I spent hours of my childhood reading Asterix, Tintin and Gaston [0]. Each had an amazing slightly different universe.
Now living in the US it always amazes me how different the Comics culture over here is.
Now living in the US it always amazes me how different the Comics culture over here is.
After growing up on European comics, the ones in the US were bland, just plain crude (Garfield), or overtly political (Bloom County, Doonesbury). The only one that had the equivalent depth and humor, while being uniquely American, was Calvin and Hobbes.
The Far Side?
Family Circle (sometimes, and before the original author died)
I loved the Far Side when it was at its peak in the late 80's, but it's just disconnected one-frame gags. And upon re-reading as an adult, they were very inconsistent, and the surrealism hasn't aged well. Maybe some comics just belong in childhood/teenage years, but it's clear that some really work for adults as well.
Family Circle falls into the cute one-strip category, but it didn't have much depth either--too saccharine. To me it didn't compare to European comics focused on family antics like Boule et Bill, or Mafalda (Argentinian).
I really think the American comics were hampered by the daily strip in the newspaper format. Many authors did try to make longer story arcs over a week of strips, and I preferred those. Calvin and Hobbes was the best at it, but there were other good ones such as Mutts and Over the Hedge. There were/are authors working outside the strip format, making whole book comics like in Europe, but I never got into those--too dark (Maus) or super-hero (Watchmen) or never-ending. For example, the more recent Amulet series started out well, but each book went deeper and deeper into the story and never really resolved the initial tension--I gave up after 7 or 8 books.
(I say that as a huge Tintin fan growing up.)
https://www.bedetheque.com/BD-Oumpah-Pah-Tome-1-Oumpah-Pah-l...
https://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/17/magazine/how-to-read-a-ra...
I can see Tintin in the Congo being worth discussing, I mean it's from the 30s, but even as the child I knew to take some distance from it even without adult supervision.
Of course no offense. You don't have a history of the most brutal systematic slavery in history and the ensuing racism that persists to this day. European subjugation and mockery of Africa is older and has left wounds that have had more time to heal. The wounds are still fresh in the US and they keep being reopened, so it's of course natural for them to still hurt in the US.
There are other ways to draw black people in comic books that doesn't have to rely on hurtful stereotypes.
Is just a parody. Please calm yourself.
I'm really tired of this dark soup of neopuritanism, SJW and porcelain people. By the way, who are you to tell me how I must to draw an human figure?. Has returned Maoism or Degenerate art? Do you know what other artists create images depicting black people with big lips and different types of hair ornaments? All african artists.
If you don't like the comics, just don't read it. The solution is really simple.
If you don't think the pickaninny or the mammy are racist, I have no idea what you think racism looks like.
The pickaninny and the mammy were part of minstrel shows and lots of other pernicious hurtful portrayals. Nobody has ever complained about the other characters in Astérix because there is no history of black people systematically enslaving whites and then making ridiculous shows and cartoons about the enslaved whites. Of course white people aren't offended by how white people draw themselves.
Uderzo didn't even invent the style in which he drew black people. He's just copying the same racist caricatures that existed long before he did.
I spent some years homeless and I post as openly female on HN, which at least historically was overwhelmingly male.
I do my best to educate people here (about homelessness, being a woman online, etc) and I try to keep it as conversational as possible. People who want to be good and want to see themselves as good don't react well to being attacked and accused. It tends to close minds and, with it, doors.
I'm not trying to attack you nor criticize you. I'm hoping to empower you with a better methodology.
Long experience tells me you probably won't see it that way. I don't plan to argue with you about the choice I've made to comment here.
Here's wishing you fair winds for your journey going forward.
> Does racism itself exist? Yes
> What does it look like?
Stupid, unfunny, monochromatic and afraid to normalize the appearance of interracial couples, or to show black, jew, indian, or hispane characters in positive roles, or to depict different cultures and religions living together.
Therefore, totally the opposite to this comics.
