The Franquin & Greg album entitled “QRN sur Bretzelburg” is a delightful exploration of three senses that are exceedingly difficult to work into a comic strip: hearing, taste and smell. Or rather, the album prompts us to ponder on what happens when our senses get confused. The subject of uncommunication – through the media and through interpersonal communication – rides again. And this is uncommunication with a deliquescent political effect. Spirou and Fantasio have a mission: a mission to fight uncommunication, to overthrow the pernicious effects of noise so that good taste can win out. The comic strip, through its peculiarly expressive narrative richness, thus contributes to a close-knit dialogue with the theory of uncommunication, which until now had not dealt with the question of the senses, and so helps to enrich it.
Keywords
- senses
- hearing
- taste
- smell
- uncommunication
- comic strip
- Spirou