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Comic strip

Winsor McCay's Little Nemo (1905), an American Sunday comic strip featuring a heightened use of perspective, a sequential narrative in panel tiers and dream-like plots
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A comic strip is a sequence of drawings arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions.

Traditionally, throughout the 20th century and into the 21st, these were published in newspapers, with horizontal strips printed in black-and-white in daily newspapers, while Sunday newspapers offered longer sequences in special color comics sections. There were more than 200 different comic strips and daily cartoon panels in American newspapers alone each day for most of the 20th century, for a total of at least 7,300,000 episodes.^[1]

Strips are written and drawn by a comics artist or cartoonist. As the name implies, comic strips can be humorous (for example, "gag-a-day" strips such as Blondie, Bringing Up Father, Marmaduke and Pearls Before Swine).

Starting in the early 1930s, comic strips expanded from their mirthful origins to feature adventure stories, as seen in Popeye, Captain Easy, Buck Rogers, Tarzan and The Adventures of Tintin. Soap-opera continuity strips such as Judge Parker and Mary Worth gained popularity in the 1940s. All are called, generically, comic strips, though cartoonist Will Eisner has suggested that "sequential art" would be a better name.^[2]

In the UK and the rest of Europe, comic strips are also serialized in comic book magazines, with a strip's story sometimes continuing over three pages or more. Comic strips have appeared in American magazines such as Liberty and Boys' Life and also on the front covers of magazines, such as the Flossy Frills series on The American Weekly Sunday newspaper supplement.

History[link]

Storytelling using a sequence of pictures has existed through history. One medieval European example in textile form is the Bayeux Tapestry. Printed examples emerged in 19th-century Germany and in 18th-century England, where some of the first satirical or humorous sequential narrative drawings were produced. William Hogarth's 18th century English cartoons include both narrative sequences, such as A Rake's Progress, and single panels.

The Biblia pauperum ("Paupers' Bible"), a tradition of picture Bibles beginning in the later Middle Ages, sometimes depicted Biblical events with words spoken by the figures in the miniatures written on scrolls coming out of their mouths—which makes them to some extent ancestors of the modern cartoon strips.

In China, with its traditions of block printing and of the incorporation of text with image, experiments with what became lianhuanhua date back to 1884.^[3]

Newspapers[link]

The first newspaper comic strips appeared in North America in the late 19th century.^[4] The Yellow Kid is usually credited as the first. However, the art form combining words and pictures evolved gradually, and there are many examples of proto-comic strips.

The Swiss teacher, author and caricature artist Rodolphe Töpffer (Geneva, 1799–1846) is considered the father of the modern comic strips. His illustrated stories such as Histoire de M. Vieux Bois (1827), first published in the USA in 1842 as The Adventures of Obadiah Oldbuck or Histoire de Monsieur Jabot (1831), inspired subsequent generations of German and American comic artists. In 1865, the German painter, author and caricaturist Wilhelm Busch created the strip Max and Moritz, about two trouble-making boys, which had a direct influence on the American comic strip. Max and Moritz was a series of severely moralistic tales in the vein of German children's stories such as Struwwelpeter ("Shockheaded Peter"); in one, the boys, after perpetrating some mischief, are tossed into a sack of grain, run through a mill and consumed by a flock of geese. Max and Moritz provided an inspiration for German immigrant Rudolph Dirks, who created the Katzenjammer Kids in 1897. Familiar comic-strip iconography such as stars for pain, sawing logs for snoring, speech balloons and thought balloons originated in Dirks' strip.^[5]

Hugely popular, Katzenjammer Kids occasioned one of the first comic-strip copyright ownership suits in the history of the medium. When Dirks left William Randolph Hearst for the promise of a better salary under Joseph Pulitzer, it was an unusual move, since cartoonists regularly deserted Pulitzer for Hearst. In a highly unusual court decision, Hearst retained the rights to the name "Katzenjammer Kids", while creator Dirks retained the rights to the characters. Hearst promptly hired Harold Knerr to draw his own version of the strip. Dirks renamed his version Hans and Fritz (later, The Captain and the Kids). Thus, two versions distributed by rival syndicates graced the comics pages for decades. Dirks' version, eventually distributed by United Feature Syndicate, ran until 1979.

In America, the great popularity of comics sprang from the newspaper war (1887 onwards) between Pulitzer and Hearst. The Little Bears (1893–96) was the first American comic with recurring characters, while the first color comic supplement was published by the Chicago Inter-Ocean sometime in the latter half of 1892, followed by the New York Journal's first color Sunday comic pages in 1897. On January 31, 1912, Hearst introduced the nation's first full daily comic page in his New York Evening Journal.^[6] The history of this newspaper rivalry and the raid appearance of comic strips in most major American newspapers is discussed by Ian Gordon.^[7]

The longest running American comic strips are:

• 1. Katzenjammer Kids (1897-present)
• 2. Gasoline Alley (1918-present)
• 3. Barney Google and Snuffy Smith (1919-present)
• 4. Thimble Theater/Popeye (1919-present)
• 5. Little Orphan Annie (1924-2010)^[8]

Newspaper comic strips come in two different types: daily strips and Sunday strips. Most newspaper comic strips are syndicated; a syndicate hires people to write and draw a strip and then distributes it to many newspapers for a fee. A few newspaper strips are exclusive to one newspaper. For example, the Pogo comic strip by Walt Kelly originally appeared only in the New York Star in 1948 and was not picked up for syndication until the following year.^[9]

In the United States, a daily strip appears in newspapers on weekdays, Monday through Saturday, as contrasted with a Sunday strip, which typically only appears on Sundays. Daily strips usually are printed in black and white, and Sunday strips are usually in color. However, a few newspapers have published daily strips in color, and some newspapers have published Sunday strips in black and white. The two conventional formats for newspaper comics are strips and single gag panels. The strips are usually displayed horizontally, wider than they are tall. Single panels are square, circular or taller than they are wide. Strips usually, but not always, are broken up into several smaller panels with continuity from panel to panel. A horizontal strip can also be used for a single panel with a single gag, as seen occasionally in Mike Peters' Mother Goose and Grimm.

