francophone comics

[kindkit]

Reading Tintin has done a lot to de-rustify my French; I'd like to keep reading French, but I don't want to read Serious French Novels. I thought I might branch out into more comics as a start.

Wikipedia helpfully informs me that Blake and Mortimer and "many [other] Belgian comics have had . . . themes of confirmed bachelors living together." I've made a list of all the comics mentioned (Blake and Mortimer, Spirou and Fantasio [which doesn't look wildly appealing], and Tif and Tondu).

Anyone have other recs for French-language comics? I'm looking for things originally written in French, not translated into French. Good storytelling is primarily what I'm looking for; m/m slashiness is nice but not essential; actual queer content would be awesome. Recs for contemporary-ish comics, especially science fiction and fantasy, are extremely welcome.

And if you want to recommend sff novels in French, that'd be great too.

Comments

[lemposoi]

I really like Spirou and Fantasio, actually. Of course it depends on the individual album. It's a very typical Belgian adventure comic. Oh, but i don't recommend Le Petit Spirou (if you take it as canon, Spirou was a horny schoolkid who turned into a practically asexual-appearing adult). Another one I liked was Sammy, where the main duo are incredibly married, despite both being visibly attracted to women. I also liked Les Touniques Bleues - which again has a central male pair, and like Sammy is set in American history. No admitted queer content, but there usually aren't in these kids' comics, but the slashiness is kind of staring you in the face.

I assume you're already familiar with Asterix.

I could rec Suske en Wiske (Flemish, so not originally in French), but that stars two children and their adult family & friends. I kind of hate most Belgian comics for grown-ups - they tend to be incredibly sexist and heterosexist (more so than kids' comics).

[kindkit]

I think what doesn't appeal to me about Spirou and Fantasio is the art (of course I'm judging entirely by a few examples on Wikipedia). I might give it a try at some point but there are other comics that interest me more at the moment.

Thanks for the recs!

[lemposoi]

The series goes through three different artists, I think, though the character design is fairly consistent... but fair enough!

I thought of two more comics to mention: Lucky Luke (which is a Western that I read in Finnish, so it took a moment to connect it with francophone comics!), though its central duo is not two dudes but a cowboy and his horse. It's a classic that, like Asterix, I read through my whole childhood, though I always rather preferred Asterix.

The other one is a grown-up comic called 'La vierge du Bordel' or 'Miss Pas Touche' ('Miss Don't Touch Me' in English). It's a horror thriller/pulp story about a girl who follows her sister's killers to a brothel where she becomes a virgin dominatrix. But, well, there are no dudes in it, at least ones that aren't terrible people, not that the women are all that nice either. Queerness exists, but it's not male gayness, and there is period-accurate but possibly annoying description of a magnificent regal character called Josephine as a "madame-monsieur". The only reason I'm mentioning it is because it's a grown up French comic I actually enjoyed.

Oh, and there's Canardo. Depressing and sexist and horrible, with anthropomorphic animals. Loved it, but I'm hard-pressed to say why.