• The exhibition "In the eyes of Bastien Vivès" scheduled at the Angoulême International Comics Festival, is widely controversial on social networks.

  • The cartoonist is accused of trivializing or even glorifying pedocrime and incest, in his boards and in his remarks.

  • Many voices from the world of comics are beginning to make themselves heard to denounce the "carte blanche" given to the artist in this future exhibition.

It is a petition with more than 51,000 signatures that has been agitating the small world of comics for several weeks: feminist activists, cartoonists, illustrators, as well as associations fighting against sexual violence against children are asking for the deprogramming of the exhibition "In the eyes of Bastien Vivès" as part of the Angoulême International Comics Festival, which will take place from January 26 to January 30, 2023. This is not the first time that Bastien Vivès has come under fire from critics .

For several years, in his various comics or in his interviews, the cartoonist has multiplied more or less explicit references to incest and paedocriminality.

Bastien Vivès made a name for himself in 2009 with his comic book 

Le gout du chlorine

(Editions Casterman), for which he won a prize at the Angoulême festival.

His comic strip

Polina

will also receive numerous awards.

Alongside these consumer albums, Bastien Vivès also publishes pornographic comics with publishers for the general public, such as Glénat.

In 2011, in

The melons of anger

, its young main character, with the enormous chest which handicaps him, undergoes multiple rapes, and rapes his little brother in turn.

In 2018, he signed

The Mental Discharge

, which revolves around a family where the three girls aged 10, 15 and 18 will have incestuous sex.

In 2018,

Petit Paul

, published by Glénat, focuses on the character of a 10-year-old child with a disproportionate sex, who will be violated throughout the comic strip by different characters.

The publication of this last book will cause an uproar, to the point that Cultura and Gibert Joseph will remove it from their shelves.

What is reproached to Bastien Vivès?

The carte blanche offered by the festival to Bastien Vivès goes badly on social networks.

On Twitter in particular, many Internet users denounce the works "smelling of incest and child pornography" or even the words of the cartoonist in an interview.

A bundle of clues that would aim to show the fascination of the designer for pedophile and incestuous situations, and would denote a latent misogyny in his works.


⚠️Bastien Vivès author of comics with a PEDOPORNOGRAPHIC and INCESTUOUS character has carte blanche for an exhibition at @bdangouleme



👉 SIGN THE PETITION for it to be deprogrammed 🖌 https://t.co/Ya5itFdCGj



written jointly with @cqcinsulte#vivesgate #boycottvives


THREAD ⤵️ pic.twitter.com/OkijJfJfq2

— I am a Witch (@JeSorciere) December 10, 2022

Access to this content has been blocked to respect your choice of consent

By clicking on "

I ACCEPT

", you accept the deposit of cookies by external services and will thus have access to the content of our partners

I ACCEPT

And to better remunerate 20 Minutes, do not hesitate to accept all cookies, even for one day only, via our "I accept for today" button in the banner below.

More information on the Cookie Management Policy page.


The designer Emma also denounced the designer, who would have threatened her in a Facebook post, and would have had extremely violent remarks against her, as she explains in a long post.

She also denounces, screenshot in support, remarks evoking her attraction for “girls of 10 or 12” on a forum.

"If I'm telling you all this, it's because outside the feminist sphere, everyone is silent," she writes, calling on other designers to position themselves regarding Bastien Vivès and his productions.


I've been postponing this post for too long, come on, it's done.

pic.twitter.com/x4L15bBV5U

— Emma (@KerriganNuNue) December 12, 2022

Access to this content has been blocked to respect your choice of consent

By clicking on "

I ACCEPT

", you accept the deposit of cookies by external services and will thus have access to the content of our partners

I ACCEPT

And to better remunerate 20 Minutes, do not hesitate to accept all cookies, even for one day only, via our "I accept for today" button in the banner below.

More information on the Cookie Management Policy page.



Separate the man from the artist?

In an environment that struggles to make room for women, authors as designers, the carte blanche given to Bastien Vivès has a bitter taste.

"In the context of #MeToo, when the world of comics is already struggling to question itself, what message does this exhibition give about our environment?

questioned designer Jérôme Dubois on Instagram.

If some denounce a possible censorship of Vivès and his exhibition, others call for a clear and clear boycott of his work, the facts of which he is accused not being new.


The guy is apparently going to do a mini series on lesbians with this type of drawing, the series is disgusting, with @canalplus


Do not hesitate to report en masse


No way to represent us like that


All his feed is cringe and misogynistic



RT pic.twitter. com/3scZs8DgTN

— red dyke 👁 (@Mhkzo) July 20, 2022

Access to this content has been blocked to respect your choice of consent

By clicking on "

I ACCEPT

", you accept the deposit of cookies by external services and will thus have access to the content of our partners

I ACCEPT

And to better remunerate 20 Minutes, do not hesitate to accept all cookies, even for one day only, via our "I accept for today" button in the banner below.

More information on the Cookie Management Policy page.


Again this summer, the designer had been pinned after a board published on Instagram (since deleted), focusing on two stereotypical and sexualized lesbian characters.

Following several weeks of controversy, Bastien Vivès reacted, questioned by

Liberation

 : "I represent them [the fantasies, editor's note] in a burlesque way but I have zero incestuous or pedophile fantasies", before adding: "Me my fantasy is the hypertrophy of bodies, both male and female.

As for the Angoulême Festival, exclusion or deprogramming does not seem appropriate.

Fausto Fasulo, artistic co-director of the festival, told

Liberation

 : “It would be a huge philosophical defeat”.

Movie theater

“Falcon Lake”: Charlotte Le Bon makes ghosts soar in a successful first fantasy film

Culture

BD: Is the publication of "Petit Paul", accused of being "child pornography", legal?

  • By the Web

  • Angouleme Festival

  • Facebook

  • child crime

  • child pornography

  • Sexual violence