where they are going is only half-clear. There is the vague promise of the South. Perhaps, if they walk far enough in that direction, they can put the scourge of nuclear fallout behind them. And yet, as they trudge across the landscape, they have embarked on not one journey but two. The second, and more important, is forged not on foot but through the boy’s naïve questions, through his father’s thoughtful responses, and through their long, companionable silences. For the father, the stakes are clear: if his son dies, the world dies. Comparisons with the Christ story are unavoidable, and the temptation to render emotional moments with bombastic sentimentality must have been compelling, yet Larcenet never falls into that trap.

Against backgrounds of grey, brown and beige, his gritty linework stands in stark relief. Litter, ash and dust appear to swirl constantly around the characters and, by extension, around the page, at times almost obscuring the action. Rendered in this way, the remains of buildings and the leafless trees are interchangeable, while skeletons comingle with detritus, forming a landscape that is part-rubble, part-biological, everything dead or dying. The demarcations that once separated people along socio-cultural and political lines are now moot in the face of mass displacement. Presented without chapter breaks, the story is unrelenting, as events representing days, weeks, possibly months, merge into one another. Flipping back and forth through the book produces a kaleidoscopic effect, with one moment nearly indistinguishable from another, and cause and effect meaningless. It is only by pausing on a moment that its import can be fully appreciated.

Exhibiting an admirable combination of artistic bravura and restraint, Larcenet’s graphic novel adaptation perfectly embodies the quiet, profound poetry of McCarthy’s tale. It is a tale that might be viewed either as an elegy to a dying world, or – through its insistence on the resilience of love and hope in the face of Armageddon – as a new Genesis.

 

Book Review: Drawing (In) The Feminine. Bande Dessinée and Women

 reviewed by Manuela Di Franco, Ghent University

Margaret C. Flinn, editor. Drawing (In) The Feminine. Bande Dessinée and Women. Studies in Comics and Cartoons series. Columbus: The Ohio State University Press, 2024. 279 pp. <https://ohiostatepress.org/books/titles/9780814215142.html>

Drawing (In) The Feminine raises the important issue of underrepresentation of women and nonbinary creators in the bande dessinée, or Francophone (including Africa), industry, a topic whose relevance goes beyond Franco-Belgian traditions. The volume does not only have the merit of addressing such an important topic in the field of comics studies, but also opens a debate on how scholarship can better include and give recognition to marginalised creators. The volume’s bringing to light underrepresented creators is achieved by focusing on contribution of female and nonbinary creators and by challenging the predominant, male-dominated narratives that have populated not just the comics industry, but also the scholarship. The book’s examination of how gender dynamics in the comics field caused or contributed to the marginalization of these creators is combined with a solid socio-cultural contextualization that helps situate the experience of the specific authors and case studies approached by the contributors. The volume engages well with existing scholarship and offers a rich contribution to the field, opening up paths for future research.

The volume is divided into three parts, comprised of four essays each for a total of 12 chapters, each by a different author. Part 1, “Industry, Audience, and Platforms,” tackles the issue of underrepresentation by examining dynamics between the comics industry and audiences, to highlight how some creators have attracted more attention than others. It starts with by retracing the history of bande dessinée from a gender perspective, to examine if and how the professional path of male and female creators diverged. Written by Jessica Kohn, the chapter exposes the limits of focusing on monographic careers, predominantly male, and the negative consequences such an approach has on our general understanding of the comics industry, shedding light on issues that have often been overlooked by fans and scholars. In chapter 2, Sylvain Lesage expands the question by analyzing bd publishing process as a whole, underlying the importance of recognizing and addressing the impact of roles such as that of colorists—which “has traditionally been feminine” (39)—that often go unnoticed despite their importance. In so doing, Lesage offers an examination of the gendered distribution of roles in the industry and argues of its relevance to this day in the legitimization of comics in France. Benoit Crucifix connects these ideas and adds a historical perspective on the “intermedial connections and exchanges between comics for adults and for kids” (56), the latter being the field where women cartoonists and illustrators were more widely employed (and acknowledged). Crucifix shows through the example of art by Nicole Claveloux how recognition differs between female and male creators. This third chapter therefore raises two important issues: that of the recognition of a genre (children’s comics) and of women’s artists. The final chapter of Part 1, by Jennifer Howell, addresses the use of comics by female artists as a tool for social activism, and particularly for challenging the established and oppressive patriarchal society. Howell provides an exhaustive socio-cultural contextualization that includes an overview of Moroccan feminism, allowing the readers to better understand the case studies of the chapter and adding a contemporary perspective on the issues raised in the previous chapters.

