Aubrey Gabel

What can a drawing do that a photograph cannot? In an era of collapsing newsrooms and widespread distrust of the press, comics journalism has emerged as a form of reporting that slows the reader down, grants access to spaces traditional journalists cannot enter, and protects the anonymity of those whose stories most need telling. In this episode, Aubrey Gabel, assistant professor of French at Columbia and Fellow of the Institute for Ideas and Imagination, maps the landscape of French bande dessinée as a space for serious reportage.

She traces the medium’s political genealogy, examines how the illustrator’s hand enriches the notion of objectivity, and asks what it means that, in France, one in four books sold is a comic.

Atelier is produced by the Columbia Global Paris Center, a Columbia University initiative housed at Reid Hall.