ABSTRACT
Across seven albums, celebrated bédéiste, illustrator, and editorial cartoonist Catherine Meurisse has established an auteure signature that triangulates between canonical French literature and art and the art of the bande dessinée. Gender and sexuality are issues that Meurisse’s female protagonists are continually navigating, regardless of the genre of the album. Meurisse treats the history of French culture with an affectionate but critical eye—aiming her criticism primarily at the social failings (particularly the sexism) in the art and novels of the artists and writers, while asserting by her intertextual practice that bande dessinée has an equal place among those arts.
