An album of Spirou’s adventures published in September 2023 and containing racist caricatures of black characters will be withdrawn from the market, the Dupuis publishing house announced this Thursday in a statement published on social networks.
The album, The Blue Gorgonwritten by Yann and drawn by Dany, two figures of Franco-Belgian comics from the 1970s and 1980s, he was accused of racism in a TikTok video and later in numerous messages published on X.
In a scene widely shared on social media, Spirou encounters black people depicted as monkeys. The comics have also been accused of sexism due to the excessive sexualization of female characters.
moral duty
“We deeply regret that this album could have shocked and hurt. This album is part of a cartoonish style of representation inherited from another era,” Ediciones Dupuis emphasizes in its press release.
“More aware than ever of our moral duty and the importance of the comic as a publisher and, more broadly, of the book in the evolution of societies, today we assume full responsibility for this error of judgment,” adds the publisher.
“That is why we want to present our most sincere apologies,” concludes Dupuis, of whom Spirou is one of the mascots. “We have implemented the removal of the work at all points of sale.” Dupuis has already deactivated the page that references the comic on his official website.
Humanistic character
A humanist character and queer symbol for the young generation of authors, Spirou was also the hero of stories with racist connotations. One of his first adventures, Spirou among the pygmiesPublished in 1949, it describes the opposition between a tribe of black-skinned pygmies and another that brings together dark-skinned pygmies.
While investigating their dispute, Spirou discovers that the black-skinned tribe is actually made up of brown-skinned pygmies, who are unwashed. Interviewed in the 1980s by comics history specialist Numa Sadoul in the book And Franquin made the mistakedesigner André Franquin reacted:
“There’s a nice young woman who did some sort of thesis on racism in my comics. Luckily, she didn’t find much!”
Spirou also repeatedly denounced racism in his stories. On his 44th adventure, The black lightningImagined by the duo Tome & Janry in 1993, the famous bellboy changed color after a failed experiment by the Count of Champignac and became a black character.
In 2021, an erotic comic published by Glénat, nialaHe had already been accused of transmitting colonialist and racist clichés. Its authors, Jean-Christophe Deveney and Christian Rossi, defended themselves by alleging second degree. The album had not been withdrawn from sale.
Source: BFM TV
