Miriam Ben-Rafael

Plurilingualism in Francophone Comics

While interest in comics has now become more prevalent in the academy, they are particularly appreciated in French-speaking locales, like France, Belgium or Quebec, where they are named bandes dessinees or BDs. Designated in these countries as the Ninth Art, the BD has a status far surpassing that of equivalent English-language comic strips (Forsdick 2005). In some cases, they are the object of theoretical discussions, such as when the stories of Becassine, the Breton female peasant working in the city, are deconstructed in the light of postcolonial approaches. BD urban landscapes are also often viewed as influenced by Le Corbusier’s architecture, while many forms of language can be understood as linguistic contributions dating from the student revolutions of the 1960s. References are discernible in BD to ongoing debates about feminism and other social issues. Drawing on psychoanalytic and Marxist interpretations, Ann Miller elaborates on different possible levels of BD reading (Miller 2007). Moreover, the importance of comics in present-day literature is reflected in national and international events such as the annual International Festival of Comics in Angouleme, first held in 1974.