Bandes dessinées, abbreviated BDs and also referred to as Franco-Belgian comics, are comics that are usually originally in French and created for readership in France and Belgium. These countries have a long tradition in comics, separate from that of English-language comics. Belgium is a mostly bilingual country, and comics originally in Dutch are culturally a part of the world of bandes dessinées; these are translated to French and concurrently sold to the French-reading audience and vice versa.
Comics is a medium used to express ideas with images, often combined with text or other visual information. It typically takes the form of a sequence of panels of images. Textual devices such as speech balloons, captions, and onomatopoeia can indicate dialogue, narration, sound effects, or other information. There is no consensus amongst theorists and historians on a definition of comics; some emphasize the combination of images and text, some sequentiality or other image relations, and others historical aspects such as mass reproduction or the use of recurring characters. Cartooning and other forms of illustration are the most common image-making means in comics; fumetti is a form that uses photographic images. Common forms include comic strips, editorial and gag cartoons, and comic books. Since the late 20th century, bound volumes such as graphic novels, comic albums, and tankōbon have become increasingly common, while online webcomics have proliferated in the 21st century.
James A. Owen is an American comic book illustrator, publisher and writer. He is known for his creator-owned comic book series Starchild and as the author of The Chronicles of the Imaginarium Geographica novel series, that began with Here, There Be Dragons in 2006.
Grzegorz Rosiński is a Polish comic book artist. He is best known for providing the artwork for the series Thorgal.
Emmanuel Larcenet, known as Manu Larcenet is a French cartoonist. He worked with Fluide Glacial magazine from 1995 to 2006 and with Spirou magazine from 1997 to 2004. He has also founded the French publisher Les Rêveurs in 1998. Since 2000, he mostly works with Dargaud.
Gregory Gallant, better known by his pen name Seth, is a Canadian cartoonist. He is best known for his series Palookaville and his mock-autobiographical graphic novel It's a Good Life, If You Don't Weaken (1996).
Chester William David Brown is a Canadian cartoonist.
Drawn & Quarterly is a publishing company based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, specializing in comics. It publishes primarily comic books, graphic novels and comic strip collections. The books it publishes are noted for their artistic content, as well as the quality of printing and design. The name of the company is a pun on "drawing", "quarterly", and the practice of hanging, drawing and quartering. Initially it specialized in underground and alternative comics, but has since expanded into classic reprints and translations of foreign works. Drawn & Quarterly was the company's flagship quarterly anthology during the 1990s.
Joe Matt is an American cartoonist, best known for his autobiographical work, Peepshow.
Jean-Claude Mézières was a French bandes dessinées artist and illustrator. Born in Paris and raised in nearby Saint-Mandé, he was introduced to drawing by his elder brother and influenced by comics artists such as Hergé, Andre Franquin and Morris and later by Jijé and Jack Davis. Educated at the École nationale supérieure des arts appliqués et des métiers d'art, he worked upon graduation as an illustrator for books and magazines as well as in advertising. A lifelong interest in the Wild West led him to travel to the United States in 1965 in search of adventure as a cowboy, an experience that would prove influential on his later work.
European comics are comics produced in Europe. The comic album is a very common printed medium. The typical album is printed in large format, generally with high quality paper and colouring, commonly 24x32 cm, has around 48–60 pages, but examples with more than 100 pages are common. While sometimes referred to as graphic novels, this term is rarely used in Europe, and is not always applicable as albums often consist of separate short stories, placing them somewhere halfway between a comic book and a graphic novel. The European comic genres vary from the humorous adventure vein, such as The Adventures of Tintin and Asterix, to more adult subjects like Tex Willer, Diabolik, and Thorgal.
A daily strip is a newspaper comic strip format, appearing on weekdays, Monday through Saturday, as contrasted with a Sunday strip, which typically only appears on Sundays.
Lorenzo Mattotti is an Italian comics artist as well as an illustrator. His illustrations have been published in magazines such as Cosmopolitan, Vogue, The New Yorker, Le Monde and Vanity Fair. In comics, Mattotti won an Eisner Award in 2003 for his Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde graphic novel.
Seth Fisher was an American comic book artist.
François Boucq, is a French comic book artist. He is most famous for his surreal comics revolving around the main character Jérôme Moucherot.
Chris Eliopoulos is an American cartoonist and letterer of comic books.
Leo Henry Bachle, a.k.a. Les Barker, was a Canadian comic book artist in the era of the Canadian Whites, and later became a comedian.
Canadian comics refers to comics and cartooning by citizens of Canada or permanent residents of Canada regardless of residence. Canada has two official languages, and distinct comics cultures have developed in English and French Canada. The English tends to follow American trends, and the French, Franco-Belgian ones, with little crossover between the two cultures. Canadian comics run the gamut of comics forms, including editorial cartooning, comic strips, comic books, graphic novels, and webcomics, and are published in newspapers, magazines, books, and online. They have received attention in international comics communities and have received support from the federal and provincial governments, including grants from the Canada Council for the Arts. There are comics publishers throughout the country, as well as large small press, self-publishing, and minicomics communities.
The history of American comics began in the 19th century in mass print media, in the era of sensationalist journalism, where newspaper comics served as further entertainment for mass readership. In the 20th century, comics became an autonomous art medium and an integral part of American culture.
