Psychiatrist Fredric Wertham’s book Seduction of the Innocent, published in 1954, aimed to mobilize parents in a revolt against comics. Wertham suggested that comics turned children into “criminals,” and justified his claims through homophobic, racist, and sexist rhetoric. Wonder Woman, for example, was for Wertham a dangerous icon for her deviance from patriarchal norms. His misguided critiques prompted the creation of the Comics Code Authority, a group established by the Comics Magazine Association of America which sought to regulate and censor the comic book industry based on his principles, which let place to a jaded understanding of the medium as an instrument of “low culture.”

Though Wertham’s arguments contain discriminatory values and practices that are sadly still active today, comics has evolved significantly since then. Now seen as a respectable artistic medium, comics has reached a new level of popular and critical recognition around the world over the past decades. With the upcoming 44th edition of the Angoulême International Comics Festival, we can recognize how “high culture” has previously attempted to police comics in order to silence its popular appeal. But we also see how the medium is providing a space for these same voices to resist conventions and challenge artistic norms.

Wertham suggested that comics turned children into “criminals,” and justified his claims through homophobic, racist, and sexist rhetoric.

The festival’s 44th edition takes place from January 26 to 29 in many locations throughout Angoulême, in southwestern France. It is the third largest comics festival in the world after Italy’s Lucca Comics & Games and Japan’s Comiket. Quite different in nature from North American comics convention, in the sense that it’s focused on the industry as much as the public, and doesn’t venture into other commercial mediums like films or video games, the Festival seeks to further promote the value of comics upon the general population by organizing numerous exhibitions on the artistic merits of past and current works. It also aims to draw comics writers and artists into a circle where the reality of their profession can be displayed before a large public, and to maintain the industry active by organizing venues related to publishing and networking among publishers, editors and new talents as well.

Comic book culture is also an integral part of Montreal’s artistic scene. Library Drawn & Quarterly, a world-renown Montreal comics publishing company, features international and North American works from emerging and well-established artists alike. Since the company’s humble beginnings in a Mile-End apartment, the storefront has remained intimate – despite housing adored authors such as Roxane Gay – with an aesthetic that seeks to reinvent a distinctive Montreal comics scene. From indie to international, Montreal also hosts many comic book conventions including the star-studded comicon, the interactive pop-culture expo Kultura, to Otakuthon, the Anime mecca of Quebec. Festival BD de Montreal draws the closest parallel to the Angoulême festival, which features bandes dessinées created by Quebecois artists.

 

Stan Lee and Jack Kirby […]addressed minorities’ struggles against a society centered on the white, conservative, heterosexual male in X-Men.

The crossover between Franco-Belgian and Quebec comics is evident in style, theme, and, obviously, language. Quebecois bandes dessinées have remained distinct from English comic styles in the rest of Canada throughout their history – emerging most vividly at the turn of the 20th century in the era known as “The Golden Age of BDQ.” However, in 1904, the celebration ended, as Quebecois artists struggled to compete against the mecca publishing companies in the United States. Moreover, artists were also impacted by historical developments in the American comic book industry: Wertham’s Seduction of the Innocent spurred the rise of “Catholic comics” in Quebec to challenge the themes in American comics they deemed as ‘immoral.’

The American graphic novel
In the 1960s, the American comic book underwent significant thematic developments, deviating from the “true blue” archetypes that had permeated the medium since the 1930s. Stan Lee and Jack Kirby metaphorically addressed minorities’ struggles against a society centered on the white, conservative, heterosexual male in X-Men, marking the desire for comic book writers and artists to craft more nuanced, socially relevant stories. This further materialized in the seventies, where superhero comics began to deal seriously with subjects like drug abuse or alcoholism, which Wertham would have considered “taboo,” as seen in story arcs like Snowbirds Don’t Fly or Demon in a Bottle. These comics began to show the importance of discussing and representing real-world social issues in artistic formats – an important step in addressing the stigmas surrounding these topics.

The medium is providing a space for these same voices to resist conventions and challenge artistic norms.

Following the rise of the graphic novel with Will Eisner’s A Contract with God, comics studies also began to flourish as a legitimate field through the efforts of pioneer cartoonists Eisner and Scott McCloud to promote the aesthetic value of the medium. The release of groundbreaking literary works, which were concerned more on introspective sensibilities than dynamic action, such as Art Spiegelman’s Maus, signified the Modern Age of Comic Books, an informal era that began in the mid-1980s and remains the current trend. A new type of mainstream comics also embraced daring, creative visions which freely reinterpreted the superhero figure under a variety of new themes and visual motifs that reflected the socio-political climate of the time – as seen in original works like Alan Moore and David Lloyd’ V for Vendetta, Chris Claremont and Brent Anderson’s God Loves, Man Kills, or Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns.

