Dupuis’ apologies
The work may well have been released in September 2023, but it has only sparked controversy today, but this is not the first time that a work has been debated several months or even several years after its publication. Faced with multiple denunciations, the publisher Dupuis decided to withdraw the book from sales, number 1 on Amazon, and apologized on X. “We are deeply sorry if this album could shock and hurt. This album is part of a caricature style of representation inherited from another era. More aware than ever of our moral duty and the importance of comics as a publisher and more broadly of books in the evolution of societies, today we take full responsibility for this error of assessment. This is why we would like to offer our most sincere apologies. We have implemented the removal of the work from all points of sale.”
With Siprou, Dany follows in the footsteps of her idol
Dany, surprised
For his part, the designer Dany does not hide his astonishment: “I showed my sketches and my plates to my editor, Benoît Frippiat. They were accepted and validated via emails where they wrote to me: ‘Congratulations on your latest boards‘, where I am congratulated for the quality of my work! It was only black women that I agreed to redraw, because I was told that they had too big lips. Wanting to avoid controversy, I gave in.” he declared to Paris Match in September 2023.
Glued to his phone for two days, the artist agrees to answer our questions on November 1st. “Maybe I didn’t correct it enough. I designed this album as a tribute to André Franquin. I was in the tradition of comedy series of the time where black people are gently caricatured in this way. It’s a comedy series. I will be careful in my next productions to go less far into caricature. It’s quite an era. When we see the black lookout in Asterix or Lucky Luke, it’s of the same order. We would have to take a lot out of the catalog. As for the role of women here, the commander of a huge aircraft carrier is a woman and a black woman, that’s no small thing. In any case, if I hurt anyone, I sincerely regret it. I made the mistake of working on caricature the old-fashioned way. But I find it strange that a young girl posts a video saying she doesn’t like the album and two days later the publisher removes it from the catalog.”
Spirou and Fantasio in New York
On the side of the Comics Museum
Director of the Comics Museum, Isabelle Debekker tries to stay above the fray : “As a cultural object, comics have a role to play and society has evolved over the last 10 or 15 years in the way of speaking, of exchanging points of view. I find it important that a publisher takes responsibilities but it is a shame that not everyone understands what is not acceptable in this album We must all continue our efforts at this level and ask ourselves the right questions, stop stigmatizing certain populations or communities today. Today we must realize that structural racism is a reality, like white privilege. tells us our interlocutor, who adds that there is a lot to say about the representation of women in comics, an exclusively male sector in its beginnings with a very Western point of view. The sector continues to become more feminized today, both in publishing houses, in schools and among artists, with sometimes a representation of around 80% of women.. “Which of course changes their representation in the albums. At a given moment, certain things that are always accepted become unacceptable” concludes our interlocutor.
