Stylogenyin the style of L'Association and French Alternative Comics

Pictorial & machine age · 1990–present · Western Europe

L'Association and French Alternative Comics

Also known as Bande dessinée alternative, Nouvelle bande dessinée, L'Asso, French small-press comics, Franco-Belgian 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.

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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.
AI-generated by Stylogeny from the style’s design choices. Not a real or historical work.

Use it with care

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.

01

How it works

  • Print the story in black ink on white paper, with no grey wash, screentone or colour, and let solid blacks, patterned fills and white-on-black titles do the work of colour; treat black and white as a choice, not a saving.
  • Let every author keep a personal hand and write the lettering in it: crowded symbolic monsters and ornamental black masses for a nightmare or an illness, flat frontal figures against empty black or white grounds for a childhood memoir, quick felt-tip animals drawn without pencils for an improvised saga.
  • Draw from life, dream and memory rather than the serial adventure: nightmares noted down over years, a family living with a brother's epilepsy, a girlhood in revolutionary Iran, told in first-person captions above the panels.
  • Hold the page to a steady grid and play against it as a constraint: twelve panels in four rows of three for some 500 improvised pages, a story told with one repeated panel, a strip that reads both ways, in the manner of the OuBaPo's 'potential comics'.
  • Make the book's format part of the work: choose a size for each story, from a 24-page booklet of 10.5 x 15 cm to a novel-sized paperback, an A4 album or a 2,000-page brick, and design the cover, paper and binding with care, even refusing a barcode for graphic reasons.
  • On the cover, add only one or two flat inks to black and the paper: a hand-drawn title in pale blue on navy, white lettering on saffron, a lower-case book serif and a small figure on white.

Paris, where seven cartoonists founded the publisher L'Association in May 1990 as a non-profit association: Jean-Christophe Menu, Lewis Trondheim, David B., Mattt Konture, Patrice Killoffer, Stanislas and Mokeït, who left soon after. It grew out of the Aanal (Association pour l'Apologie du 9e Art Libre), set up in 1984 by Menu, Stanislas and Konture after a high-school fanzine of 1982 (Le Lynx à tifs), and published its first book, Logique de Guerre Comix, in November 1990. Its tie to punk and DIY zine culture is this self-published fanzine route, not the look: Konture ran off his first comics, Nerf, on an old Xerox machine, and the Patte de mouche booklets were bound by hand. In its black-and-white, reality-based books it was in line with the North American alternative comics of the time. It led the 1990s small-press renewal of French-language comics, alongside Cornélius and Les Requins Marteaux (both founded in 1991), Ego comme X (Angoulême, 1994), Amok in Paris and, in Brussels, Fréon (Amok and Fréon merged as Frémok in 2002)

02

Its design choices

From Stylogeny’s vocabulary of design choices: defining choices make the style, characteristic ones are usual, occasional ones turn up now and then.

Layout & composition
Space & hierarchy
Typography
Colour
Form & shape
Surface & texture
Ornament
Imagery
Medium & production
Tone & intent
Avoids
Full polychrome, Gradients, Fluorescent & neon, Halftone & Ben-Day dots, Gloss & highlights, Straight photography, Photomontage

Palette

  • #fbfaf6
  • #111111
  • #ffdf6c
  • #ffb200
  • #7cc7d9
  • #011021

Typefaces

  • Captions and balloons lettered by hand in each author's own writing

    slanted mixed-case handwriting in David B.'s caption boxes (Le Cheval blême, L'Ascension du Haut Mal), even capitals in Satrapi's (Persepolis), loose felt-tip capitals in Trondheim's balloons (Lapinot)

  • Story and chapter titles drawn large in white capitals reversed out of a black panel or band

    LE CIRQUE in Le Cheval blême; LA SOUPE, beside a drawn bowl of soup, in Persepolis 3

  • Hand-drawn cover titles in one flat colour

    heavy wedge-serif letters for Le Cheval Blême in pale blue on navy, a white calligraphic italic for Persepolis on saffron, condensed white letters for L'Ascension du Haut Mal over a crowd of black and yellow monsters

  • A typeset lower-case old-style book serif, with bracketed serifs, on some covers

    lewis trondheim / lapinot / et les carottes de patagonie, in a block at the upper right of a white cover

  • The publisher's hand-drawn wordmark, L'AssocIatIon, mixing capitals and lower case, on the covers, at the foot of Le Cheval blême and below the title block of Lapinot

Known for

  • David B., Le Cheval blême (Ciboulette, 1992, 80 pages)

    nightmares the author noted down over about ten years, the book that opened the novel-sized Ciboulette collection; its navy cover carries the title in pale blue hand-drawn letters above a sleeper riding a white horse

