Published in September 2023, the album “La Gorgone bleue” written by Yann and drawn by Dany, includes caricatures of black people which have been strongly criticized by many Internet users. On October 31, the Dupuis publishing house acknowledged “an error of judgment” and apologized to readers.
Black people with ape-like features and an over-sexualization of female characters: this is what is criticized for “The Blue Gorgon”, a comic book album published a year ago and imagined by two of the leading figures of French comics. Belgian from the 1970s and 1980s, Yann and Dany. These days, a Tiktok video denouncing the racism and sexism of the album has gone viral, sparking a massive outcry among Internet users. As noted by BFMTV, Editions Dupuis apologized in a press release published on October 31: “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“. In the name of “moral duty“and in view of”the importance of comics” et “more broadly the book in the evolution of societies“, the publishing house says take “full responsibility for this error of assessment“. The decision was made to withdraw the book from all points of sale. The page referencing the comic on the Dupuis site has been deactivated.
Already accused of racism in the 1980s
At the time of the release of “The Blue Gorgon”, the designer Dany already admitted that alterations had to be made. In an interview with the site Les Amis de la BD, he specified: “I had to redo the drawing of certain black men who, it’s true, could seem a little too caricatured.“
This is not the first time that content deemed problematic has been published in a Spirou album. The character, although humanist and even a queer symbol for many young authors, for example, encountered in 1949 in “Spirou chez les pygmées”, a tribe made up of people with darker skin than the others. His investigation revealed that this difference in pigmentation was ultimately due to a lack of hygiene. In 1980, in an interview given to Numa Sadoul in the book And Franquin created the blunder, the creator of Spirou, Franquin, had brushed aside the accusations of racism to which he was already the subject: “There’s a nice young woman who did a sort of thesis on racism in my comics. Fortunately, she didn’t find many!“
published on November 1 at 12:35 p.m., Sabrina Guintini, 6Médias
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