During the 1930s, the original art for a daily strip could be drawn as large as 25 inches wide by six inches high.^[10] As strips have become smaller, the number of panels have been reduced.

The popularity and accessibility of strips meant they were often clipped and saved; authors including John Updike and Ray Bradbury have written about their childhood collections of clipped strips. Often posted on bulletin boards, clipped strips had an ancillary form of distribution when they were faxed, photocopied or mailed. The Baltimore Sun's Linda White recalled, "I followed the adventures of Winnie Winkle, Moon Mullins and Dondi, and waited each fall to see how Lucy would manage to trick Charlie Brown into trying to kick that football. (After I left for college, my father would clip out that strip each year and send it to me just to make sure I didn’t miss it.)"^[11]

Proof sheets were the means by which syndicates provided newspapers with black-and-white line art for the reproduction of strips (which they arranged to have colored in the case of Sunday strips). Michigan State University Comic Art Collection librarian Randy Scott describes these as "large sheets of paper on which newspaper comics have traditionally been distributed to subscribing newspapers. Typically each sheet will have either six daily strips of a given title or one Sunday strip. Thus, a week of Beetle Bailey would arrive at the Lansing State Journal in two sheets, printed much larger than the final version and ready to be cut apart and fitted into the local comics page."^[12] Comic strip historian Allan Holtz described how strips were provided as mats (the plastic or cardboard trays in which molten metal is poured to make plates) or even plates ready to be put directly on the printing press. He also notes that with electronic means of distribution becoming more prevalent printed sheets "are definitely on their way out."^[13][14]

Cartoon panels[link]

Single panels usually, but not always, are not broken up and lack continuity. The daily Peanuts is a strip, and the daily Dennis the Menace is a single panel. J. R. Williams' long-run Out Our Way continued as a daily panel even after it expanded into a Sunday strip, Out Our Way with the Willets. Jimmy Hatlo's They'll Do It Every Time was often displayed in a two-panel format with the first panel showing some deceptive, pretentious, unwitting or scheming human behavior and the second panel revealing the truth of the situation.^[5]

Early daily strips were large, often running the entire width of the newspaper, and were sometimes three or more inches high.^[15] Initially, a newspaper page included only a single daily strip, usually either at the top or the bottom of the page. By the 1920s, many newspapers had a comics page on which many strips were collected together. Over decades, the size of daily strips became smaller and smaller, until by the year 2000, four standard daily strips could fit in an area once occupied by a single daily strip.^[15]

NEA Syndicate experimented briefly with a two-tier daily strip, Star Hawks, but after a few years, Star Hawks dropped down to a single tier.^[5]

In Flanders, the two-tier strip is the standard publication style of most daily strips like Spike and Suzy and Nero.^[16] They appear Monday through Saturday; until 2003 there were no Sunday papers in Flanders.^[17] In the last decades, they have switched from black and white to color.

Sunday comics[link]

Sunday newspapers traditionally included a special color section. Early Sunday strips, such as Thimble Theatre and Little Orphan Annie, filled an entire newspaper page, a format known to collectors as full page. Sunday pages during the 1930s and into the 1940s often carried a secondary strip by the same artist as the main strip. No matter whether it appeared above or below a main strip, the extra strip was known as the topper, such as The Squirrel Cage which ran along with Room and Board, both drawn by Gene Ahern.

During the 1930s, the original art for a Sunday strip was usually drawn quite large. For example, in 1930, Russ Westover drew his Tillie the Toiler Sunday page at a size of 17" × 37".^[18] In 1937, the cartoonist Dudley Fisher launched the innovative Right Around Home, drawn as a huge single panel filling an entire Sunday page.

Full-page strips were eventually replaced by strips half that size. Strips such as The Phantom and Terry and the Pirates began appearing in a format of two strips to a page in full-size newspapers, such as the New Orleans Times Picayune, or with one strip on a tabloid page, as in the Chicago Daily News. When Sunday strips began to appear in more than one format, it became necessary for the cartoonist to allow for rearranged, cropped or dropped panels. During World War II, because of paper shortages, the size of Sunday strips began to shrink. After the war, strips continued to get smaller and smaller because of increased paper and printing costs. The last full-page comic strip was the Prince Valiant strip for 11 April 1971.

Comic strips have also been published in Sunday newspaper magazines. Russell Patterson and Carolyn Wells' New Adventures of Flossy Frills was a continuing strip series seen on Sunday magazine covers. Beginning January 26, 1941, it ran on the front covers of Hearst's American Weekly newspaper magazine supplement, continuing until March 30 of that year. Between 1939 and 1943, four different stories featuring Flossy appeared on American Weekly covers.