With the rise of alternative publishers in the nineties, writers and artists were given even greater opportunities to take creative liberties, explore different forms of artistic expression, and challenge dominant narratives. As a result, graphic novels like Joe Sacco’s Palestine, published by the alternative company Fantagraphics Books, revived aspects of the “New Journalism” genre: a style that used unconventional literary techniques to portray a subjective political perspective, which had declined in the 1980s. Sacco’s graphic novel narrates the daily struggles of Palestinians within the occupied territories from 1991 to 1992, interpreting the Israeli occupation of Palestinian landconflict from an individual and group perspective, explored through drawing and dialogue.

The Franco-Belgian bande dessinée
Nuance, diversity, and complexity haven’t developed only through explicitly political works. The Franco-Belgian bande dessinée has also greatly evolved from the early comics geared towards children such as Tintin and Asterix. These comics now encompass a broad range of new works that shine through the incredibly rich, diverse narrative tones and visual styles that these stories affirm towards one another, through the individual voices of their authors. These works may address themes that are directly embedded into Franco-Belgian history and society – such as Jacques Tardi’s C’était la guerre des tranchées or Enki Bilal’s Nikopol Trilogy – or deal with outsiders’ perspectives as they arrive in new, unknown societies – such as Guy Delisle’s Pyongyang or Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis. In any case, they infuse their format with a decidedly more European sentiment, emphasizing the intellectual, reflective nature of characters’ actions and impressions as they progress through their narratives without a great deal of action.
Franco-Belgian comics have branched out into new genres since the seventies, creating original series that embrace concepts of high fantasy, western or science-fiction, while retaining an Old World-type approach; original themes are kept intact while a rich world-building shines through the panels, as seen in works such as Jean Van Hamme and Grzegorz Rosinski’s Thorgal or Alejandro Jodorowsky and Moebius’ The Incal. Furthermore, aside from the narrative and aesthetic developments that took place for new stories, some of the older series, like The Smurfs or Lucky Luke, found a way to win over new generations by renewing their types of stories and visual gags, thus keeping these series, and bande dessinée as a whole, fresh and alive for the time to come.

The Japanese manga
Finally, the Japanese manga has trodden the same path as well, drawing a proud heritage from its first original, children-oriented works such as Osamu Tezuka’s Astro Boy while reinventing its formula around the 1980s, producing stories that have since then become famous worldwide for their highly dynamic style, memorable character design, and strikingly original narrative approach.

A unique Japanese genre, manga can be examined in dialogue with its American and European counterparts. While Akira Toriyama’s Dragon Ball and Takehiko Inoue’s Slam Dunk show the protagonist’s growth and triumph through hard work and sacrifice – a thematic structure commonly found in comic books and bande dessinée – works like Katsuhiro Otomo’s Akira and Kazuo Umezu’s The Drifting Classroom adopt a darker, more cynical, and even nihilistic vibe that is characteristic of many literary works of post-World War II Japan.

While manga are generally marketed to particular demographics – shonen for boys, shojo for girls, seinen for men, etc. – manga artists enjoy different levels of success depending on whether their work achieves mainstream recognition, as did Eiichiro Oda’s One Piece, or cult status, which was the case for Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata’s Death Note. Despite tackling vastly different themes, these two categories of works nevertheless manage to converge into a huge market.
Complementing the emergence of anime as another seminal part of Japanese cultural exports, with many series being adapted into anime at some point in their publication history, manga has thus evolved into a comics format that is increasingly made to be consumed in a transnational context despite its cultural specifications.

Comics have developed considerably since Wertham tried to censor their existence, traveling from America to Japan with a long layover in Europe, and gaining more and more credibility as an artistic medium. In its symbiotic juxtaposition of text and images, comics provide a unique storytelling power. Since anything in comics can be written and then drawn into panels, this is a visual medium that, unlike film or theatre, is not at all limited in its creative vision by material restrictions, aside from editorial concerns; it has the power to visually portray anything it can imagine, and to spread its influence upon any sphere of society, from working-class readers who find genuine interest in its popular texture to higher-standing academics who can find value in it from a more literary standpoint.

The Angoulême International Comics Festival then serves as a prime showcase of the cultural recognition that comics has earned since the seventies and eighties. Its inception in 1974 precisely mirrors the time where Franco-Belgian comics was growing in influence upon European society through media discussions, public exhibitions, and increased approval among the adult public. To those who might not read a lot of comics, but are certainly curious: keep an eye out on the festival’s news, and try to read some of the great comics that have been mentioned in this text, or other good recommendations that you might come across in one way or another. You could be genuinely surprised to find out what really goes on behind the seemingly superficial panels and speech balloons.

