Stylogeny combining Arab Independent Comics × L'Association and French Alternative Comics

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Style combination · Pairs well

Arab Independent Comics × L'Association and French Alternative Comics

A younger many-handed small-press scene that also prints mostly in black ink; one of its Beirut titles won Angoulême's alternative comics prize in 2019. Pair the French book design with its dialect lettering and Risograph colour.

From the research on L'Association and French Alternative Comics

Mix them and make something Arab Independent Comics L'Association and French Alternative Comics

LoudArab Independent × L'Association and
A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from L'Association and French Alternative Comics, their arrangement from Arab Independent Comics, the finish from Arab Independent Comics. Not a real work, and not an image of either style.

01

What each style brings

Each part of the design comes from the style with the stronger say in it, and each style gives at least two.

Arab Independent Comics (Samandal, TokTok, Lab619, Skefkef) L'Association and French Alternative Comics

Type from Arab Independent Comics
Colour from L'Association and French Alternative Comics
Form from L'Association and French Alternative Comics
Composition from Arab Independent Comics
Surface from Arab Independent Comics

02

The type

Open fonts standing in for each style’s own type, which is often hand-drawn or commercial.

Display · Arab Independent Comics

Loud

Rakkas, standing in for Hand-lettered colloquial Arabic balloons (Egyptian ʿāmmiyya in TokTok and Garage, Tunisian in Lab619, Moroccan darija, with Amazigh, in Skefkef)

Text · L'Association and French Alternative Comics

The black-and-white auteur comics of L'Association, the Paris publisher founded by seven cartoonists in 1990, and the 1990s small-press scene it led. Against the 48-page hardback colour album, it printed dream diaries, memoirs and formal games in black ink on white paper, in books of many sizes, from 24-page pocket booklets to A4 albums and the 2,000-page wordless Comix 2000. Every author keeps a personal hand: David B.'s crowded black masses, Satrapi's flat, frontal figures, Trondheim's improvised felt-tip rabbits. Covers add one or two flat inks.

Caveat; L'Association and French Alternative Comics used Captions and balloons lettered by hand in each author's own writing and Story and chapter titles drawn large in white capitals reversed out of a black panel or band

03

The colours

The ground and leading colours come from L'Association and French Alternative Comics, with a counter-accent from Arab Independent Comics. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.

Arab Independent Comics (Samandal, TokTok, Lab619, Skefkef) L'Association and French Alternative Comics

  • #fbfaf6 ground · 36%
  • #011021 ink · 14%
  • #ffb200 accent · 18%
  • #ffdf6c accent · 14%
  • #e2463a accent · 10%
  • #7cc7d9 accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #fbfaf6;
  --ink: #011021;
  --accent-1: #ffb200;
  --accent-2: #ffdf6c;
  --accent-3: #e2463a;
  --accent-4: #7cc7d9;
  --font-display: "Rakkas", cursive;
  --font-text: "Caveat", cursive;
}

Use it with care

Arab Independent Comics (Samandal, TokTok, Lab619, Skefkef): These are living, named artists working under real censorship: Samandal's editors were prosecuted and fined over two comics, and an Egyptian cartoonist was arrested in January 2016, so never attribute invented political or religious satire to a real artist or collective, and never ask an image model for their work by name. Draw the contemporary city life these artists draw, not Orientalist shorthand: no camels, veiled women, sheikhs or gunmen as stand-ins for 'Arab', and no pseudo-Arabic squiggles. Have every line of dialect Arabic, Darija or Amazigh written or checked by a fluent speaker; if no fluent reader can check it, leave the balloons empty or letter them in Latin script only. Do not borrow the religious and sectarian jokes as edgy decoration outside the communities that made them.

L'Association and French Alternative Comics: The leading authors are living, named people and much of the work is memoir of real events, so never ask an image model for a named author's hand, and never attribute invented pages or opinions to them; Persepolis tells a real Iranian childhood under revolution and war, so do not lift its veiled schoolgirls as generic shorthand for Iran or for Muslim women; and David B.'s monsters in L'Ascension du Haut Mal are one family's account of epilepsy, not a generic image of illness or disability.

04

The two styles

A comic-style poster follows a curly-haired person in a purple hoodie searching for a black-and-white cat through city streets, beside a bus, beneath a vehicle, and across rooftops. The final panel shows the person cuddling the cat on a rooftop beneath a yellow moon. 2007–present · Middle East & North Africa Arab Independent Comics (Samandal, TokTok, Lab619, Skefkef) Adult comics magazines edited by Arab artists' collectives since 2007, at times with a ministry grant or an NGO partner: Samandal in Beirut, TokTok in Cairo, Lab619 in Tunis and Skefkef in Casablanca. Each issue gathers many hands and no house style, from grubby brush caricature to fine-art pages, much of it in black ink. Balloons mostly speak street dialect, not classical Arabic, and Samandal ran Arabic right to left beside French and English left to right. Satire aims at police, sect, sex and religion; two comics deemed blasphemous cost Samandal's editors a conviction and fines in 2015. A black, cream and yellow illustrated poster titled “CHAT TROUVÉ” tells a six-panel story of a curly-haired person finding, feeding and spending time with a yellow cat. The final panels show the cat walking along a wall and sitting above city rooftops against a large yellow sun. 1990–present · Western Europe L'Association and French Alternative Comics The black-and-white auteur comics of L'Association, the Paris publisher founded by seven cartoonists in 1990, and the 1990s small-press scene it led. Against the 48-page hardback colour album, it printed dream diaries, memoirs and formal games in black ink on white paper, in books of many sizes, from 24-page pocket booklets to A4 albums and the 2,000-page wordless Comix 2000. Every author keeps a personal hand: David B.'s crowded black masses, Satrapi's flat, frontal figures, Trondheim's improvised felt-tip rabbits. Covers add one or two flat inks.

05

More combinations

With Arab Independent Comics

With L'Association and French Alternative Comics

Every style combination