Sunday comics sections employed offset color printing with multiple print runs imitating a wide range of colors. Printing plates were created with four or more colors—traditionally, the CMYK color model: cyan, magenta, yellow and "K" for black. With a screen of tiny dots on each printing plate, the dots allowed an image to be printed in a halftone that appears to the eye in different gradations. The semi-opaque property of ink allows halftone dots of different colors to create an optical effect of full-color imagery.^[19][20]

Underground comic strips[link]

The decade of the 1960s saw the rise of underground newspapers, which often carried comic strips, such as Fritz the Cat and The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers. Zippy the Pinhead initially appeared in underground publications in the 1970s before being syndicated.^[21] Bloom County and Doonesbury began as strips in college newspapers under different titles, and later moved to national syndication. Underground comic strips covered subjects that are usually taboo in newspaper strips, such as sex and drugs. Many underground artists, notably Vaughn Bode, Dan O'Neill, Gilbert Shelton and Art Spiegelman went on to draw comic strips for magazines such as Playboy, National Lampoon and Pete Millar's CARtoons. Jay Lynch graduated from undergrounds to alternative weekly newspapers to Mad and children's books.

Webcomic[link]

Webcomics, also known as online comics and internet comics, are comics that are available to read on the Internet. Many are exclusively published online, while some are published in print but maintain a web archive for either commercial or artistic reasons. Two of the most popular are Penny Arcade, focused primarily on video gaming, and User Friendly, which bases its humor on the Internet and other computer-user issues. The majority of traditional newspaper comic strips have some Internet presence. King Features Syndicate and other syndicates often provide archives of recent strips on their websites. Some, such as Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert, include an email address in each strip.

Conventions and genres[link]

Most comic strip characters do not age throughout the strip's life, but in some strips, like Lynn Johnston's award-winning For Better or For Worse, the characters age as the years pass. The first strip to feature aging characters was Gasoline Alley.

The history of comic strips also includes series that are not humorous, but tell an ongoing dramatic story. Examples include The Phantom, Prince Valiant, Dick Tracy, Mary Worth, Modesty Blaise and Tarzan. Sometimes these are spin-offs from comic books, for example Superman, Batman and The Amazing Spider-Man.

A number of strips have featured animals ('funny animals') as main characters. Some are non-verbal (Marmaduke, The Angriest Dog in the World), some have verbal thoughts but are not understood by humans, (Garfield, Snoopy in Peanuts), and some can converse with humans (Bloom County, Calvin and Hobbes, Mutts, Citizen Dog, Buckles, Get Fuzzy, Pearls Before Swine and Pooch Cafe). Other strips are centered entirely on animals, as in Pogo and Donald Duck. Gary Larson's The Far Side was unusual, as there were no central characters. Instead The Far Side used a wide variety of characters including humans, monsters, aliens, chickens, cows, worms, amoebas and more. John McPherson's Close to Home also uses this theme, though the characters are mostly restricted to humans and real-life situations. Wiley Miller not only mixes human, animal and fantasy characters, he does several different comic strip continuities under one umbrella title, Non Sequitur. Bob Thaves's Frank & Ernest began in 1972 and paved the way for some of these strips as its human characters were manifest in diverse forms — as animals, vegetables, and minerals.^[5]

Social and political influence[link]

The comics have long held a distorted mirror to contemporary society, and almost from the beginning have been used for political or social commentary. This ranged from the conservative slant of Little Orphan Annie to the unabashed liberalism of Doonesbury. Pogo used animals to particularly devastating effect, caricaturing many prominent politicians of the day as animal denizens of Pogo's Okeefenokee Swamp. In a fearless move, Pogo's creator Walt Kelly took on Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s, caricaturing him as a bobcat named Simple J. Malarkey, a megalomaniac who was bent on taking over the characters' birdwatching club and rooting out all undesirables. Kelly also defended the medium against possible government regulation in the McCarthy era. At a time when comic books were coming under fire for supposed sexual, violent and subversive content, Kelly feared the same would happen to comic strips. Going before the Congressional subcommittee, he proceeded to charm the members with his drawings and the force of his personality. The comic strip was safe for satire.

During the early 20th century, comic strips were widely associated with publisher William Randolph Hearst, whose papers had the largest circulation of strips in the United States. Hearst was notorious for his practice of yellow journalism, and he was frowned on by readers of The New York Times and other newspapers which featured few or no comic strips. Hearst's critics often assumed that all the strips in his papers were fronts for his own political and social views. Hearst did occasionally work with or pitch ideas to cartoonists, most notably his continued support of George Herriman's Krazy Kat. An inspiration for Bill Watterson and other cartoonists, Krazy Kat gained a considerable following among intellectuals during the 1920s and 1930s.

Some comic strips, such as Doonesbury and The Boondocks, may be printed on the editorial or op-ed page rather than the comics page because of their regular political commentary. For example, the August 12, 1974 Doonesbury strip awarded a 1975 Pulitzer Prize for its depiction of the Watergate scandal. Dilbert is sometimes found in the business section of a newspaper instead of the comics page because of the strip's commentary about office politics, and Tank McNamara often appears on the sports page because of its subject matter.

Publicity and recognition[link]

The world's longest comic strip is 88.9-metre (292 ft) long and on display at Trafalgar Square as part of the London Comedy Festival.^{[citation needed]} The London Cartoon Strip was created by 15 of Britain's best known cartoonists and depicts the history of London.

The Reuben, named for cartoonist Rube Goldberg, is the most prestigious award for U.S. comic strip artists. Reuben awards are presented annually by the National Cartoonists Society (NCS).