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This allegory has been updated and reconfigured in Shin Godzilla, the latest film in the Godzilla series. Directors Hideaki Anno and Shinji Higuchi were compelled by the success of Gareth Edwards’ 2014 Godzilla. Edwards’ film, however, places the Japanese cultural icon within an American context. Shin Godzilla replied to Edwards’s film by reclaiming this symbol and examining its historical ties to Japan, as well as the power of allegory to demand change within the Japanese government’s bureaucracy. As a result, the film was considered an outstanding success in Japan, more so than in the U.S., demonstrating how cultural context frames and politicizes a film in different ways.

In contrast to many other films in the Godzilla series, Shin Godzilla doesn’t draw inspiration from the heritage of nuclear bombings. Most critics believe that Honda’s 1954 film represents Godzilla as a physical manifestation of a nuclear bomb, thus punishing mankind for creating the bomb in the first place. Instead, Shin Godzilla represents the turmoil inflicted on Japan by the 2011 Tohoku and Fukushima natural disasters. The message in Anno and Higuchi’s film, however, holds the government – not human kind – responsible for encouraging the monster’s destruction. Subsequently, the film criticizes the government’s failure to take decisive measures against Godzilla and ensure the wellbeing of its civilians as they flee from the chaos and destruction, because of the government’s need to secure their own interests before all else.

In Shin Godzilla, the titular monster has evolved into a terrifying combination of tsunami, earthquake, and nuclear meltdown, embodying the triple disaster that occurred on March 11, 2011 in eastern Honshu. As it emerges from the depths of Tokyo Bay, the creature begins its onslaught by wreaking destruction through the bayside neighborhoods. Godzilla is first seen plowing within massive torrents that engulf cars and boats and tear the bricks and concrete off buildings while civilians run away in terror. As the monster then evolves from a primitive worm-like creature to a fully advanced leviathan, the Earth begins to quake in the presence of its fearsome power.

The government evolves into a role of secondary, passive antagonist, while Yaguchi and his team are the ones that fight back against deference and buck-passing.

The city, now evacuated, leaves only the remnants of Tokyo; roads and monorails grow cracked and jagged, while apartment buildings and commercial skyscrapers crumble down to the streets below in a pandemonium of smashing glass and crushing concrete. Finally, when the military first attempts to destroy the creature, it unleashes its full nuclear power. Godzilla’s atomic breath is now complemented by devastating energy rays shot from its dorsal fins, which blaze down the city and envelop its ruins into the darkness of the night.

Following these different scenes of destruction, the film shows government officials as they attempt to control damage and provide emergency services to civilians. The cinematography then closely mirrors photos that surfaced from the actual disasters. We are given shots of the mobilizing blue-suited civil servants combing through huge piles of debris strewn across the devastated city, overcrowded underground shelters where terrified and confused civilians sit amidst unsettling lights and sounds, and politicians donning their emergency jumpsuits and convening emergency press conferences. The way these scenes are staged starkly echoes the way real-life journalists and reporters documented the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami and the Fukushima nuclear meltdown on March 11 and afterwards. Even Godzilla’s massive tail – jagged and cracked with radioactive energy just like the rest of its new body – swishing over residential quarters evokes memories of the nuclear fallout sent wafting over towns and cities. By mediating images of the triple calamity through the monster and its destructive acts, Shin Godzilla thus reveals the trauma that still lingers in the collective subconscious of Japanese society.

Aside from these visual callbacks to the 2011 disasters, Shin Godzilla also succeeds as a highly potent commentary on the state of contemporary Japanese politics and its incapacity to deal with such a crisis in an efficient way. Early on in the story, as the Prime Minister’s cabinet members assemble to evaluate the first reports of the monster, we already see them indulge in self-interested and complicated formalities to determine the right executive course of action. This portrayal evades the two stereotypes about politicians that can undermine the political element of any action film. Politicians can be presented either as benign, sappy figures who naïvely put their nation and their people above all else and do not show the slightest self-interest in the outcome of the narrative, as demonstrated by filmmakers like Michael Bay and Roland Emmerich, or as caricatures who stay indifferent to the pain and oppression of the populace and are only preoccupied by their equally bland self-interests of power accumulation, as demonstrated by filmmakers like Oliver Stone. Instead of resorting to these tropes, the screenplay instead opts for a critical, sometimes even satirical, but ultimately pragmatic and thoughtful tone when showing the interplay and steps of decision-making between the different officials.

