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

[lilacsigil]

(I have only read these in English)

Asterix! But only the first 24, which are by both Goscinny and Uderzo. Buckets of sexism, racism of the national stereotypes variety, great plots and the most amazing puns ever.

Persepolis (both book and movie) by Marjane Satrapi is really fascinating - lots of people liked volume 1 better but I liked both volumes.

For something around the same age as Tintin, The Adventures of Alix is supposed to have a great deal of subtextual slashiness, though I've only read part of one story in English.

[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).

[mayeve]

If you want something more contemporary and science fiction, there's the series Yoko Tsuno which was one of my favorites growing up. Here is the link to the wikipedia summary http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoko_Tsuno.

It's been twenty years since I've read them so I don't remember if they were any racist or sexist elements, but as a girl I thought it was cool that it was all about Yoko's adventures and that the focus was on her.