  • David B., L'Ascension du Haut Mal (Éperluette, six volumes, 1996–2003; in English as Epileptic, Pantheon, 2005)

    an autobiography of growing up with an epileptic brother, its pages crowded with symbolic monsters, giant and tiny figures side by side, and covers in yellow, black and white; Alph'Art du scénario at Angoulême, 2000

  • Marjane Satrapi, Persepolis (Ciboulette, four volumes, 2000–2003)

    a childhood in Iran and a youth in exile in flat, high-contrast black and white without shading, with chapter titles reversed out of black bands; one million copies sold worldwide by 2006, by the publisher's count

  • Lewis Trondheim, Lapinot et les carottes de Patagonie (Ciboulette, 1992, 512 pages)

    improvised as it went, drawn straight in felt-tip without pencils on pages of twelve panels in four rows of three

  • Comix 2000 (1999)

    a 2,000-page hardback of wordless comics by 324 authors from 29 countries, coordinated by Jean-Christophe Menu and designed by Étienne Robial

  • OuPus 1 (1997), the first anthology of the OuBaPo (Ouvroir de bande dessinée potentielle), founded within L'Association in November 1992 on the model of the OuLiPo

  • Lapin, the house magazine (from 1992, quarterly from 1995), in which David B. serialised Le Prophète voilé and Le Jardin armé

03

Make something in this style

Say what you need, and Stylogeny’s image studio draws it from L'Association and French Alternative Comics’s design choices and checks it against them. It takes about a minute, and you get a link to share.

Rule out a choice, read the prompt, or blend in another style: take this brief to Mix styles.

04

Where it comes from, and what it’s close to

Before it

The style it grew out of, and the styles it borrowed from.

This styleL'Association and French Alternative Comics1990–present · Western Europe

After it

The styles that grew out of it.

No later style in the atlas grew out of it yet.

Alike in its design choices

Styles that make many of the same choices, related or not, besides those above.

