Depuis quelques années, ma pratique de la bande dessinée numérique entend « produire du sens avec la technologie », en faisant « parler l'outil ». Cette thèse a pour but de poser la question à un niveau plus large en se demandant ce que signifie produire du sens avec la technologie dans le contexte de la bande dessinée numérique aujourd'hui.Si la plus grande partie de ce qu'on appelle aujourd'hui bande dessinée numérique n'utilise le support et les outils numériques que comme moyen de diffusion d'une bande dessinée conçue de manière traditionnelle, une partie de la production met au contraire véritablement en oeuvre les propriétés du numérique pour produire du sens et du récit. Notre hypothèse est que la bande dessinée ne devient véritablement numérique que lorsqu'elle met ces propriétés en jeu. Dès lors, elle questionne à la fois le « système de la bande dessinée », l'usage conventionnel des outils numériques et la notion de récit. Elle impose à l'artiste d'établir de nouveaux modes opératoires. Le dépassement des théories traditionnelles par ses figures impose au théoricien d'utiliser de nouveaux concepts. L'outil ne peut devenir « parlant » pour le lecteur que si celui-ci est mis en position de l'expérimenter : interface et interactivité sont des enjeux cruciaux, la bande dessinée devient « jouable » et la « lectacture » devient son mode de réception. L'expérience de l'oeuvre par le « lectacteur » se joue sur le mode du gameplay, et cela a des répercussions sur la narration qui doit intégrer ces modalités particulières. Le récit ne repose d'ailleurs plus seulement sur les mécanismes de la narration. Il exhibe toute sa matérialité au lectacteur et repose alors en grande partie sur des mécanismes d'ordre poétique. / For a few years now, my digital comic creations have been seeking to “produce meaning with technology” by making “the tools talk.” This thesis aims to raise the question to a wider level by exploring what it means to produce meaning with technology today, in the context of digital comics.If most of what we call digital comics only use digital medium and tools as a way of publishing a comic which has been created in a traditional way, a part of the production actually uses the properties of computers to produce sense and narration.Our working hypothesis is that a comic only becomes ‘digital’ when it involves these properties. It therefore questions the ‘system of comics’, the conventional use of digital tools as well as the notion of narrative. It forces the artist to introduce new methods. Surpassing traditional theories through the digital comic forms forces the theorist to use new concepts. The tool can only ‘talk’ to the reader if they are allowed to try it out themselves. Interface and interactivity are crucial issues; the comic becomes ‘playable’, through ‘read-acting.’ While interact with the piece, the read-actor is in gameplay mode, which in turn has consequences on the narration, which must therefore include these rules. As a matter of fact, the narrative no longer relies on the mechanism of the narration. It displays all its materiality to the read-actor and so relies largely on mechanisms of a poetical nature.

The figure of the cyborg, or more latterly, the posthuman body has been an increasingly familiar presence in a number of academic disciplines. The majority of such studies have focused on popular culture, particularly the depiction of the posthuman in science-fiction, fantasy and horror. To date however, few studies have focused on the posthuman and the comic book superhero, despite their evident corporeality, and none have questioned comics’ readers about their responses to the posthuman body. This thesis presents a cultural history of the posthuman body in superhero comics along with the findings from twenty-five, two-hour interviews with readers. By way of literature reviews this thesis first provides a new typography of the posthuman, presenting it not as a stable bounded subject but as what Deleuze and Guattari (1987) describe as a ‘rhizome’. Within the rhizome of the posthuman body are several discursive plateaus that this thesis names Superhumanism (the representation of posthuman bodies in popular culture), Post/Humanism (a critical-theoretical stance that questions the assumptions of Humanism) and Transhumanism (the philosophy and practice of human enhancement with technology). With these categories in mind the thesis explores the development of the posthuman in body in the Superhuman realm of comic books. Exploring the body-types most prominent during the Golden (1938-1945), Silver (1958-1974) and contemporary Ages of superheroes it presents three explorations of what I term the Perfect Body, Cosmic Body and Military-Industrial Body respectively. These body types are presented as ‘assemblages’ (Delueze and Guattari, 1987) that display rhizomatic connections to the other discursive realms of the Post/Human and Transhuman. This investigation reveals how the depiction of the Superhuman body developed and diverged from, and sometimes back into, these realms as each attempted to territorialise the meaning and function of the posthuman body. Ultimately it describes how, in spite of attempts by nationalistic or economic interests to control Transhuman enhancement in real-world practices, the realms of Post/Humanism and Superhumanism share a more critical approach. The final section builds upon this cultural history of the posthuman body by addressing reader’s relationship with these images. This begins by refuting some of the common assumptions in comics studies about superheroes and bodily representations. Readers stated that they viewed such imagery as iconographic rather than representational, whether it was the depiction of bodies or technology. Moreover, regular or committed readers of superhero comics were generally suspicious of the notion of human enhancement, displaying a belief in the same binary categories -artificial/natural, human/non-human - that critical Post/Humanism seeks to problematize. The thesis concludes that while superhero comics remain ultimately too human to be truly Post/Humanist texts, it is never the less possible to conceptualise the relationship between reader, text, producer and so on in Post/Humanist terms as reading-assemblage, and that such a cyborgian fusing of human and comic book allow both bodies to ‘become other’, to move in new directions and form new assemblages not otherwise possible when considered separately.

