Bande dessinée franco-belge, petit-nègre et imaginaire colonial

Abstract

This work examines quite a large corpus of comics by the French-Belgian school, published from 1909 to the present. It studies the use of distorted French, known as “petit-nègre”, regarded as one of the most remarkable aspects in the colonial representation of the Other, especially African. It focuses on the group of comics published from 1909 to the late 1950s, analysing some of them that are little-known, or not known at all, as well as the very well-known – such as Pieds Nickelés (by Forton and later by Pellos), Zig et Puce (A. Saint-Ogan), Tintin (Hergé), Spirou (Rob-Vel, Franquin etc.), Jojo and Blondin et Cirage (Jijé).