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Popular Culture Review
gradually disappeared since the late seventies. Even though there are now festivals,
museums, prizes, etc., an impressive journal or other critical publication is lacking
outside the very small circles of aficionados (and even there one finds a rather
striking anti-intellectual refusal of all that which takes comics as seriously as they
should be taken).
Since qualitative reforms did not have the expected results and also since
quantitative market pressures continued to increase, it was to be expected that the
comic strip sector had to react drastically to these new urgencies. Part of the
operation was surgical: important concerns of the production were simply removed;
several authors stepped out and established themselves as painters or filmmakers;
still others were obliged to reduce their professional practices; some even had to
give up comics, at least the type they used to make, because only the new manga
market provided issues. But in two cases, the answer was far more inventive.
Taking into account the diminished prestige of the comics as a popular
(youth) genre, some authors active in mainstream publishing companies such as
Castennan, managed to break open the genre and to create real multimedia “works”
(I use this word with premeditation since here the name of strips is presumably no
longer appropriate). The famous series of Schuiten and Peeters, The Dark Cities,
is a perfect illustration of such an adventure. Furthermore, it is not by chance that
this type of production can no longer be seen as the privilege of one single
“complete” author. On the contrary, Schuiten and Peeters have been inventing
outstanding new forms and new types of collaboration — even with the public,
which they considered a real partner in the elaboration of the whole series. Just as
in SF, where fans have always played a creative role, the comic strip section of the
Dark Cities undergoes today the metamorphosis suggested by its readers, while
the more three-dimensional part of the project (such as the many exhibitions inspired
by the “dark cities universe”), incorporates both the role of the reader and visitor
as fundamental figures.
Besides this internal transformation of the mainstream production, there
has recently been a real explosion of small scale, alternative groups of “complete”
authors. Their situation is undoubtedly a little odd. Indeed, as “complete” authors
unconditionally directed towards the creative possibilities of the genre, they are a
living anachronistn (as at the same time, they achieve much more than the mere
reinvention of underground). But as editors, publishers, distributors and booksellers,
they may be able to set up completely new kinds of marketing and, maybe, of
making books.
Under the banner of Autarcic Comix, different groups of independent
strip makers from all over (continental) Europe have been collaborating since 1993
on a very regular basis. Those groups are Frigohox, Peliire amere (“The bitter
peel”). La cinquieme couclie (“The fifth couch”) and Bill (Belgium), Amok,