An unusual event in children’s literature: a comic book album will be destroyed after accusations of racist representation. A subsidiary of the Média Participations group, the Franco-Belgian publishing house Dupuis decided, on Thursday, October 31, to withdraw an adventure by Spirou from all its points of sale, Spirou and the Blue Gorgonwritten by Yann and drawn by Dany, after a wave of outrage on social media. Published in September 2023, the story shows black people with ape-like and stereotypical features (overly large lips, prognathic jaws, etc.), according to detractors of this work that addresses ecology through themes of greenwashing or ecoterrorism.
Dupuis accompanied his decision with a message of apology, published in X: “We deeply regret that this album could shock and hurt. This album is part of a cartoonish style of representation inherited from another era. More aware than ever of our moral duty and the importance of the comic as a publisher and, more broadly, of the book in the evolution of societies, today we assume full responsibility for this error of judgment. » Registration Pillar Spirouin whose pages he especially created the character of Olivier Rameau at the end of the 1960s, Dany (Daniel Henrotin) defended himself against any racist intention by alleging the caricature.
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In an interview granted to Paris Party A year ago, the Belgian cartoonist explained that he had to recover, at the request of his editor, black women “because we [lui] They said they had big lips ». Complaints were also launched against him on social networks for the hypersexualized representation of women, recalling those who, two years ago, had accompanied the controversy surrounding Bastien Vivès, accused of defending pedophilia, within the framework of the exhibition that was to dedicate the Angoulême International Comic Festival. it. The fact that Dany, 81, is one of Bastien Vivès’ favorite designers may not be unrelated to the outbreak of this matter.
This, however, is not the first time the graphic representation of black people has been discussed. In 2019, two signatories of a column published in the obs had requested that a fresco by the painter Hervé Di Rosa commemorating the abolition of slavery in which two figures with large red lips appear, be removed from the walls of the Bourbon Palace in Paris. The artist had denied any claim in “trivialization of racism”explaining that the mouths of all his characters had the same characteristics, regardless of their skin color. The National Assembly then simply removed the photo of the painting from its website.
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