It’s a petition with more than 51,000 signatures which has been agitating the small world of comics for several weeks: feminist activists, designers, illustrators, as well as associations fighting against sexual violence against children are asking for the deprogramming of the exhibition “In the eyes of Bastien Vivès” in as part of the Angoulême International Comics Festival, which will take place from January 26 to January 30, 2023. This is not the first time that Bastien Vivès has come under fire from critics. For several years, in his various comics or in his interviews, the cartoonist has multiplied more or less explicit references to incest and paedocriminality.
Bastien Vivès became known in 2009 for his comics The taste of chlorine (Editions Casterman), for which he won a prize at the Angoulême festival. His comic Polina will also receive numerous awards. Alongside these consumer albums, Bastien Vivès also publishes pornographic comics with publishers for the general public, such as Glénat. In 2011, in The melons of anger, its young main character, with the enormous chest which handicaps him, undergoes multiple rapes, and rapes his little brother in turn. In 2018, he signed The Mental Dump, which revolves around a family where the three girls aged 10, 15 and 18 will have incestuous sex. In 2018, Little Paul, published by Glénat, focuses on the character of a 10-year-old child with a disproportionate sex, who will be violated throughout the comic strip by different characters. The publication of this last book will cause an uproar, to the point that Cultura and Gibert Joseph will remove it from their shelves.
What is reproached to Bastien Vivès?
The carte blanche offered by the festival to Bastien Vivès goes badly on social networks. On Twitter in particular, many Internet users denounce the works “smelling of incest and child pornography” or even the words of the cartoonist in an interview. A bundle of clues that would aim to show the fascination of the designer for pedophile and incestuous situations, and would denote a latent misogyny in his works.
The designer Emma also denounced the designer, who would have threatened her in a Facebook post, and would have made extremely violent remarks against her, as she explains in a long post. She also denounces, screenshot in support, remarks evoking her attraction for “girls of 10 or 12” on a forum. “If I’m telling you all this, it’s because outside the feminist sphere, everyone is silent,” she writes, calling on other designers to position themselves regarding Bastien Vivès and his productions.
Separate the man from the artist?
In an environment that struggles to make room for women, authors as designers, the carte blanche given to Bastien Vivès has a bitter taste. “In the context of #MeToo, when the world of comics is already struggling to question itself, what message does this exhibition give about our environment? questioned designer Jérôme Dubois on Instagram. If some denounce a possible censorship of Vivès and his exhibition, others call for a clear and clear boycott of his work, the facts of which he is accused not being new.
Again this summer, the designer had been pinned after a board published on Instagram (since deleted), focusing on two stereotypical and sexualized lesbian characters. Following several weeks of controversy, Bastien Vivès reacted, questioned by Release “I represent them [les fantasmes, N.D.L.R] in a burlesque way but I have zero incestuous or pedophile fantasies”, before adding: “My fantasy is the hypertrophy of bodies, male and female”. As for the Angoulême Festival, exclusion or deprogramming does not seem appropriate. Fausto Fasulo, co-artistic director of the festival, told Release “It would be a huge philosophical defeat”.