Existentialist Comics

Figures

Figure 1.The borderless tier (S: 109) Sartre – une existence, des libertés © DARGAUD 2015, by Depommier & Ramadier, <www.dargaud.com>. All rights reserved.

Figure 2.Ambiguous identities (B: 30) Sophie Carquain and Olivier Grojnowski: Simone de Beauvoir: une jeune fille qui dérange, © Hachette Livre (Marabout) 2016.

Figure 3.Image of philosophy, or philosophy of image? (C: 96) Originally published in French under the following title: Camus: entre justice et mère, by J. Lenzini & L. Cogni © Éditions SOLEIL, 2013.

Figure 4.The ‘Film Strips’ (S: 119) Sartre – une existence, des libertés © DARGAUD 2015, by Depommier & Ramadier, <www.dargaud.com>. All rights reserved.

Figure 5.‘What does Paris look like now?’ (S: 64) Sartre – une existence, des libertés © DARGAUD 2015, by Depommier & Ramadier, <www.dargaud.com>. All rights reserved.

Figure 6.Changing perspectives (S: 63) Sartre – une existence, des libertés © DARGAUD 2015, by Depommier & Ramadier, <www.dargaud.com>. All rights reserved.

Figure 7.Suffocating in the shadows (B: 7) Sophie Carquain and Olivier Grojnowski: Simone de Beauvoir: une jeune fille qui dérange © Hachette Livre (Marabout) 2016.

Figure 8.Someone would save her (B: 27) Sophie Carquain and Olivier Grojnowski: Simone de Beauvoir: une jeune fille qui dérange © Hachette Livre (Marabout) 2016.

Figure 9.Madame Zanta (B: 86) Sophie Carquain and Olivier Grojnowski: Simone de Beauvoir: une jeune fille qui dérange © Hachette Livre (Marabout) 2016.

Figure 10.Sunset over Algiers (C: 116) Originally published in French under the following title: Camus: entre justice et mère, by J. Lenzini & L. Cogni © Éditions SOLEIL, 2013.

Figure 11.Catherine and the rule of thirds (C: 23) Originally published in French under the following title: Camus: entre justice et mère, by J. Lenzini & L. Cogni © Éditions SOLEIL, 2013.

Figure 12.Politics and aesthetics (C: 90–91) Originally published in French under the following title: Camus: entre justice et mère, by J. Lenzini & L. Cogni © Éditions SOLEIL, 2013.

Figure 13.‘Nietzsche Says / Sartre Responds’ Dead Philosophers in Heaven, <http://www.dead-philosophers.com/?p=457> © Nick Gibb, 2010. Reproduced with kind permission from the artist.

Figure 14.‘The Consolation of Philosophy’ Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal, <https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/the-consolation-of-philosophy> © Zach Weinersmith, 2017. Reproduced with kind permission from the artist.

Figure 15.‘Dungeons & Dragons & Philosophers’ Existential Comics, <https://existentialcomics.com/comic/23> © Corey Mohler, n.d. Reproduced with kind permission from the artist.

Acknowledgements

This monograph owes much of its inspiration to Studies in Comics, for their interest in my ideas, support and publication of my work on Sartre in the article ‘Sartre, Sartre and the biographical bande dessinée’ (9.1, July 2018). My thanks go particularly to Madeline Gangnes for her unwavering belief in the value of the contribution. Passages in the Introduction, Chapter 1, and Conclusion have been reproduced with the kind permission of Studies in Comics. Permission to reproduce panels from each of the BD discussed in this work was generously granted from the respective publishers and artists, for which I am very grateful.

Thank you for the support of the Centre for Arts, Memory and Communities at Coventry University, who generously covered the subvention costs for this book.

The publication has been made possible by a grant from the Scouloudi Foundation in association with the Institute of Historical Research, which funded the inclusion of images that is so vital to work on visual art.

I would like to thank the usual suspects, who know who they are, and are infinitely appreciated.

A Note on the Text

For consistency and reader convenience, I uphold a number of conventions throughout this book. Firstly, as ‘Existentialism’ can be spelled with or without its initial capital, I commit to using it with an upper case ‘E’. This is because I refer to the specific philosophy of that name, and do not wish to conflate it with more general definitions, including the significantly vaguer ‘existential’. Secondly, all major works and core texts are abbreviated for the sake of convenience, but also to highlight them as such beyond other more general references. Thirdly, in the interest of accuracy, I refer to Sartre and works of its type as bande dessinée (or BD); in the interest of clarity, as well as my general aim to contribute to the nascent field of comics theory, I refer to comics, graphic novels, and bande dessinée on a broader basis as comics, as well as their academic field as comics studies. This is not to conflate the various verbo-visual works into the same category, rather, to allow for a common framework for a theoretical, or philosophical, approach. I use the term ‘comics’ where wanting to draw upon the field as a whole, or where a quotation imposes it; I use ‘bande dessinée’ when referring specifically to either my core texts, or the Francophone market. Finally, wherever possible I have quoted from original texts, giving a translation in brackets. This is to preserve the original values of the text as far as possible. Translations are my own unless otherwise indicated.