Today's strip artists, with the help of the NCS, enthusiastically promote the medium, which is considered to be in decline due to fewer markets (today few strips are published in newspapers outside the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada, mainly because of the smaller interest there, with translated versions of popular strips - particularly in Spanish - are primarily read over the internet) and ever-shrinking newspaper space. One particularly humorous example of such promotional efforts is the Great Comic Strip Switcheroonie, held in 1997 on April Fool's Day, an event in which dozens of prominent artists took over each other's strips. Garfield’s Jim Davis, for example, switched with Blondie’s Stan Drake, while Scott Adams (Dilbert) traded strips with Bil Keane (The Family Circus). Even the United States Postal Service got into the act, issuing a series of commemorative stamps marking the comic-strip centennial in 1996.

While the Switcheroonie was a one-time publicity stunt, for one artist to take over a feature from its originator is an old tradition in newspaper cartooning (as it is in the comic book industry). In fact, the practice has made possible the longevity of the genre's more popular strips. Examples include Little Orphan Annie (drawn and plotted by Harold Gray from 1924 to 1944 and thereafter by a succession of artists including Leonard Starr and Andrew Pepoy), and Terry and The Pirates, started by Milton Caniff in 1934 and picked up by George Wunder.

A business-driven variation has sometimes led to the same feature continuing under a different name. In one case, in the early 1940s, Don Flowers' Modest Maidens was so admired by William Randolph Hearst that he lured Flowers away from the Associated Press and to King Features Syndicate by doubling the cartoonist's salary, and renamed the feature Glamor Girls to avoid legal action by the AP. The latter continued to publish Modest Maidens, drawn by Jay Allen in Flowers' style.^[5]

Issues in U.S. newspaper comic strips[link]

As newspapers change, the changes have affected comic strips.

Size[link]

In the early decades of the 20th century, all Sunday comics received a full page, and daily strips were generally the width of the page. The competence between papers for having more cartoons than the rest from the mid-1920's, the growth of large-scale newspaper advertising during most of the thirties, paper rationing during World War II, the decline on news readership (as television newscasts began to be more common) and inflation (which has caused higher printing costs) beginning during the fifties and sixties made Sunday strips being published on smaller and more diverse formats. Daily strips have suffered as well, in 1910 the strips had an unlimited amount of panels, covering the entire width page, while by 1930 most "dailies" had four or five panels covering six of the eight columns occupied by a traditional broadsheet paper, by 1958 those four panels would be narrower, and those would have half of the space a 1910 daily strip had, and around 1998 most strips would have three panels only (with a few exceptions), or even two or one on an occasional basis, apart from strips being smaller, as most papers became slightly narrower. While most cartoonist decided to follow the tide, some cartoonists have complained about this, with Pogo ending in 1975 as a form of protest from its creators against the practice. Since then Calvin and Hobbes creator Bill Watterson has written extensively on the issue, arguing that size reduction and dropped panels reduce both the potential and freedom of a cartoonist. After a lengthy battle with his syndicator, Watterson won the privilege of making half page-sized Sunday strips where he could arrange the panels any way he liked. Many newspaper publishers and a few cartoonists objected to this, and some papers continued to print Calvin and Hobbes at small sizes. Opus won that same privilege years after Calvin and Hobbes ended, while Wiley Miller circumvented further downsizings by making his Non Sequitur Sunday strip available only in an extremely vertical (near-page-long) arrangement. Few newspapers still run half-page strips, as with Prince Valiant and Hagar the Horrible in the front page of the Reading Eagle Sunday comics section. Actually Universal Uclick and United Media practically have no half-page comics, with the remaining strips from both syndicates in this format are published only as "thirds", "fourths" and "sixths" (also called "third tabs").

Format[link]

In an issue related to size limitations, Sunday comics are often bound to rigid formats that allow their panels to be rearranged in several different ways while remaining readable. Such formats usually include throwaway panels at the beginning, which some newspapers will omit for space. As a result, cartoonists have less incentive to put great efforts into these panels. Garfield and Mutts were known during the mid-to-late 80's and 1990's respectively for their throwaways on their Sunday strips, however both strips now run "generic" title panels.

With the success of The Gumps during the 1920s, it became commonplace for strips (comedy- and adventure-laden alike) to have lengthy stories spanning weeks or months. The "Monarch of Medioka" story in Floyd Gottfredson's Mickey Mouse comic strip ran from September 8, 1937 to May 2, 1938. Between the 1960s and the late 1980s, as television news relegated newspaper reading to an occasional basis rather than daily, syndicators were abandoning long stories and urging cartoonists to switch to simple daily gags, or week-long "storylines" (with six consecutive (mostly unrelated) strips following a same subject), with longer storylines being used mainly on adventure-based and dramatic strips. Strips begun during the mid-1980s or after (such as Get Fuzzy, Over the Hedge, Monty, and others) are known for their heavy use of storylines, lasting between one and three weeks in most cases.

The writing style of comic strips changed as well after the war. With an increase in the number of college-educated readers, there was a shift away from slapstick comedy and towards more cerebral humor. Slapstick and visual gags became more confined to Sunday strips, because as Garfield creator Jim Davis put it, "Children are more likely to read Sunday strips than dailies."

Second author[link]

Many older strips are no longer drawn by the original cartoonist, who has either died or retired. Such strips are known as "zombie strips". A cartoonist, paid by the syndicate, or sometimes a relative of the original cartoonist continues writing the strip, a tradition that became commonplace in the early half of the 20th century. Hägar the Horrible and Frank and Ernest are both drawn by the sons of the creators. Some strips which are still in affiliation with the original creator are produced by small teams or entire companies, such as Jim Davis' Garfield, however there is some debate if these strips fall in this category.

