Overview

Exhibition catalogue ‘Visionary Comics: The collection of Alain Van Passen’, Comic Art Museum – Brussels, 16.09.25 – 07.12.25 Hidden within the millions of panels and magazine pages collected by Alain Van Passen, a devoted Belgian comics collector active from the earliest days of the comics clubs, lies a long-forgotten history of vibrant, surrealist, and even ‘visionary’ images. His pristine collection, built over decades of searching and exchanging comics, offers unprecedented insight into the diverse trajectories of twentieth-century popular publishing. Focusing on comics magazines published between 1935 and 1965, this catalogue reveals a ‘lost world’ of French and Belgian comics, as well as the translations and reworkings of American, British and Italian strips. Ten concise and colourful chapters introduce readers to the zany and fascinating pages and panels across genres such as humour, science fiction, history and adventure. Shedding light on often-forgotten or little-known artists, this volume traces a counter-history of French-language comics. Richly illustrated with largely unseen material, it offers the reader an introduction to the visionary art of French-language comics. Foreword by Dan Nadel and afterword by Tine Anthoni. This book will be made open access within three years of publication thanks to Path to Open, a program developed in partnership between JSTOR, the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS), University of Michigan Press, and The University of North Carolina Press to bring about equitable access and impact for the entire scholarly community, including authors, researchers, libraries, and university presses around the world. Learn more at https://about.jstor.org/path-to-open/

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9789462704800

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Author Information

Hugo Frey is professor of cultural and visual history at the University of Chichester. He is a cultural and political historian who has published widely on comics, graphic novels, art history and cinema. Maaheen Ahmed is an associate professor of comparative literature at Ghent University, specialised in comics and graphic novels, periodicals, children’s culture and intermediality. Jan Baetens is professor of Literature and Cultural Studies at KU Leuven. Eva Van de Wiele is postdoctoral researcher on the ERC project ""Children in Comics"" of Prof. Maaheen Ahmed at Ghent University.

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