Conversational Euro-Comics: Bart Beaty On François Henninger And Cent mètres carrés



By Bart Beaty

I was confused by François Henninger's Cent mètres carrés (Warum, 2006), and happily so.

I've been teaching two classes on comics at the University of Calgary this term (one undergraduate and one at the graduate level), and so have been thinking more than I normally do about issues surrounding communicability in comics. My students have been particularly interested in the way that cartoonists make things legible for readers. For instance, they've been put off by the Gary Panter material that they've read, while strongly attracted to the Adrian Tomine. At the same time, they've been deeply fascinated by some of the formal experiments of Richard McGuire, Chris Ware and Art Spiegelman. And I think they'd also be interested in Henninger for similar reasons.

I know little about Henninger other than he's a graduate of the comics school in Angouleme, and that he seemed very nice when I bought this book from him. His hyper-thin lines, empty or minimal backgrounds, and lack of character detail align him, in this work at least, with artists like François Ayroles and Ruppert and Mulot, and thematically the book echoes the kinds of alienated mystery that typify Jean-Pierre Duffour or Martin tom Dieck. Cent mètres carrés (the title refers to the size of the apartment in which most of the action takes place) isn't filled with characters so much as archetypes, and doesn't have a plot so much as it contains incidents.



As I said, I'll admit to getting lost a few times in the narrative, but I was also thrilled to see some things I had never seen before. For instance, as early as the second page Henninger places a word balloon behind the window in the foreground, thereby re-spacing the letters. I'm sure that he's not the first to do this, but I couldn't immediately think of another artist who had. The effect is mildly disturbing, albeit perfectly logical. It sets an early mood for a book that traces the "adventures" of an architect who is randomly pulled into several non-sequitur murder mysteries.

The plot is so thin here that it occasionally threatens to collapse in on itself, but it is kept erect by the lightness of the drawings. The framing is often unusual, and entire pages pass that are initially inscrutable before a new piece of information makes everything if not plain, at least comprehensible. Still, absurdities abound (a murder victim is buried in the floor of an apartment building; boats sit at an impasse when a new bridge is airlifted into place; a sex scene goes disturbingly awry), and they are ably structured by the visual grammar.

Cent mètres carrés is one of those interesting books that I'm glad to have picked up, and one that will keep my looking for more in the future. As I tell my students, sometimes it's good to be a little confused about the things that you read.

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To learn more about Dr. Beaty, or to contact him, try here.

Those interested in buying comics talked about in Bart Beaty's articles might try here or here.

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