05

Sources

  1. 'L'Association', Wikipédia (French), https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/L'Association (founding in May 1990 under the law of 1901; the seven founders; the Aanal and Futuropolis background; black and white as a demanding choice, 'non synonyme de manque d'argent'; varied formats and careful book design; barcodes refused for graphic reasons, later printed on the back; the collections Éperluette (1991, A4), Ciboulette (January 1992, novel format, opened by Le Cheval blême), Patte de mouche (24 pages, 10.5 x 15 cm), Mimolette, Côtelette, Espôlette; Comix 2000; Persepolis at one million copies in 2006; the crises of 2005–2006 and 2011)
  2. 'L'Association', Wikipedia (English), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%27Association (reality-based early work, 'exclusively in black and white', 'similar to alternative comics in North America at the time'; Comix 2000 as a 2,000-page hardcover by over 300 creators from 29 countries; Menu's Plates-bandes, 2005, 'a diatribe against what he perceived as the co-opting and wholesale copycatting of the alternative comics aesthetic')
  3. L'Association, 'Petit historique pour néophytes', https://www.lassociation.fr/infos/ (Le Lynx à tifs, 'fanzine lycéen de JC Menu et P. Lamy', 1982; the Aanal, 1984; foundation in May 1990; first title Logique de Guerre Comix, November 1990; Patte de mouche hand-bound, 'cartonnée à la main' in 1987 and 'toujours brochés à la main' in 1991, until 1995; Lapin from 1992, first four-colour pages in 1998; OuBaPo created in 1992, OuPus I in 1997; Comix 2000 in November 1999; Persepolis 1 in October 2000 and a million copies sold worldwide by 2006)
  4. L'Association catalogue pages, examined for formats, covers and sample pages: Le Cheval blême (Ciboulette, 03/1992, 80 pages), https://www.lassociation.fr/catalogue/le-cheval-bleme/ ; Lapinot et les carottes de Patagonie (Ciboulette, 12/1992, 512 pages), https://www.lassociation.fr/catalogue/lapinot-et-les-carottes-de-patagonie/ ; Persepolis 3 (Ciboulette, 08/2002, 96 pages), https://www.lassociation.fr/catalogue/persepolis-3/ ; L'Ascension du Haut Mal 4 (Éperluette, 09/1999, 56 pages), https://www.lassociation.fr/catalogue/l-ascension-du-haut-mal-4/
  5. Bart Beaty, Unpopular Culture: Transforming the European Comic Book in the 1990s (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2007), on L'Association and the '90s generation, against the hardcover, full-colour album aimed at children
  6. Tim Lanzendörfer, 'Review of Unpopular Culture', ImageTexT 7/2, https://imagetextjournal.com/review-of-unpopular-culture/ (Beaty on L'Association's works as not 48-page hardcover albums; OuBaPo as formal experiment; L'Ascension du Haut Mal as metareflective autobiography; Trondheim as 'the product of an entire cultural movement rooted in the small-press renaissance')
  7. 'Comix 2000', Wikipédia (French), https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comix_2000 (2,000 pages, 324 authors from 29 countries, wholly wordless; coordinated by Jean-Christophe Menu, graphic design by Étienne Robial)
  8. 'Persepolis (bande dessinée)', Wikipédia (French), https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persepolis_(bande_dessinée) (four volumes, Ciboulette, 2000–2003; drawn in black and white; black or white backgrounds and undetailed settings; Angoulême prizes of 2001 and 2002)
  9. 'Persepolis (comics)', Wikipedia (English), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persepolis_(comics) (a high-contrast, minimalist style without shading; German Expressionism as an influence on the drawings; Pantheon translations from 2003)
  10. 'L'Ascension du Haut Mal', Wikipédia (French), https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/L'Ascension_du_Haut_Mal (six volumes, Éperluette, 1996–2003; minimalist black-and-white style; medieval scale by importance, giant and tiny figures side by side; metaphorical images; covers in yellow, black and white; Alph'Art du scénario, 2000)
  11. 'Epileptic (comics)', Wikipedia (English), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epileptic_(comics) (Fantagraphics half in 2002, Pantheon complete in 2005)
  12. 'Lapinot et les carottes de Patagonie', Wikipédia (French), https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lapinot_et_les_carottes_de_Patagonie (1992; 500 pages of twelve panels in four rows of three; improvised, drawn in felt-tip without pencil)
  13. 'Ouvroir de bande dessinée potentielle', Wikipédia (French), https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ouvroir_de_bande_dessinée_potentielle (founded November 1992 through L'Association, on the OuLiPo model; iteration, palindrome and reversible constraints)
  14. 'Jean-Christophe Menu', Wikipédia (French), https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Christophe_Menu (the Aanal with Konture and Stanislas; Plates-bandes, 2005; departure in 2011 and L'Apocalypse)
  15. 'David B.', Lambiek Comiclopedia, https://www.lambiek.net/artists/b/b_david.htm (co-founder; short black-and-white dream stories collected in Le Cheval blême, 1992; Le Prophète voilé and Le Jardin armé in Lapin; L'Ascension du Haut Mal, 1996–2003)
  16. 'Lewis Trondheim', Lambiek Comiclopedia, https://www.lambiek.net/artists/t/trondheim.htm (co-founder; Lapinot et les carottes de Patagonie, 1992; experimental black-and-white works alongside genre series)
  17. 'Bande dessinée alternative', Wikipédia (French), https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bande_dessinée_alternative (alternative comics developed in French-speaking Europe in the 1990s through structures such as L'Association; Artéfact, Futuropolis, L'Association, Frémok, Ego comme X, Cornélius and Les Requins Marteaux among its first Franco-Belgian actors; micro-publishing 'entre l'édition artisanale et le fanzine de luxe', citing Le Lézard, July 1991)
  18. 'Mattt Konture', Wikipedia (English), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mattt_Konture ('When Konture went to Paris he published his first comics, Nerf, on an old Xerox machine'; Ruga Zébo Violent as the first volume of the Patte de mouche collection published by the Aanal; a French underground comics author and musician who later discovered the American underground cartoonists Crumb and Shelton)
  19. 'Frémok', Wikipédia (French), https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frémok (born of the merger on 22 June 2002 of the Belgian association Fréon and the French publisher Amok; offices in Brussels)
  20. Robert Aman, 'Thierry Van Hasselt on the history of Frémok and pushing the boundaries of comics', The Comics Journal, 9 September 2024, https://www.tcj.com/thierry-van-hasselt-on-the-history-of-fremok-and-pushing-the-boundaries-of-comics (of the publishing houses young artists set up in the late 1980s and early 1990s, 'L’Association stands out as a best example in France, alongside Ego comme x, Amok, and others'; Frigoproduction in Brussels evolving by 1994 into the non-profit Fréon, with the anthology Frigobox; the merger with the Parisian publisher Amok in 2002)
  21. 'Éditions Cornélius', Wikipédia (French), https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Éditions_Cornélius (founded on 1 March 1991 by Jean-Louis Gauthey); 'Les Requins Marteaux', Wikipédia (French), https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Requins_Marteaux (founded in 1991, born in Albi); 'Ego comme X', Wikipédia (French), https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ego_comme_X (created in Angoulême in 1994)

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