Whereas in English-speaking countries comics are for children or adults "who should know better," in France and Belgium the form is recognized as the "ninth art" and follows in the path of
poetry, architecture, painting, and cinema. The bande dessin矇e [comic strip] has its own national institutions, regularly obtains front-page coverage, and has received the accolades of
statesmen from De Gaulle onwards. On the way to providing a comprehensive introduction to the most francophone of cultural phenomena, this book will consider national specificity as relevant to
an anglophone reader, whilst exploring related issues such as text/image expression, historical precedents, and sociological implication. To do so it will present and analyse priceless
manuscripts, a Franco-American rodent, Nazi propaganda, a museum-piece urinal, intellectual gay porn and a prehistoric warrior who's really Zinedine Zidane.