This act is commonly criticized by, primarily modern, cartoonists including Watterson and Pearls Before Swine's Stephan Pastis. The issue was in fact addressed in six consecutive Pearls strips in 2005.^[23] Charles Schulz, of Peanuts fame, requested that his strip not be continued by another cartoonist after his death. He also rejected the idea of hiring an inker or letterer, comparing it to a golfer hiring a man to make his putts. Schulz's family has honored his wishes and refused numerous proposals by syndicators to continue Peanuts with a new author.

The problems cited with attaining a second cartoonist state that the second cartoonist is generally less funny or compelling than the creator, and that the new cartoonist does not have the same style of writing or understand the characters as well. Also, some claim that continuing such strips, while a part of American folklore, stops newer cartoonists from breaking through. Most ended strips now run on newspapers as reruns, most notably Peanuts and Lynn Johnston's For Better or for Worse.

Assistants[link]

Since the consolidation of newspaper comics by the first quarter of the 20th century, most cartoonists have used a group of assistants (with usually one of them credited). However, quite a few cartoonists (e.g.: George Herriman and Charles Schulz, among others) have done their strips almost completely by themselves; often criticizing the use of assistants for the same reasons most have about their editors hiring anyone else to continue their work after their retirement.

Censorship[link]

Starting in the late 1940s, the national syndicates which distributed newspaper comic strips subjected them to very strict censorship. Li'l Abner was censored in September 1947 and was pulled from papers by Scripps-Howard. The controversy, as reported in Time, centered on Capp's portrayal of the U.S. Senate. Said Edward Leech of Scripps, "We don't think it is good editing or sound citizenship to picture the Senate as an assemblage of freaks and crooks... boobs and undesirables."^[24]

Because historically comics have been considered mostly for children, they have a significantly more rigid censorship code than other media. Stephan Pastis has lamented that the "unwritten" censorship code is still "stuck somewhere in the 1950s." Generally, comics are not allowed to include such words as "damn", "sucks", "screwed" and "hell", although there have been exceptions such as the September 22, 2010 Mother Goose and Grimm in which an elderly man says, "This nursing home food sucks," and a pair of Pearls Before Swine comics from January, 2011 with a character named Ned using the word "crappy".^[25][26][27] Naked backsides and shooting guns cannot be shown, according to Dilbert cartoonist Scott Adams.^[28] Such comic strip taboos were detailed in Dave Breger's book But That's Unprintable (Bantam, 1955).

Many issues such as sex, narcotics and terrorism cannot or can very rarely be openly discussed in strips, although there are exceptions, usually for satire, as in Bloom County. This led some cartoonists to resort to double entendre or dialogue children do not understand, as in Greg Evans' Luann. Young cartoonists have claimed commonplace words, images and issues should be allowed in the comics. Some of the taboo words and topics are mentioned daily on television and other forms of visual media. Web comics and comics distributed primarily to college newspapers are much freer in this respect.

See also[link]

Comics portal

• Biblia pauperum
• Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum
• Comics Studies
• List of British comic strips
• List of cartoonists
• List of newspaper comic strips
• Military humor comic strips

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Blackbeard, Bill, ed. The Smithsonian Collection of Newspaper Comics. (1977) Smithsonian Institution Press/Harry N. Abrams
• Castelli, Alfredo. Here We Are Again
• Gordon, Ian. Comic Strips and Consumer Culture (1998) Smithsonian Institution Press
• Goulart, Ron. Encyclopedia of American Comics
• Goulart, Ron. The Funnies
• Goulart, Ron. The Adventurous Decade
• Horn, Maurice. The World Encyclopedia of Comics. (1976) Chelsea House, (1982) Avon.
• Horn, Maurice. The World Encyclopedia of Cartoons
• Horn, Maurice. 100 Years of American Newspaper Comics
• Koenigsberg, Moses. King News, Moses Koenigsberg
• Mott, Frank Luther. American Journalism
• Robbins, Trina. A Century of Women Cartoonists
• Robbins, Trina and Yronwode, Cat. Women and the Comics
• Robinson, Jerry. The Comics
• Sheridan, Martin. Comics And Their Creators
• Tebbell. The Compact History of the American Newspaper
• Strickler, Dave. Syndicated Comic Strips and Artists
• Walker, Brian (2004). The Comics: Before 1945. Harry N. Abrams. ISBN 0-8109-4970-9. 
• Walker, Brian (2002). The Comics: After 1945. Harry N. Abrams. ISBN 0-8109-3481-7. 
• Watson, Elmo Scott. A History of Newspaper Syndicates in the United States, Elmo Scott Watson
• Waugh, Coulton. The Comics

External links[link]

• National Cartoonists Society
• Leiffer, Paul, and Hames Ware, eds. The Comic Strip Project. WebCitation archive.
• Comic Art Collection at the University of Missouri
• Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum at The Ohio State University

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The Comic Strip is a group of British comedians, who came to prominence in the 1980s. They are known for their television series The Comic Strip Presents... which was labelled as an example of alternative comedy. The core members are Adrian Edmondson, Dawn French, Rik Mayall, Nigel Planer, Peter Richardson, Jennifer Saunders and Alexei Sayle with frequent appearances by Keith Allen, Robbie Coltrane and others.

