As the daily newspaper Le Figaro asked: “After he resisted the Romans, have the Americans finally scalped the invincible little Gaul?”

That might have been only half serious, but it does illustrate the fact that comic strips, or bandes dessinées, play a real role in what historians term “the construction of Frenchness”. To put it simply, Astérix is part of the French national identity.

Not Kidding Around

That’s probably not surprising. After all, the influence of comics in France is significant. The country boasts the largest comic market in the world after the US and Japan, worth almost €330 million in 2009, and it sells some 40 million comic albums a year. The annual Festival International de la Bande Dessinée in Angoulême is the biggest in the world, say the organisers; San Diego’s Comic-Con doesn’t count, they argue, because it is an exhibition as opposed to an artistic festival. Founded in 1973, the festival now attracts 250,000 visitors, and other, smaller festivals can be found all over the country throughout the year. “There is at least one bande dessinée festival a month in France,” says Jean-Christophe Ogier, president of the French Association of Comic Critics and Journalists (the ACBD in French).

The bande dessinée, often called simply BD, is not just popular, however. It is also widely accepted as a legitimate art—the “ninth art”, according to a term used since the 1960s. It’s been enshrined as such in the Cité Internationale de la Bande Dessinée et de l’Image in Angoulême, a cultural center that includes a museum, the Musée de la Bande Dessinée, along with a specialized library, a bookstore and a cinema. The museum is designated as a Musée de France, putting it in the same category as the Louvre—which, as it happens, held an exhibition of BD in 2009 in connection with the comics publisher Futuropolis. “It’s hard to think of a more striking example of how the French have embraced BD as an art form than putting it in the Louvre,” says Vessels.

Nor was that exhibit unique. In October 2010, the Biennale d’Art Contemporain in Le Havre examined the “new scene of equality” between BD and contemporary art, while an exhibit called Archi & BD at the very serious Cité de l’Architecture & du Patrimoine in the Palais de Chaillot focused on architecture as portrayed in comics. And the first solo exhibition of Moebius, the pseudonym of artist Jean Giraud (also sometimes known as Gir), famous for the western serial Blueberry and the science-fiction Arzach, ran for six months at the Fondation Cartier, through March 2011.

“Bande dessinée has ever greater recognition as a genuine visual art,” says Futuropolis editorial director Sébastien Gnaedig. This legitimacy, he says, is probably due in large part to the fact that comics in France have long ceased to be solely aimed at children and adolescents. Of course, there’s always been much for adults to enjoy in the likes of Astérix: take Astérix’s duel with a Roman soldier in the style of Cyrano de Bergerac in Le Cadeau de César—converted into Hamlet fighting Laertes in the English version, Caesar’s Gift. Or consider the Roman official Saugrenus in Obélix and Company, a parody of the prime minister of the time, Jacques Chirac. (The French word saugrenu means preposterous or ridiculous.) But in the 1960s and 1970s, magazines such as Hara-Kiri, L’Écho des Savanes,Métal Hurlant (cofounded by Moebius) and A Suivre helped firmly establish that BD could also be aimed explicitly at adults. “It was like a revolution that saw comics come to be taken more seriously,” explains Willem De Graeve, curator at the Belgian Comic Strip Center in Brussels.

http://www.francetoday.com/articles/2011/06/07/the_ninth_art.html

See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hara-Kiri_(magazine)

Hara-Kiri was a monthly French satirical magazine, first published in 1960. It was created byGeorges Bernier, Cavanna and Fred Aristidès. A weekly counterpart, Hara-Kiri Hebdo, was first published in 1969.

Contributors included Melvin Van Peebles, Reiser, Roland Topor, Moebius, Wolinski, Gébé,Cabu, Delfeil de Ton, Fournier, Jean-Pierre Bouyxou and Bernhard Willem Holtrop. In 1966 it published Les Aventures de Jodelle, drawn by Guy Peellaert and written by Pierre Barbier.

Hara-Kiri editions, subtitled "Journal bête et méchant" ("Stupid and vicious magazine"), were constantly aiming at established powers, be they political parties or institutions like the Church or the State. In 1961 and 1966 the monthly magazine was temporarily banned by the French government.

In November 1970, following the death of Charles de Gaulle at his home in Colombey-les-Deux-Églises, the weekly Hara-Kiri Hebdo bore the headline « Bal tragique à Colombey : 1 mort » (Eng: "Tragic ball in Colombey: 1 death").

The choice of the title refers to a tragedy of the same month: a fire at a discothèque where 146 people were killed. The chosen title was somehow downplaying the gravity of de Gaulle’s demise, by suggesting a comparison with a tragedy which had just earlier resulted in the loss of many more people. The government felt this editorial choice was an offence of lèse-majesté against the deceased President. As a result, the magazine was immediately and permanently banned from sale to minors and publicity by the minister of the interior Raymond Marcellin.

Charlie Hebdo was started immediately afterwards. Charlie in the title refers to General de Gaulle (said Georges Wolinski); but it was the name of another magazine from Éditions du Square Charlie Mensuel, named after the character Charlie Brown from Charles M. Schulz'sPeanuts.

The co-creator of legendary comic strip character Asterix, Albert Uderzo, has come out of retirement to pen cartoons in memory of the victims of the killings at French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo.

"Moi aussi je suis un Charlie" ("I'm Charlie too") says Asterix in one of the cartoons released on Friday, in which he appears to have punched an adversary high into the air.

The sketch borrows from the slogan "Je suis Charlie", which has been adopted by protesters around the world horrified by an attack on freedom of expression - the magazine has a reputation for mocking Islam and other religions.

The second cartoon shows Asterix and his sidekick Obelix bowing their heads in grief, holding their hats. Asterix grasps a rose, and their pet Dogmatix looks on with a sad look.

"Charlie Hebdo and Asterix are very different, of course. I am not going to change my stripes," said 87-year-old Uderzo.

"I simply wanted to show my friendship for these cartoonists who have paid with their lives."

read more: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-01-10/asterix-co-creator-uderzo-pens-cartoons-in-honour-of-victims/6010116