If comics for you, mean only US schools and Steamboat Willy cartoons, then this is just a tunnel vision problem. Can be treated by exposition to different schools of cartoonists. In Europe there are some really big: Uderzo and collaborators, Hergé (Questionable first history, corrected later), Franquin, Peyo or Ibañez among other. Ibañez is undoubtely the wildest one; If you think Asterix it's politically incorrect you're going to freak out with this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERFdmt6NOGw
And yes, is for kids.
Do you know about minstrel shows?
Si quieres continuar esta conversación podemos proseguir por correo: jordigh@octave.org
Creo que también estarás más cómodo en español.
(For the record, there are plenty of "black" characters (Numids, Nubians etc.) in Asterix and Baba is the only one with his characteristic. Many of the others are depicted favorably, as the other commenter said)
Exactly. Also the black characters in Asterix were not "black", they were Numidians or Nubians. They were characters with agency like any other, the Mansion of Gods comic is the best example.
Not that it excuses anything.
There are thousands of other strong, brutish, malevolent, greedy or dumb-as-bricks white characters in Asterix also. The main antagonists are almost invariably white. They mock of almost any white stereotype and made fun of almost each european country and culture.
...But they don't trash it or are disrespectful. The histories always include positive characters ambassadors of those cultures, friends or relatives, that get in trouble and ally with the main characters to solve the problem together. They are treated always by Asterix as equals without hesitation, with one bold exception: A black woman.
In Asterix and Cleopatra the main characters are sent in a mission to help an african old friend in trouble and the druid goes also (to learn about some discoveries of african people). The friend is depicted as smart, hard worker and educated (architect chief). Another main character in the comic is Cleopatra, depicted as a beauty, very sophisticated and well bred government in charge, their main flaw is being whimsical. This is one of the few characters that is depicted not as equal, but over the main male characters, in an upper class.
And this comic was released in 1963. If there is something that Asterix isn't, is racist.
My point here is that "political correctness" has a point. Of course most Europeans love Astérix. It's usually harmless and in good fun. It's punching upwards or sideways. But making fun of genocided cultures by completely misunderstanding them is not in good fun. Oumpah-pah or Tintin in the Congo are a different sort of thing than Astérix In Helvetia.
Erbfeindschaft (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French%E2%80%93German_enmity) is still alive and well in Germany so it's not like there is no awareness of these sentiments anymore. Although under the EU project that has improved a lot in the recent two decades because both the French and Germans found a common enemy in the Brits ha.
As opposed to the real life French experience of them?
>My point here is that "political correctness" has a point.
That we should ignore historical experience and portray peoples and cultures as totally the same and interchangeable except in purely decorative areas (e.g. cuisine, music)?
Because a Germany that shed cruel blood and huge toll all over Europe was for 5+ years the direct experience of Europeans that wrote those comics, and for many decades still a trauma...
Tintin is rather fascinating in that regard, in that the first 3 albums at least are egregiously incorrect caricatures of russia/africa/america with a decidedly colonialist, white supermacist, paternalist bent (very real, inarguably so, take a read yourself). A product of being literally ordered by an ultraconservative catholic priest. At a certain point in his life, Hergé (the author) met what would become a close friend (the basis of the character Chang in the albums). This caused such a wild shift in his worldview that the albums shifted from being these oversimplified caricatures of "inferior nations" to being one of the most thoroughly well-researched and eclectic comic book series/universes of all time.
>Beginning a series of newspaper supplements in late 1928, Wallez founded a supplement for children, Le Petit Vingtième (The Little Twentieth), which subsequently appeared in Le Vingtième Siècle every Thursday. Carrying strong Catholic and fascist messages, many of its passages were explicitly anti-semitic.
To my mind what forgives this is not the fact that it was done long ago, but simply the fact that he so drastically changed his worldview, and repudiated his earlier work. It takes particular strength of character to admit one was wrong in one's core beliefs, and effect real change which reflects true regret.
Agree about the comic book culture, the only people I meet here in the US that have read Belgian comics seem to be other Europeans. But on the other hand, even though I was reading comics voraciously as a kid I knew nothing about DC and Marvel before the comic book movie craze started.
I was also really into Fighting Fantasy books too. One day at the local library I stumbled upon an Asterix adventure book and it felt like Christmas had arrived.