Godzilla has grown to become not only a source of entertainment, but also a lasting allegory of nuclear devastation.

Shinzo Abe, the current Prime Minister of Japan, has endorsed the film, and said before a military gathering in September that “[he] heard that the chairman of the Joint Staff Council and members of the Self-Defense Forces appear in the film and are depicted as being very heroic.” Abe seems to believe that the legacy of Godzilla is rooted in the “unwavering support the public has for Self-Defense Forces.” However, this idea of “unwavering support” is contested within the film. Hideaki Anno and Shinji Higuchi portray the Self-Defense Forces not in a way that evokes patriotism, but invites skepticism.

The film openly values the restoration of Japan’s power in the context of contemporary politics, especially over its relationship with the United States. The younger political generation, represented by protagonist Rando Yaguchi and his team of so-called “nerds and scientists” who dedicate all of their efforts to conceive a weapon against Godzilla, represents the need for Japan to reaffirm its power within its bargaining and cooperation engagements. It’s important to recognize, however, that the film doesn’t advocate Japanese militarization to stand their ground. While advocating the return of Japan’s bargaining power, it still keeps a critical eye on the use of the military to resolve this kind of crisis.

In Shin Godzilla, the Japanese government is portrayed as an old guard who finds itself to be mostly out of touch with modern society, sticking to overly complex and corpulent bureaucratic dynamics. The hierarchical nature of the political system is reinforced as government officials use their political power to protect their interests at the expense of the civilians. It is not that the government is sinister or mean-spirited, but simply inept and averse to any course of action that would compromise their positions. By minimizing the drastic effects of Godzilla’s rampage during press conferences, or cherry-picking the rosiest of situation assessments provided by experts, they disregard the city’s best interest and rest in a state of comfortable but unproductive indecision. The government evolves into a role of secondary, passive antagonist, while Yaguchi and his team are the ones that fight back against deference and buck-passing. These people take initiative to construct a potent weapon to overtake Godzilla, thus illustrating the film’s claim of hoping for a younger, bolder, more dedicated political generation to lead Japan to a brighter future.

While advocating the return of Japan’s bargaining power, it still keeps a critical eye on the use of the military to resolve this kind of crisis.

The depiction of a rigid government, perpetually mired in their standard operating procedures, echoes the actual decisions of former Prime Minister Naoto Kan and his cabinet in the aftermath of the Tohoku and Fukushima disasters. The film accurately reflects the opinion that Kan’s administration mishandled the scale and long-term effects of the disasters. Kan’s administration downplayed the meltdown and suppressed reports of high radiation levels in order to supposedly retain their reputation, secure their power, and avoid the costs of the disasters. However, widespread criticism led to Kan’s eventual resignation from office. The film’s essential point of view on Japanese politics creates a critical assessment against the “cover-your-ass” technique used by older Japanese bureaucracy to protect themselves from possible criticism or legal repercussion. This, in turn, greatly compromises the effectiveness of public action in the face of disaster and afflicts the welfare of the nation as a whole.

By comparing the legacy of the 2011 Tohoku and Fukushima disasters with the rampage and devastation wrought upon society by Godzilla, the political message of Shin Godzilla is this: people in positions of power have to take responsibility for their actions. Despite how those actions might compromise their personal interests, government members must use their power, granted to them by the democratic process, for the sake of their nation – especially during a crisis such as this. The team of informal but hardworking scientists assembled by Yaguchi spends a good part of the latter half of the movie by stating that, if all goes wrong with their plan, they will take the blame. This theme brings the film full circle and delivers the emotional payoff, that someone is finally willing to take ownership of the problem and put their career on the line for what they believe is the right course of action.

This criticism of government inaction towards grave situations, and how officials make the problem worse by failing to respond immediately, can potentially strengthen a sense of political collaboration. When confronted with such distressing events, actors have to strive towards a common goal no matter the costs. Although this may seem idealistic in today’s society given the abundance of government complacency, the destruction caused by Godzilla produces a solid reflection on inefficiency, lack of accountability, and misuse of power within the government. As such, if the message of the film isn’t destined to gain much influence in politics, it still holds an undeniable power on the people who end up watching it, as they can relate to the narrative and subsequently renew their critical judgment of their government. This sentiment is inspired from a work of fiction, but it is one that goes beyond simple entertainment and becomes much more significant to human reality.

Shin Godzilla had its North American limited theatrical run in October, but should be released on VOD (video on demand) and home media in the near future.

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