I think it’s very simple, I’m an extremist anti-racist,” remarks comic artist Jean-Philippe Stassen, one of a group of European comic book artists presently visiting South Africa as part of the Comics Galore festival.
Stassen, a Belgium-born Paris-native, is author of the acclaimed comic Deogratias, a luminescent series of colour drawings telling a fictional story and set against the backdrop of the Rwandan genocide.
“I think it is impossible, and unacceptable, to believe in the superiority of races,” Stassen continues in his characteristically hushed yet purposeful voice. “People are the same everywhere in the world.” This simple philosophy, one Stassen claims is less than self-evident in contemporary Europe, informs the plot of Deogratias, samples of which are currently on view at Johannesburg’s Spark Gallery.
“I think the first thing you have to do is show the common identity between all the actors, between the victims and the aggressors,” he comments on his method. “The most important thing, however, is to show that the people of Rwanda and Burundi are just like us. The Rwandan genocide was not just a dark war between tribes in the heart of Africa, it reflected our world, our common humanity.”
A comic that traces its origins back to the dissolution of Stassen’s personal relationship with his Rwandan lover, herself scarred by the loss of family in the genocide, Stassen spent several months researching his comic in both Rwanda and Burundi.
“When you are writing for an audience that has never been there,” he comments, “when you represent Rwanda to the outside world, I think it’s a mistake to show the heavy reality of the genocide.”
Far from indulging in the fictionalised gore, Deogratias seeks to present a complex portrait of victimhood and complicity. Citing Italian author Primo Levi as an influence, Stassen says Deogratias is his personal account of the banality of evil. “When you meet the people who participated in the killings, who organised the genocide, the most shocking thing is that they are human. They are not monsters.”
As yet unpublished in English, Stassen’s award-winning comic is by no means unique in having transcended the limitations of the comic format’s pithy graphic mode to sketch a complex narrative. Peanuts, by Charles M Schulz, suggested the first inklings of an adult-oriented comic strip with an intellectual edge. It, however, took auteurs such as France’s Jean Claude Forest; Argentina’s Quino; Italy’s Guido Crepax, and the American author of Fritz the Cat, Robert Crumb, to truly herald the Sixties renaissance in adult comics.
Although informed by these developments, pre-democracy South African comics remained something of a marginal art. It is only recently that local comics have started to enjoy pride of place in our national culture. Aside from the huge successes of the Madam & Eve cartoon strip, Bitterkomix, the anthology founded in 1991 by Anton Kannemeyer (aka Joe Dog) and Conrad Botes (aka Konradski), has suggested a whole new trajectory in South African comics.
“Joe Dog is terrific,” claims Stassen excitedly. “I think it’s a good photograph of what is going on in the mind of certain people in South Africa.”
Durban-based comic artist Andy Mason concurs on this point. He argues that it is the autobiographical nature of Kannemeyer’s output that gifts his work with its searing authenticity and universal significance.
“What Anton often says and tries to instil in his students at the Joburg Tech is the realisation that truth lies in the specific, the particular, the parochial, not in the grandstanding statement or the all-embracing concept. The international success of their material, so parochial in its references, in a little-known language, attests to this.”
Karlien de Villiers, the only female artist whose work is on the exhibition, vindicates this point. A former student of Kannemeyer, her Afrikaans strips offer tiny autobiographical portraits of a self-enclosed world. “It is more honest in a certain way,” the Pretoria-based artist comments on her predisposition towards personal narrative.
“It’s very sensible,” remarks Stassen. “And clever too.” Swiss comic artist Jean-Philippe Kalonji agrees. “Karien’s work is very closely allied to the new style in Europe.”
De Villiers demurs on this point, preferring analogies to Raymond Carver. “I found Carver inspirational, that near deadpan, quiet feeling he evokes.”
Not all the artists on the Comics Brew exhibition necessarily adhere to the autobiographical formula, although French comic artist Pascal Rabaté is another strong proponent of the style. Rabaté’s new work Welcome to Jo’burg offers a personal account of his month-long sojourn in Yeoville, Johannesburg.
Touted as one of the highlights of the Comics Brew show, the rough sketches exhibited were somewhat disappointing. Leaning more towards caricature, the full import of Rabaté’s rough illustrations will only become clear when an English language translation of Welcome to Jo’burg is published in Bitterkomix early next year.
Set against this singular objection is the greater disapproval some viewers may have viewing extracts of a comic book in the contemplative space of a gallery.
Pointing to the seemingly intractable divide that continues to exist between high art and the world of comic books; Stassen offers this revealing response: “In France and Belgium, comic strips mean money. As a result people from contemporary art galleries look down on comics. You are still fortunate here because of the fact that a local comic book market doesn’t exist. It allows greater possibilities for exchange.”
Comix Brew takes place at Spark! gallery, Joburg, until November 17; at the Bell-Roberts Gallery, Cape Town, from December 18 to January 18; and at the NSA Gallery, Durban, from January 28 to February 16.