Abstract EN:

This dissertation bears on the periodical comis strip magazines distributed in the united states and canada since the 1930's, aka comic books. The key contention of this research is that the comic book, as any cultural artifact, is posited at the core of a network of discourses and social practices whose interpretive potential is twofold; on the one hand, they emphasize a number of revealing features proper to the social environment in which comic books are produced, on the other, they are instrumental in accounting for the comic book's inferiour cultural status. The first part is a historical survey whose purpose is to lay down a periodization framework suitable for further analysis of the medium. The second part addresses the evolution of the comics industry's central mechanisms, is creative process and commercial distribution, since the 1930s. In the third part, comic book contents are looked into from four angles: the booklet as self-contained artifact (ads, readers' mail, etc); foremost genres (comics "for kids", superheroes); comic books as a means of propaganda and education; "obscene" comic books (pornography and violence). Finally, the fourth part deals with the economic, socialn and cultural background of the comic book's apparent inability to accede to any form of cultural legitimacy (general public's indifference, recurring if limited censorship, etc) despite tentative signs of assimilation into the cultural mainstream.