Early history[link]

Two double acts, Adrian Edmondson and Rik Mayall under the name "20th Century Coyote" and Nigel Planer and Peter Richardson ("The Outer Limits"), started performing at the newly opened Comedy Store in London in mid 1980, alongside compere Alexei Sayle who had been resident there since the Comedy Store opened in 1979. Concurrently Richardson searched for a venue to mount a play he had produced with Michael White. He planned to run The Comic Strip late at night after the play's performances. He sourced the Raymond Revue Bar in Soho, but realising it was unsuitable for a theatrical production and running out of enthusiasm for the play he decided to continue with the idea of a cabaret night. He persuaded the double acts and Sayle to move from the Comedy Store along with Arnold Brown, an older standup comic who did not fit so obviously into the alternative comedy scene. Sayle again resumed his compere duties and decided running order, with Richardson having behind the scenes control. Richardson put out an advert for female performers which was answered by French and Saunders.^[1]

Richardson prompted members to sign a contract to signify their attachment to the group. The Comic Strip opened in October 1980 and ran until 1981, when the troupe went on a national tour and then a tour of Australia. While the performers gained more exposure, actors such as Jack Nicholson and Robin Williams turned up to watch.

Richardson approached producer Mike Bolland, the newly appointed Channel Four youth and entertainment commissioning editor to propose a series of Comic Strip films for the channel. Bolland agreed to his proposal, his first commission for the station and Jeremy Isaacs quickly approved the budget.^[2] Richardson negotiated a deal with the channel for six self-contained half-hour films, using the group as actors rather than standup performers. Almost simultaneously, the BBC signed Edmondson, Mayall, Planer and Sayle to star in The Young Ones, a sitcom in the same anarchic style as the Comic Strip. Richardson was initially to have been involved (in the role of Mike, ultimately played by Christopher Ryan), but was not due to differences between him and the show's producer, Paul Jackson.

Television[link]

[edit] The Comic Strip Presents...

The Comic Strip Presents... debuted on 2 November 1982, the opening night of Channel 4. Each episode was prefixed by an animated lead-in consisting of the words "The Comic Strip Presents" accompanied by a soundtrack consisting of a drum machine and a Farfisa organ, together with a bomb labelled "Have a nice day", falling towards a map. In the early episodes the map was of a section of north Dorset and southern Wiltshire, centred on the town of Shaftesbury.

The first episode was "Five Go Mad in Dorset", a parody of The Famous Five. It was written by Peter Richardson and Pete Richens, who wrote most of the early episodes. "Five Go Mad..." drew anger from some viewers for the way it mercilessly satirised a children's classic, although the Enid Blyton estate had given permission for the broadcast. A meeting was called to discuss the group's future with Channel 4, after complaints from viewers.

The final episode of the first series was to have been a spoof chat show called "Back to Normal with Eddie Monsoon" (referred to as "An Evening with Eddie Monsoon" by some sources). It was never produced, as it was considered too vulgar even for the "alternative" Channel 4, not to mention possibly libellous. The script – which, uniquely for the Comic Strip, was written as a collaboration by the entire cast – was later published, along with the rest of the series, in book form.

A second series of seven episodes followed in 1983-84, including "Five Go Mad On Mescalin", a sequel to the first episode, and the newly-written "Eddie Monsoon – A Life?", a spoof documentary on the life and times of the title character, an obscene, drunken television host (played by Adrian Edmondson). Michael White, the theatre impresario and Rocky Horror Show producer who had been brought in by Richardson as executive producer on the series, appeared in this episode as Monsoon's producer, who had been responsible for axing Eddie's television comeback show – called Back to Normal with Eddie Monsoon. The reasons given for the cancellation (e.g. "the things you said about Burt Reynolds") are presumably the same problems that led to the real "Back to Normal..." being dropped by Channel 4. (The name Eddie Monsoon – a corruption of "Edmondson" – was later used by Jennifer Saunders, Adrian Edmondson's wife, for her character in Absolutely Fabulous.)

Two one-off episodes were aired on Channel 4 over Christmas 1985, reflecting the tight schedules of the group. 'Consuela' was a French and Saunders-led pastiche of the Alfred Hitchcock film 'Rebecca', with French's eponymous crazed housekeeper taking centre stage. The second episode, 'Private Enterprise', was the tale of a music business rip off, where Peter Richardson steals a studio recording session tape and passes the results off as his own work.

The group made two feature films - The Supergrass (1985) and Eat the Rich (1987) - as well as three one-off Comic Strip Presents... episodes which were the next to be screened on Channel 4. The first of these, "The Bullshitters", was a parody of television spy and detective shows such as The Professionals. It was not broadcast under the Comic Strip name, partly because of the original group only Richardson appears (he is the only performer to appear in every single episode), and partly because co-star and co-writer Keith Allen did not want to be so closely associated with the group.

The third series was broadcast in 1988, and some episodes had longer running times, mostly around 50 minutes. Five of the six episodes (all except "Funseekers") were given a limited theatrical release. They included "The Strike", which won the Golden Rose of Montreux; "More Bad News", a sequel to "Bad News Tour" showing the band reforming after five years to play at Castle Donington; and "Mr. Jolly Lives Next Door", written by Mayall and Edmondson in the violent style of their sitcoms Filthy Rich and Catflap and Bottom, which featured Peter Cook as a psychotic contract killer (the eponymous Mr. Jolly) and Nicholas Parsons. Peter Richardson and Pete Richens only contributed one episode to the third series, allowing cast members such as Planer and Sayle to get their ideas on screen.

By now the show had proved a hit, and several notable stars appeared in later productions, including Leslie Phillips, Miranda Richardson, Lionel Jeffries, Nicholas Parsons, Peter Capaldi, Kate Bush, Richard Vernon, Ruby Wax, Graham Crowden, Paul McCartney, Ozzy Osbourne, Lemmy, Elvis Costello, and Benjamin Zephaniah (as a Rastafarian police van driver) and several musical acts, particularly from the Bad News series which was also aided by Queen guitarist Brian May, such as Def Leppard and Marillion.