Part 2, “Geographies of Identities,” centers on bodily experience and its placement in space. The four chapters of this section deal with different aspects of the body and the physicality of women’s lived experiences. In chapter 5, Armelle Blin-Rolland adopts a “medium- and place-specific approach” (97) to examine the connection between gender and the environment and to add to the field of “ecographics.” Blin-Rolland does so by using Breton comics as a case study that shows the links between the construction of a folkloristic, rural, and feminized identity. The latter is particularly emphasized for the (historical) importance of women’s experiences with nature, which are particularly relevant for the Breton case. In chapter 6, Michelle Bumatay focuses on contribution by women and nonbinary creators within the francophone African and diasporic context comparing the work by Marguerite Abouet (and Clémenet Oubrerie) with Joëlle Epée Mandengue’s (known as Elyon). Bumatay argues that the use of the “feminine plural” in Abouet and Elyon’s comic series serves the purpose to highlight (and engage with) diversity in gender identities and experiences of African women. The chapter stresses the importance of acknowledging the intersectionality of race, gender, and cultural identity, especially to understand how these creators navigate both African and global contexts and their contribution to the comics industry. Comics emerged as a medium for African and diasporic women to express their experiences and challenge dominant, colonial narratives—showing how comics can give voice to a broad spectrum of African and diasporic womanhood. Alexandra Gueydan-Turek also explores the use of comics to give voice to marginalized communities in chapter 7, focused on the 2016 Lebanese comic anthology by the collective Samandal. Through this case study, the chapter examines the use of comics for political expression, social activism, and cultural resistance, arguing the significant role of comics as a platform for marginalized voices and a form of visual communication that can inspire political change and challenge oppressive regimes. By analysing Samandal’s work, Gueydan-Turk shows how through visual and narrative strategies representing political realities, revolutionary comics transcends borders and can amplify political impact. Finally, the chapter stresses the importance of paying more scholarly attention to this genre, especially in the context of contemporary social movements where comics still have a key role in advocating for political change. The last chapter of part 2, “Unveiling IVG” by Catriona Macleod, argues comics’ ability of breaking taboos and offer nuanced portrayal of women’s experiences with abortion, while also serving as a tool for feminist advocacy. Macleod argues the crucial role of comics in normalizing conversations about abortion by depicting it as a personal issue. By normalizing abortion through personal verbal-visual storytelling, comics humanize the issue and contribute to “unveil” lived experiences of women. The chapter adds a perspective on feminist comics and brings to the reader’s attention how they challenge and reshape cultural (and heteropatriarchal) narratives, aligning with the book’s themes of visibility, representation, and activism.

Part 3, “Representations and History (Herstories),” concludes the volume with essays addressing how women have been represented across century (and genres). It starts with Jacques Dürrenmatt’s analysis of the depiction of women in early bande dessinées and their stereotypical image that followed society’s view of women of the time. This chapter puts the physical representation of women into the socio-historical context that wanted women attractive and vulnerable, traits that comics reflected by portraying them with exaggerated feminine features and secondary roles. Dürrenmatt engages in a visual analysis through case studies to show how deliberate visual choices reinforced the idea of women’s passive and secondary role in both society and comics. The analysis is concluded by a call for a reassessment of early French comics. The evolution of the portrayal of women is traced by Mark McKinney in his study of the “the Black woman warrior, or ‘Amazon,’ from Dahomey” (198), who follows its transformation from colonial to postcolonial narratives (chapter 10). The chapter argues that French colonial comics often exoticized (and eroticized) and simplified the Amazons, while post-colonial African comics have reclaimed and recontextualized their image as symbols of empowerment and resistance. McKinney also examines the complex gender dynamics surrounding the portrayal of the Dahomey Amazons, whose representation in comics provides a space to explore gender, power, and resistance, as well as the defiance of the typical representation of women as passive or subordinate (as seen in the previous chapter). McKinney brings to light the importance of reclaiming historical narratives through cultural production and highlights the importance of comics in the process of decolonization in African arts and literature: by challenging the effects of colonialism on cultural representations, comics can actively engage with ongoing discussions of postcolonial narratives—including the European colonial responsibilities. In the following chapter (chapter 11), Isabelle Delorme adds to the discourse of women’s representation in comics by analyzing the work of Catel (Catel Muller), whose feminist biographical bande dessinées have challenged the historical underrepresentation of women in both history and popular culture. Delorme examines how Catel’s work blurs the line between art and activism by advocating with her (bio)graphic novels for greater visibility of women’s contribution to history, culture, and society. Catel not only brought attention to marginalized or overlooked female figures, but she also legitimized the genre of biographies dessinées. Delorme concludes by suggesting that Catel’s work and collaborative projects points for future directions for both feminist art and the comics medium. Véronique Bragard concludes this section with an analysis of how women creators can contribute to the overturning of “normalized versions of social organization, offering alternative readings of exploitative systems and hierarchies as well as alternative appropriations of the comics medium” (240). Through the analysis of Emilie Plateau’s Noire and her representation of Claudette Colvin, Bragard shows how comics can be used to re-tell history from a feminist perspective and make a significant contribution to collective memory. By emphasizing the contributions of women to the Civil Rights Movement, Plateau’s work challenges the traditional focus on male leaders and instead gives voice to marginalized female voices, making the story one of gendered experience and not only of racial injustice.

