Event funded by: the Cassal Fund, IMLR (£708)

Since the mid-1990s, female artists have become an increasingly visible presence in bande dessinée (French-language comic art), a medium with which women were previously rarely associated as creators or even consumers. Research concerning the work of Francophone female graphic novelists has been slow to emerge but is now a growing field. The primary goal of the seminars in the Sketching/Scripting Women series is therefore to contribute to and help steer the development of research into female bande dessinée creation, by bringing together practitioners, academics and the general public.

The Spring 2019 seminar in this series centred on the theme of ‘Women and Politics in Bande dessinée’, which were discussed by four speakers: three academics (Dr Ann Miller as a keynote speaker, Dr Edward Still and Dr Armelle Blin-Rolland), and a prize-winning graphic novelist (Tanx). The three academic papers explored questions of the relationship between women and politics in female-authored bandes dessinées that focus on different historical and geographical contexts. Dr Ann Miller (University of Leicester) presented a keynote speech on ‘The Nude and the Naked: From Fine Art to Comics’; Dr Edward Still (University of Birmingham) presented a paper on ‘‘‘Monstrez-vous en tutu”: Obsessional Feminine Identity and Interpersonal Histories in the Bandes Dessinées of Nawel Louerrad’; and Dr Armelle Blin-Rolland (Bangor University) presented a paper on ‘Ecopolitics, Gender and Brittany in Bande dessinée’.

Following the three academic papers, graphic novelist Tanx spoke (in French) about her oeuvre and discuss her experience as a female artist in the French comics industry. Tanx’s work, with its distinctive underground and rock-inspired aesthetics, explores and subverts cultural and artistic representations of gender and the female body. Tanx was the 2009 co-recipient (for Esthétique et filatures, co-authored with Lisa Mendel) of the Prix Artémisia, an award created to honour the best female-created bande dessinée published each year.