BBC and after[link]

In 1990, the series transferred to BBC2. By now, all the regulars (with the exception of Peter Richardson) had become more famous for their own shows, and more recurring performers such as Gary Beadle, Phil Cornwell, Steve O'Donnell, Mark Caven, Sara Stockbridge and Doon Mackichan were brought in. Rik Mayall was contracted to ITV's The New Statesman, and was only able to appear in two of the BBC productions ("GLC", and the Comic Relief special "Red Nose of Courage"). Richardson and Richens took over the bulk of the writing again, and Richardson also took over as director, having previously directed the two feature films, as well as The Strike. The six-part 1990 series was followed by three individual specials in 1992, and a final six episodes in 1993.

Return to Channel 4[link]

In 1998 the original team reunited and returned to Channel 4 for a one-off special, Four Men In A Car. This was followed in 2000 by a sequel, Four Men In A Plane. After another long hiatus, another 60-minute one-off, "Sex Actually", was made in 2005. It starred Sheridan Smith (Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps) and Tamer Hassan (Layer Cake) alongside several of the regular cast members. Four Men in a Car was notable for being the first broadcast on either television or radio, to involve Rik Mayall since his quad bike accident. Permission was thus given by Mayall's family to show the special.

Peter Richardson, who has built his career as a writer-director with the TV series Stella Street and films such as Churchill: The Hollywood Years, has not ruled out the possibility of a whole new series of The Comic Strip Presents... featuring younger cast members.^[3]

In June 2011, a casting call went out for a new hour-long episode, starring most of the original team.^[4] This was followed by an announcement that the Comic Strip was to produce a one-off special entitled The Hunt for Tony Blair, starring Stephen Mangan as Blair and Robbie Coltrane as Inspector Hutton. The one-off show included Jennifer Saunders as Margaret Thatcher as well as Harry Enfield, Rik Mayall and a host of others.^[5]

The next Comic Strip will be a sequel to "Five Go Mad In Dorset". "Five Go To Rehab", featuring the entire original cast (Ade Edmonson, Dawn French, Jennifer Saunders, Peter Richardson) is set to film in the first weeks of July 2012, in and around Totnes. Richardson is writing and directing the film. The film showcases the characters thirty years on trying to recapture their youth. The film will be part of Channel 4's 30th anniversary schedule in November 2012.^[6]

Video and DVD releases[link]

In 1986 Virgin Video released various episodes of the programme dating between 1982-4, which have now become rare. The 1988 series was released on video the same year by Palace Video, each episode having its own video. The only existing episode of the BBC series on video is "GLC", which Polygram Video released with "The Strike" in 1994. When the Virgin and Palace Video videos went out of print in 1990, the rights were transferred to Polygram Video. After three years all the Channel 4 episodes of The Comic Strip were released on video.

Eat the Rich (1987) has not been released on DVD in the UK. Eat the Rich is available as a Region 1 (American) DVD and a Region 2 (German) DVD.

A nine-disc Region 2 DVD set, The Comic Strip Presents: The Complete Collection was released in July 2005 (and re-released in August 2007). This included all the Channel 4 and BBC episodes (finally canonising The Bullshitters as a Comic Strip episode) plus The Supergrass across eight discs, but not Eat the Rich (due to rights issues), and was released too early to include ...Sex Actually. The ninth disc includes a retrospective documentary from 2005, Julien Temple's 1981 film The Comic Strip (which retroactively lays a strong claim to being the actual first 'episode'), and the two Comic Strip episodes of the 1998 documentary series First On Four. Across the new and archive documentaries are featured interviews with every single key Comic Strip member.

The DVD set contains new, slightly shorter, re-edited versions of 'South Atlantic Raiders' (both parts) and 'Four Men In A Car', in addition to featuring the 90-minute re-edit of 'The Supergrass' (the original VHS release having been almost 20 minutes longer). The DVD re-editing was a deliberate creative decision, with the work undertaken by Peter Richardson himself alongside editor Geoff Hogg, though the decision was a controversial one with fans of the series.

As of May 1, 2012, the entire "Comic Strip Presents" series is available on Netflix's streaming service in the U.S. The show is split into eight seasons.

List of Comic Strip episodes[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Peter Richardson TV
• BBC Comedy Guide - The Comic Strip Presents...
• British Film Institute Screen Online
• An unofficial Comic Strip Presents Website
• The Comic Strip at the Internet Movie Database
• Article on the Comic Strip club with photos

This article may be expanded with text translated from the corresponding article in the French Wikipedia. (May 2012) Don't speak French? Click here to read a machine-translated version of the French article. Click [show] on the right to review important translation instructions before translating. Google's machine translation is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into English Wikipedia. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. After translating, {{Translated|fr|Brigitte Bardot}} must be added to the talk page to ensure copyright compliance. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

Brigitte Bardot
Bardot in 1968
Born	Brigitte Anne-Marie Bardot (1934-09-28) 28 September 1934 (age 77) Paris, France
Other names	BB
Occupation	Actress, model, singer, animal rights activist
Years active	1952–1973
Spouse	Roger Vadim (m. 1952–1957) «start: (1952)–end+1: (1958)»"Marriage: Roger Vadim to Brigitte Bardot" Location: (linkback:http://en-wiki.pop.wn.com/index.php/Brigitte_Bardot)(divorced) Jacques Charrier (m. 1959–1962) «start: (1959)–end+1: (1963)»"Marriage: Jacques Charrier to Brigitte Bardot" Location: (linkback:http://en-wiki.pop.wn.com/index.php/Brigitte_Bardot)(divorced) Gunter Sachs (m. 1966–1969) «start: (1966)–end+1: (1970)»"Marriage: Gunter Sachs to Brigitte Bardot" Location: (linkback:http://en-wiki.pop.wn.com/index.php/Brigitte_Bardot)(divorced) Bernard d'Ormale (m. 1992) «start: (1992)»"Marriage: Bernard d'Ormale to Brigitte Bardot" Location: (linkback:http://en-wiki.pop.wn.com/index.php/Brigitte_Bardot)
Children	Nicholas-Jacques Charrier
Awards	David di Donatello Award, Legion of Honor (refused)