Overall, the volume achieves its goal of giving voice to marginalized women and nonbinary creators, although perhaps with a certain imbalance in favor of the first category. The contributors call for further research on forgotten or disregarded comics creators, a call that one can only hope will be welcomed by the scholarship to bring to light the many underrepresented and marginalized voices left outside of the established, male-dominated narrative.

The Huge Comics Exhibition at the Pompidou Center in Paris - A View from Finland

by  Harri Römpötti, a journalist and critic of comics based in Finland, who has been a freelancer for 35 years writing reviews, articles and books about comics among other subjects

Bande dessinée, 1964-2024,  https://www.centrepompidou.fr/en/program/calendar/event/9htHbj4  

Corto Maltese: Une vie romanesqu, https://www.centrepompidou.fr/en/program/calendar/event/h0PE028

La BD à tous les étages,
https://www.centrepompidou.fr/fr/programme/agenda/evenement/zozduYP

Paris: The Centre Pompidou. May 29 - November 4,  2024. https://www.centrepompidou.fr/fr/programme/la-bd-a-tous-les-etages

Comics have taken over the Pompidou Center in Paris. The facility advertises that there are comics on all floors. The entirety of the exhibition is exceptionally extensive, even by the Pompidou’s scale.

   It is also exceptional in the history of comics. The world’s most famous and prestigious museums of modern and contemporary art are probably Pompidou and Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York. Neither has had anything similar before.

   “There have been big comics exhibitions in France, but nothing like this. In the early 1990’s, MoMA had an exhibition called ‘High and Low:  Modern Art and Popular Culture,’ which included comics. But cartoonists led by Art Spiegelman criticized it for its condescending attitude,” says comics scholar Thierry Groensteen.

   Groensteen (born 1957) is known for, among other things, his book Systéme de la bande dessinée (1999, System of Comics in English 2007). He has also managed the comics museum in Angoulême and founded the publishing house Éditions de L’An 2. Groensteen has curated some of France’s previous major exhibitions and is one of the four curators of the Pompidou exhibition.

   Spiegelman, who won a Pulitzer Prize for the comic Maus, is not only an artist, but also one of the most authoritative comics experts in the United States. At the exhibit opening in the end of May, Spiegelman applauded the Pompidou exhibition. “Beforehand, I was afraid of the worst, but this advances the status of the comics by years,” Spiegelman stated.

   The defining of the time period covered by the main exhibition, “Comics 1964-2024” (or “Bande dessinée, 1964-2024”), is interesting. The 60-year period covers the development arc of contemporary comics. Comic books have long been considered children’s culture. In the U.S., newspaper comics were aimed at adults or the whole family. Comic books that only appeared in the 1930’s were mostly made for children. In Europe, the early Tintin and a large part of the rest of the comics were aimed at children. Similarly, manga production in Japan swelled after World War II. The heyday of children’s comics lasted mostly from the 1930’s to the 1960’s.

   After that, artists in many different parts of the world, who grew up with comics for children and young people, started making comics for adults. That’s where Pompidou’s main exhibition begins. “The counterculture highlighted arts that were previously neglected. The boundaries between high culture and pop started to break down,” Groensteen says.

   In France, one of the milestones was Jean-Claude Forest’s erotic science fiction comic Barbarella. In the U.S., Robert Crumb and others broke taboos in underground comics, and in Japan, Yoshihiro Tatsumi and others developed manga into gekiga, dramatic pictures, in Garo magazine. Garo artists didn’t see themselves as part of the manga industry.

   “It was my idea to start from the 60’s and not from the beginning of the history of comics. At first, I thought we’d stop at 2000, because it’s hard to choose the most relevant ones from the latest developments. Then we would have gone from Barbarella to Persepolis, but very few women would have been included. Most of the female artists have established themselves only in the 21^st Century.” Marjane Satrapi’s autobiographical success, Persepolis, would indeed have been a rarity in an exhibition limited to the 20^th Century.

