Comics as commemoration?

Abstract

Drawing on previous research about the ubiquity of the Banania logo, this article considers the recent trend of commemorating the tirailleurs sénégalais via bandes dessinées through a chronological comparison of bandes dessinées produced in France and Senegal since 2003 about the tirailleurs sénégalais and World War I. As an important part of popular visual culture in France and Belgium, bandes dessinées have long been vehicles for teaching and disseminating mainstream values and dominant ideology, thus the choice of medium for recounting the tirailleurs’ history works against colonial-era caricatures. Though each of the bandes dessinées attempts to engender empathy in the reader while educating them about the tirailleurs, critical engagement with their legacy varies as a function of who produced the text. State-sponsored accounts avoid critiques of colonialism and its attendant violence in favour of honouring the tirailleurs’ courage and loyalty, which bolsters the continuity of republican values. Conversely, texts produced as a result of personal connections to the tirailleurs foreground their participation in colonial violence and demonstrate the psychological complexity of their experiences.