30. METAL HURLANT: AH!NANA HORS-SERIE (Les Humanoides Associes) Hoopla
This book is an excellent chance to see the work of pioneering French women underground cartoonists, suffice to say they blew their male contemporaries away in terms of breaking taboos and were their equal in terms of graphic innovation.
Here's a rundown of the artists included:
CECILIA CAPUANA (6 stories) Her art is an intense hyper-delineated style that would have fit in well in the U.S. undergrounds.
NICOLE CLAVELOUX (4 stories) The stories reprinted here are precisely drawn, much like commercial art of the time, although with Claveloux's brilliant surrealism.
FLORENCE CESTAC (2 stories) Cestac draws in a cartoon style that looks back on early animated cartoons sometimes.
MARIE-ANGE LE ROCHAIS (1 story) Ahead of her time with images that look like altered photos..
TRINA ROBBINS (5 stories) A legend even back then!
OLIVIA CLAVEL (2 stories) Clavel was the great revelation of this volume, an energetic scratchy style that stands out among the more traditional styles of the others.
KELECK (2 stories) She had a nice loose style that is great for depicting the twisted subject matter evident in these selections.
CHANTAL MONTELLIER (5 stories) I loved the NYRC translations of Montellier, none of the shorter works reprinted here were included in that volume.
Unsolicited opinion: I've always believed that either pornography or censorship could not exist without the other. The perception of taboo subjects like incest and sexualization of children, wouldn't exist without people such as the cartoonists of AH!NANA expressing the things they've experienced in life through their art. I personally find some of the images contained within these pages disturbing, but I would have loved for this magazine to have survived and evolved as a safe place for the personal expression of women cartoonists in France and beyond for many years (like WIMMEN'S COMIX in the U.S.), rather than an inspiration in the distant past for future generations.
This was the least controversial cover of the last four issues! Click through the link above, GCD has cover scans and list of contents for every issue.
From the description of the book on the Les Humanoides Associes site:
"Ah! Nana was the first French comic book periodical produced by women, for women between 1976 and 1978.
"Coming from the abundant galaxy of Métal Hurlant, it represents a pioneering adventure in the world of French comics. Its content reflects a great deal of freedom and the feminist concerns of its time, to address the most delicate as well as the most taboo subjects of the society of the late 1970s: art, fashion, but also incest, female sexuality, etc. " (translated by microsoft bing)
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