After two slightly disappointing variations on Corto Maltese in 2021 and 2023, Bastien Vivès returns with a new album titled Honeymoon – The sphynx kiss (Casterman, 2025). But now, the publication is done in pain. Because Vivès is again in the panade. For those who would still ignore it, Bastien Vivès is one of our most talented comic book authors.
Besides the masterpiece Polina (Casterman, 2011) who revealed him to the general public, he owes him many albums that are both sensitive, funny and innovative. From In my eyes et The taste of chlorine until Last man or Last weekend in Januaryhe drew in his unique style a work that is both diverse and infinitely coherent, one of the drivers of which is the love desire in what he may have purest-not the slightest trace of cynicism here- And at the same time, no doubt, more immature.
Because it is in his adolescent desire, in his unfulfilled fantasies, in his imagination as a boy dazzled by the sensual omnipotence of the girls that Bastien Vivès will draw the material so touching and funny of his albums that have become classics since Polina. The result is admirable.
If the great artistic qualities of a creator obviously cannot remove him from the common law, it is still necessary, in the case of Vivès, take the trouble to understand who he is and, above all, what he does, for Try to look a little intelligent on the case in which he is entangled again.
Incomprehensible
Here is the history: in January 2023, a preliminary survey was opened against him by the Nanterre prosecution for the dissemination of child pornographic images, an offense punishable by five years’ imprisonment and € 75,000 fine. In question, three albums signed Vivès and out of the more poetic line of the rest of his work: The melons of anger (2011), La Mental discharge (2018) et Small Paul (2018). The total delirium of these albums woven with immature fantasies shocked associations, was taken very seriously by justice, finally caused a scandal, which led to the ban of the author, whose exhibition at the Angoulême Festival was canceled on the edge in 2023.
Since then, it is painful to be Bastien Vivès, that is to say of being accused of pedophilia for having drawn a young boy with a disproportionate member, capable of satisfying many women. Whether we find it obscene, despicable or simply provocative is audible. The exploits of a young Don Juan Apollinaire were of the same order. But that it is seriously judged that these are child pornography images is incomprehensible.
In the hilarious album The truth about the Vivès affair (Charlotte Éditions, 2024), which we imagine that he drew it at the bottom of the hole, Bastien Vivès finds a way to continue to make Vivès: it is both sincere and delusional. In an extraordinary scene, he staged himself in the premises of the judicial police, where he is required to follow a rehabilitation course. Subjected to an emotional detector, he is forced to look at child pornographic images that are repugnant. The problem is that Vivès is suddenly madly excited not by what scrolls on the screen, but by the busty specialist who makes her pass the test, any neckline outside.
Further in the album, a Vivès reclusive to his home is assailed by manga publishers who came specially from Japan to debauchery him, hoping to make him a great child pornographic author. While Vivès sends them for a ” I repeat it to you, I am not a pedophile! “, We oppose him:” In Japan selling you a lot! Small Paul Animation, little figurine! Pure deaf dialogue. In real life, Bastien Vivès will be tried in Nanterre on May 27 and 28.
(tagstotranslate) Jean de Saint-Cheron