Comics creators : the thwarted formation of a social group ; Les auteurs et autrices de bande dessinée. La formation contrariée d'un groupe social

Abstract

Comic book artist remains one of the least known professions, both to the general public and to public authorities as well as to researchers in social sciences. In recent years, however, comic book artists have attempted to be heard in the French public arena, in order to make the authorities recognize the problems that they consider to be a burden on their activity: economic precariousness, suffering at work, sexism, lack of social recognition, inadequate legal and fiscal status. Some of them have committed themselves to transform their professional community into a professional group, with the hope of making their various interlocutors recognize the specificity and autonomy of this group. In the meantime, many comic book artists remain skeptical, if not reticent, about the idea of a collective organization and regulation of their activity. The first ambition of this thesis was to lift the veil on the daily life of this profession and on a reality that usually remains in the shadows. By entering the workplace of artists, by attending their daily exchanges and by following them in conventions, it was possible to understand the conditions and logic of their work. The second ambition of this thesis will have been to understand why the profession of comic book artist remains so poorly known and recognized. For this purpose, I followed several collectives of artists, which are trying to give their profession a form of unity and visibility. These analyses led me to defend the idea that the difficulties of comic book artists, in building collective claims and giving a political existence to their professional group, are mainly due to the way in which their activity was organized. In other words, in order to understand the limits encountered by certain critical processes within a profession, we must return to the structure of work relations to observe the type of relationships and norms that it favors (or, on the contrary, makes more difficult). This analysis grid can be applied over the long term: such retrospection ...