   Although the exhibition is breathtakingly extensive, it only scratches the surface. The three main regions of the comics--U.S., Europe, and Japan--appear side by side for the first time on such a large scale. But the Nordic countries are represented only by Sweden’s Joanna Hellgren. Groensteen explains, “I’m the only one of us curators who knows Nordic comics at all. To be honest, we didn’t even consider the others. We had a list of over 200 must-have artists, but we had to cut it down to about 130. The artists’ home country was never a selection criterion. I would have liked to include Africa as well, but we ran out of space.”

   For Groensteen, it was important that next to well-known artists, others were exhibited for the general public. He brought along, among others, the German Anke Feuchtenberger and the Austrian Ulli Lust.

   Groensteen came up with the idea that “Comics 1964-2024” be divided into themes. Chronological order would have brought out the historical development, which now remains obscure. However, the division into themes also creates other small problems. For example, Crumb and Satrapi are not to be found in the room of autobiographical comics--or personal stories, as they are called at the Pompidou. Crumb is in the room of underground and other taboo-breakers, and Satrapi is in comics about history. Of course, they also belong to those rooms, but, many themes are strangely lacking expected cartoonists, when the artists belonging to several sections are in some other one.

   If you’re familiar with comics at all, you’ll miss some of your favorites at Pompidou, even though you’ll find many others. Groensteen says that he has a meter-long list of those left out. The omissions emphasize one of the key messages of the exhibition: that comics art is so vast that even a giant exhibition does not cover nearly everything. “Comics 1964-2024” is a slightly chaotic kaleidoscope that doesn’t even stay within its own limits. The all-time favorites, Asterix, Tintin, and Lucky Luke, are included. “Admittedly, they are rather from a different generation than the core of the exhibition, but, in France, we would never have been forgiven if they were missing,” Groensteen explains.

   One of the achievements of the exhibition is the large number of Japanese originals. Traditionally, it is very difficult to get them for exhibitions. There are also funny details. Maybe only the French could think of putting Guido Crepax’s erotic comics in the section of geometry, even though they fit there based on the exceptional compositions of the pages. Erotica doesn’t have its own section.

    Below the main exhibition, on the fifth floor, there is the museum’s traditional main collection exhibition. Comics have been placed there in dialogue with visual art in the “La bande dessinée au Musée” exhibition. Groensteen participated in its preparation only in discussions, not as an actual curator. The temporal limitation has been waived there. Among others, Winsor McCay, George Herriman, and George McManus have their own small but impressive showcases in the corridors between main spaces.

   The works of 15 contemporary comics artists are hung side by side with the big names in art. For example, David B., the creator of the Epileptic, is placed next to the surrealist André Breton, and Joann Sfar, the creator of The Rabbi’s Cat, hangs side by side with Jules Pascin. “However, the purpose is not to justify the position of comics in the museum, because it is no longer necessary,” Groensteen points out.

   Hugo Pratt’s Corto Maltese has been given its own exhibition in the museum’s library. Marion Fayolle, the author of surrealistic studies on human relationships, has set up a village for the whole family on the terrace of the main lobby.

   The share of actual experimental comics remains somewhat small, although for example Yuichi Yokoyama is prominently presented. The experimental magazine, Lagon, whose authors include Joe Kessler and Olivier Schrauwen, has its own extensive exhibition in the basement.

   The exhibitions were created relatively quickly, in 16 months. Groensteen says the biggest credit goes to Laurent Le Bon, who became director of the Pompidou Center in 2021. “Le Bon is a big fan of comics. For years, he and collector Édouard Leclerc dreamed of a big comics exhibition. Previously, they hoped to get it in the Louvre or d’Orsay. Leclerc has a huge collection, from which about a third of the originals in the exhibitions come from.” Of course, there have been cartoon exhibitions at the Pompidou before, but the giant entity became possible when Le Bon was chosen as the director of the museum.

   The Pompidou Center has also started acquiring its own collection of original comic art. The works of ten artists have been acquired first, featuring David B, Edmond Baudoin, Blutch, Nicolas de Crécy, Emmanuel Guibert, Benoit Jacques, Éric Lambé, Lorenzo Mattotti, Catherine Meurisse, and Fanny Michaëlis. Most of the exhibitions are on display until November 4^th. After that the entire Pompidou will be closed for extensive and long-lasting renovations.

[Versions of this article have previously appeared in Finnish newsmagazine Suomen Kuvalehti and will be published in the Swedish Comics Society’s newsmagazine Bild & Bubbla. This article was translated using Google, edited by John A. Lent, and then reworked by the author, and re-edited by Rhode and re-posted on Aug. 26, 2024.]