Sémiotique de la bande dessinée : regards sur la théorie franco-belge

Abstract

This paper proposes a historiographical overview to understanding how the semiotic approaches to Franco-Belgian theories of comics were developed from the late 1960s to the early 2000s. Our goal is to study the ways in which these approaches were characterized from the theoretical point of view (the epistemological principles and positions) and the methodological one (corpus, analysis, concepts), by attempting to extrapolate the changes and continuities in the current semiotics of comics, which is still in progress. In the broader context of the theory of comics, our historical research takes into consideration, among others, Fresnault-Deruelle, Peeters, and Groensteen ; in the semiotic context, and more in particular of Greimassian semiotics, this study examines the theories of Lindekens, Courtès, and Floch. The historiographical overview finally highlights the often passionate misreadings of the semiotic approaches in the Franco-Belgian theories of comics.

Keywords

• communication
• iconicity
• image
• methodology
• narrativity