French Literature Reviews - 2026
Benoît Glaude, Ecouter la bande dessinée
Art and Visual Culture
Reading a comic book means looking at it, handling it, feeling its physical presence... and hearing it, even during so-called "silent reading".
However, have you ever listened to a comic book being read aloud? Anyone who occasionally reads books to children will realize this is by no means an extraordinary experience. Alongside shared reading, we are familiar with multi-voiced audio fictions adapted from comic books, complete with music and sound effects. From 78 rpm records to Lunii storytelling devices, not to mention book-and-record sets, a wide range of children's cultural media make these audio experiences repeatable at will.
Today, streaming audio series and radio drama podcasts, much like public readings at festivals, perform comic books for audiences of all ages. While sound is carving out a place for itself in digital comics, comic books are equally finding theirs within the booming market of audiobooks and audio series.
This book invites us to listen to these vocal adaptations, diving deep into their history from the 1930s to the present day.
The intersection of graphic narratives and auditory culture touches upon long-standing practices of shared reading, performance, and adaptation. Scholars and enthusiasts examine how static visual art translates into sound through various media, including early sound recordings, radio broadcasts, and contemporary digital streaming formats. This inquiry engages with broader discussions in media studies concerning remediation and the shifting boundaries between visual and aural storytelling traditions across the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
The volume addresses how comic books function within the growing market of audiobooks and public performances, highlighting the ways sound accompanies graphic art. Readers interested in the history of comic book adaptations and media formats may find this work relevant to their pursuits.