Vicissitudes in the British-German relationship since the Second World War have been reflected in the social and political cartoons produced and published in Britain and Germany referring to the other and the European and international context of their relationship. This survey focuses primarily on press cartoons, analysing and interpreting their content along imagological lines. National stereotypes, symbols, and other imagery are identified and their origins, uses, and possible meanings investigated. The research shows that British cartoonists have often had easy recourse to imagery drawn from and connected with twentieth-century military conflicts and the experience of National Socialism, which they have been loathe to set aside even after fifty years of peace. Such imagery has come particularly to the fore during periods of tension between the two countries. On the other hand, German cartoonists have generally relied upon an older and less provocative palette of imagery. Towards the end of the twentieth century and after reunification, the German caricatural depiction of Britain and the British became less circumspect, with evidence of a sharper and more critical approach. Significant themes and topics in the depiction of the ´other´ are also identfied, such as each country´s position within the European Community, and their treatment is charted.

Cette étude comprend l'analyse et le commentaire de quelques cent-trente-cinq caricatures qui ont pour but de tenter de répondre à la question sur l'éventualité d'une reconstitution historique au travers des caricatures antihitlériennes de la presse satirique de la République de Weimar. Elles illustrent la montée du national-socialisme, du moins par le biais de la critique, puis de l'opposition et de la révolte, que ce dernier a pu susciter au cours des années 1923-1933. Ce travail a nécessité la recherche de faits politiques précis auxquels chaque caricature faisait référence et la comparaison de la représentation proposée par la caricature avec les informations et les jugements donnés rétrospectivement par les historiens. Ce jeu de va-et-vient entre le document-source et l'arrière-plan référentiel a aidé à proposer une estimation de l'écho suscité ou non par l'événement politique en question. Ce choix de caricatures a permis par exemple de voir quelles avaient été les apparitions de Hitler sur la scène politique qui avaient le plus déchaîné les passions. Toutefois il reste difficile de concevoir une histoire de la montée du national-socialisme et de l'opposition à Hitler avant 1933 à partir des seules caricatures. / This study is made up of the analysis and commentary of some one hundred and thirty-five caricatures in an attempt to resolve the question of a possible historical reconstruction through anti-Hitler caricatures in the satirical press of the Weimar Republic. They illustrate the rise of National Socialism, at least as seen by the critics and then the opposition and revolt that the former actually gave rise to between 1923 and 1933. The work bas required research into the precise political events referred to by each caricature and the comparison between the representation proposed by the caricature and the information and the opinion provided in retrospect by historians. This coming and going between the original document and the referential background has led to an assessment of the extent of the coverage given to the political event in question. The choice of caricatures has allowed for instance to see which appearances in public by Hitler had unleashed the most passion. Nevertheless it still remains difficult to establish a history of the rise of National Socialism and of the opposition to Hitler before 1933 from these caricatures alone.

