Switzerland, much like its Nordic neighbors celebrates comics with plenty of online stores. Probably because some of the first comics came from a Swiss artist. Also it managed to avoid most of the censors that plagued a lot of countries. Sure a few artists still have to fight for a place to nurture their talents, but they do get representatives.
Swiss Comics: The Origins of Strips (and Books)
Rodolphe Töpffer created arguably the first comic strip as a result of his failing eyesight. Not only that, he created the very first comic book to keep it away from prying family eyes. Now there’s a tradition that kept going for quite a while… Even when the satirical magazine Nebelspalter comes around, the market and audience is pretty small. It wasn’t the usual Nazis or Soviets, just stuffed shirts that see comics as pathetic parodies of literature and art.
Meanwhile, the Swiss, German, British, and the American working class loved them. It helped that newspapers were the most accessible media available. The Swiss comics would keep making its strips with titles like Globi. Even if it was for kids or advertising Globus department stores. It was WWII and publishers had to keep the Nazis off their backs!
The Holes In Swiss Art
And it left a lasting impact. Bande Dessinee like Tintin and Asterix might’ve had to go underground long after the war, but the magazines like Strapazin kept them going. But one of the more surprisingly imports to come over were American counterculture comix including Marxist pieces.
Then the 70s bring comics into the mainstream! Okay the German side of Switzerland is still struggling cuz the market’s so small. Besides most Gereman-Swiss comics anyone talks about are adaptations of classic literature. But the French side followed a good example for the rest of the country. One creator named Derib would create the best-seller Yakari in tribute to this model. All of the adventure of Tintin distributed through the French world with a very distinct Swiss style. Apparently Swiss hippies are cleaner than American ones because they get high on nature’s beauty. Enough to start a trend… like Cosey’s Jonathan and Zep’s Titeuf.
But then the hype died down and comics lost their viability. The ones that didn’t get licensing deals anyway. But young German-Swiss artists wouldn’t have it, mid-1980 came with the Opera House riots. They as well as the rest of the youth rioters felt underrepresented without a cultural center of their own.
Filling In The Swiss Comics
For the next 10 years, these artists would combine the aesthetics of the time to create expressional visual storytelling. Pretty soon, these would combine with French-Swiss storytelling, giving Swiss Comics a more unique identity. The industry would get a revival by the late nineties… until even this dies down with only the specialty comic stores and publishers left.
Some are newspapers like Suisse Romande and Nebelspalter with political satire. But most of the time, artists usually did whatever odd job to get by with the hope to go to the French or American scene.
Today Geneva has more or less become Switzerland’s comic capital. This is thanks to the Swiss government acknowledging comics as an art form. Various programs and exhibits help artists as well as nurture new talent.
But it looks like my research hit a wall. I can’t find anything on the digital front, let alone webcomics. This happens a lot. If anybody knows anymore, leave something in the comments (somewhere).
Thanks for coming to the end and as always remember to look between the panels.