Will Bastien Vivès have to explain himself to the courts? The association Innocence in danger, committed to the protection of children against violence, filed a complaint on December 19 against the author of comic strips and two of his publishers, Glénat and the Requis Marteaux, reveal this Tuesday our colleagues from RMC. This complaint, which Release was able to consult, targets three offences: dissemination of child pornography images, incitement to commit sexual assaults on minors and dissemination of violent messages to a minor.
Heckled by a lively controversy, the Angoulême festival, the biggest annual comic book event, announced on November 14 the deprogramming of the exhibition devoted to Bastien Vives. The 38-year-old author, revealed by the taste of chlorine in 2009, is accused by various detractors of “trivialize” child pornography and incest and to promote “rape culture” in some of his works and through several speeches or messages published on social networks. In addition, he was accused of having, in 2017, called for the murder of designer Emma, whose work he did not like, in a post that he himself admitted to be “hyperviolent” but written, according to him, with a “humor to the billionth degree.” “Today I realize that beyond my works, it was above all my words that shockedhe apologized via an Instagram post the day after the cancellation of his exhibition. I sincerely regret.”
“Abused minors”
Three books are in the crosshairs of the Innocence in Danger association: mental Dumpe (February 2018) and Melons of Anger (January 2011) published in the BD CUL collection by Requins Marteaux editions as well as Little Paul (September 2018) published by Glénat in the Porn pop collection. The complaint also refers to remarks made by Bastien Vivès, in particular this sentence published on the site miss in 2017: “Incest excites me to death […] since I can’t do incest in real life and I don’t have a big sister to be able to do that, I do that in my books.”
The theme of the first comic strip targeted, Mental Dump, “is that of an incestuous family”composed of a father, a mother, their three daughters of 18, 15 and 10 years old, a friend, underlines the complaint, citing several scenes: “The mother performs oral sex on the father in the presence of this friend and the three daughters. The mother encourages her daughters to take part in fellatio»the youngest “receives his father’s cum on his face”, “During the night, the father’s friend is the subject of a blowjob that involves the 10-year-old girl.”
Comics Little Paul, it features a 10-year-old child, “endowed with a sex of substantial size.” “This child is then raped by his teacher, his sister and his judo teacher.” And it is this same child who is again staged in Melons of Angerwhere is he “raped by Magalie, his sister, who imposes oral sex on him. Sister herself victim of rape by the family doctor then victim of several collective rapes and this because of her prominent chest. So these boards “show many minors being abused or showing off their intimacy”. However, the Penal Code provides that the “diffusion […] or the representation of a minor when this image or this representation has a pornographic character is punished by five years’ imprisonment and a fine of 75,000 euros.
“Incest and commission of sexual abuse”
Incitement to commit sexual assaults on minors is an offense punishable by 5 years in prison and a fine of 45,000 euros. The complaint states that in these three works “the central themes are incest and the commission of sexual abuse of minors.” So, through them, “there is a trivialization of the commission of tortious and criminal acts”. These comics “were and still are accessible to minors who might well think that relations between an adult and a child or adolescent should happen in this way”. By distributing these books, Editions Glénat and Requins Marteaux “participate in the trivialization of behaviors of sexual abuse of young minors and in the spread of the trivialization of incest”, again deplores Innocence in danger.
Finally, the association recalls that comic strips Mental Dump and Petit Paul “were accessible to minors on the Calameo site” between 2018 and December 16, 2022. The Melons of Anger is “always accessible to minors” nowadays. The offense of broadcasting violent messages to a minor is punishable by three years’ imprisonment and a fine of 75,000 euros.
“A representation or an image of a minor in a pornographic situation is punishable by law. It appears to me that a certain number of drawings [de Bastien Vivès] come under the law”had declared on December 15 Charlotte Caubel, the Secretary of State in charge of Children, magistrate by profession, on franceinfo. “It is up to justice to decide to qualify the facts.”