Apparue aux États-Unis dans les années 70, la bande dessinée autobiographique s’est épanouie plus tardivement en France : très consciente d’elle-même, elle s’est structurée dans les années 90 d’un point de vue collectif et éditorial et s’est révélée en cela pleinement structurante. Cette alliance n’allait pourtant pas de soi puisqu’elle semble rompre par nature avec d’autres formes du neuvième art, à commencer par l’aventure, la science-fiction ou le divertissement, autrement dit avec ce qui constitue parfois dans l’imaginaire commun la vocation même de la bande dessinée. L’écriture de soi semble donc fournir de manière spontanée les outils d’un décloisonnement : la transgression, l’hybridation et le lyrisme apparaissent comme trois modalités d’ouverture de l’espace traditionnel du neuvième art. À la recherche de nouveaux équilibres créatifs, l’auteur s’est notamment confronté à l’épineuse question de l’autoportrait. Traditionnellement art du personnage, la bande dessinée force le dessinateur à résoudre des équations qui semblent a priori insolubles et à inventer des ruses qu’il nous revient de décrire : l’autoportrait s’hybride avec l’autoreprésentation, l’identité avec l’altérité, le réel avec la fiction. C’est tout un changement de paradigme que la bande dessinée autobiographique introduit dans l’ordre de la représentation et de la narration : de ce point de vue, elle offre un fil conducteur permettant de traverser l’histoire et la modernité du neuvième art. / Born in USA during the 70's, autobiographical comics blossomed later in France : endowed with a strong self consciousness, it happened to be structured from a collective or editorial point of view in the 90's. This syncretic genre wasn't obvious a priori, because it seems to originate in itself a failure with other forms of the ninth art, especially adventures, science-fiction or entertainment, in other terms with what stands for comic strips purposes in most people mind. The writing of the self may provide spontaneously tools for an opening up : breaking, hybridization and lyrism appear to be three ways to enlarge the traditional area of comic strips. Searching for new creative balances, the author has studied the vexed topic of self-portrait. Usually considered as the art of character, comic strips enforce the art cartoonist to solve equations that first seem insoluble and to invent tricks that we owe to describe : self-portrait hybridizes with representation of the self, identity with otherness, reality with fiction. And that is because autobiographical comic strips introduces a whole change of paradigm in the order of representation and narration : from this point of view, autobiography offers a thread allowing to travel all over history and modernity of the ninth art.

This thesis explores the zombie’s rise to prominence in popular culture, with a focus on its development within the comics medium. The zombie is not just a ‘floating signifier’ (according to Jerrold E. Hogle), but a revenant signifier, actively and aggressively linking with existing concepts, and transforming them. The thesis also considers both the zombie figure and zombie genre within the parameters of several media – comics, television, film, and literature. The medium of comics is examined in detail as it has evolved through the influence of the zombie just as the zombie has been reshaped by each new representation. In contemporary horror comics, The Walking Dead series is not just commercially successful, it exploits properties of the medium (including panel arrangement, transitions, repetition, and the liminal space within the gutter) to thoroughly explore the metaphors and allusions that have been associated with the zombie. I discuss these metaphors by charting the zombie’s development. A lack of pre-twentieth century literary texts featuring this creature frustrates easy comparison with the monsters of Gothic fiction. Rather than evolving within the novel form, as its rival horror icons have done, the zombie has maintained a visual and visceral identity, maturing with each new incarnation, and becoming ever more gruesome: the walking corpses of ancient texts; a symbol of eternal slavery within Haitian Voodoo folklore; and its modern interpretation as violent and virulent monster. The recent notion of a zombie plague has redefined the creature as a representation of modern fears, and has led to ‘zombie apocalypse’ becoming a commonly-used fantasy scenario. The zombie’s connection to apocalyptic literature is simultaneously ancient and contemporary, with the creature being a signifier of social disorder and disrupted identity. While the emphasis throughout is on the shifting relations between media, comics are the main focus of this study. The symbolism present in the zombie, and the political and cultural ideas stemming from its slow maturation are revealed within The Walking Dead and sustained through the functions of the comics medium. Through the application of Scott McCloud’s comics theory, the closure between panels and the transition within the gutter enhance these ideas, and provide further understanding of the zombie as depicted in comics. The visual/textual relationship within comics is compared with Jacques Lacan’s modalities of consciousness, and the psychoanalytic reading provided here explores the crises of identity within the zombie, and within the fragmented narrative of the comics medium. Alternative psychoanalytic readings, and the physiology/pathology of the zombie itself are undertaken, revealing the creature to be responsive to Julia Kristeva’s concept of the abject, and Slavoj Zizek’s postmodern reworking of Lacanian ideas. The thesis also returns to notions of the Gothic, haunted spaces, and the role of suburbia in the zombie narrative. This is augmented with a study of intertextuality and the “revenant” status of the zombie, and of comics. Through incorporating the critical theory of Kristeva, Mikhail Bakhtin, and Jacques Derrida, and by positioning in parallel comics theorist Thierry Groensteen’s concepts of braiding and arthrology, I emphasise the operations of the zombie figure in the comic book, and other media, asserting that the zombie is a revenant signifier continually returning and transforming, never resting, but endlessly cannibalising and reconstructing debate about identity, morality, and society.