Brigitte Anne-Marie Bardot^[1][2] ( /ˈbrɪdʒɨt bɑrˈdoʊ/; French: [bʁiʒit baʁdo]; born 28 September 1934) is a former French fashion model, actress, singer and animal rights activist. She was one of the best-known sex symbols of the 1960s. Starting in 1969, Bardot's features became the official face of Marianne (who had previously been anonymous) to represent the liberty of France.^[3]

Bardot was an aspiring ballet dancer in early life. She started her acting career in 1952 and, after appearing in 16 films, became world-famous due to her role in her then-husband Roger Vadim's controversial film And God Created Woman. She later starred in Jean-Luc Godard's 1963 cult film Contempt. Bardot was nominated for a BAFTA Award for Best Foreign Actress for her role in Louis Malle's 1965 film Viva Maria!. Bardot caught the attention of French intellectuals. She was the subject of Simone de Beauvoir's 1959 essay, The Lolita Syndrome, which described Bardot as a "locomotive of women's history" and built upon existentialist themes to declare her the first and most liberated woman of post-war France.^[4]

Bardot retired from the entertainment industry in 1973. During her career in show business, Bardot starred in 47 films, performed in numerous musical shows, and recorded 80 songs. She was awarded the Legion of Honour in 1985, but refused to receive it.^[5] After her retirement, Bardot established herself as an animal rights activist. During the 1990s she generated controversy by criticizing immigration, Islamization and Islam in France, and has been fined five times for "inciting racial hatred".^[6][7]

Early life[link]

Brigitte Bardot was born in Paris to Anne-Marie 'Toty' Mucel (1912–1978) and Louis 'Pilou' Bardot (1896–1975). Her father had an engineering degree and worked with his own father (Charles Bardot) in the family business. Toty was sixteen years younger and they married in 1933. Bardot grew up in a middle-class observant Roman Catholic family.^[8] Brigitte's mother enrolled Brigitte and her sister Marie-Jeanne (born 5 May 1938) in dance. Marie-Jeanne eventually gave up dancing lessons to complete her education, whereas Brigitte decided to concentrate on a ballet career.

In 1947, Bardot was accepted to the Conservatoire de Paris, and for three years she attended the ballet classes of Russian choreographer Boris Knyazev. (One of her classmates was Leslie Caron; fellow ballerinas nicknamed Bardot: Bichette [Little Doe]).^[9]

At the invitation of an acquaintance of her mother, she modelled in a fashion show in 1949. In the same year, she modelled for a fashion magazine "Jardin des Modes" managed by journalist Hélène Lazareff. Aged 15, she appeared on an 8 March 1950 cover of ELLE^[10] and was noticed by a young film director, Roger Vadim, while babysitting. He showed an issue of the magazine to director and screenwriter Marc Allégret who offered Bardot the opportunity to audition for "Les lauriers sont coupés" thereafter. Although Bardot got the role, the film was cancelled, but it made her consider becoming an actress. Moreover, her acquaintance with Vadim, who attended the audition, influenced her further life and career.^[11][12]

Career[link]

In Les Grandes Manoeuvres (1955)

Although the European film industry was then in its ascendancy, Bardot was one of the few European actresses to have the mass media's attention in the United States, an interest which she did not reciprocate, rarely, if ever, going to Hollywood. She debuted in a 1952 comedy film Le Trou Normand (English title: Crazy for Love). From 1952-56, she appeared in seventeen films; in 1953 she played a role in Jean Anouilh's stageplay L'Invitation au château (Invitation to the Castle). She received media attention when she attended the Cannes Film Festival in April 1953.^[12]

Her films of the early and mid 1950s were generally lightweight romantic dramas, some historical, in which she was cast as ingénue or siren, often in varying states of undress. She played bit parts in three English-language films, the British comedy Doctor at Sea (1955) with Dirk Bogarde, Helen of Troy (1954), in which she was understudy for the title role but appears only as Helen's handmaid, and Act of Love (1954) with Kirk Douglas. Her French-language films were dubbed for international release.

Roger Vadim was not content with this light fare. The New Wave of French and Italian art directors and their stars were riding high internationally, and he felt Bardot was being undersold. Looking for something more like an art film to push her as a serious actress, he showcased her in And God Created Woman (1956) with Jean-Louis Trintignant. The film, about an immoral teenager in a respectable small-town setting, was an international success.^[12] In 1958 exhibitors voted Bardot the 7th most popular star in the US and Canada;^[13] the following year she was ranked 17th.^[14]

In Bardot's early career, professional photographer Sam Lévin's photos contributed to her image of sensuality. One photo shows Brigitte from behind, dressed in a white corset. British photographer Cornel Lucas made iconic images of Bardot in the 1950s and 1960s that have become representative of her public persona. She divorced Vadim in 1957 and in 1959 married actor Jacques Charrier, with whom she starred in Babette Goes to War. The paparazzi preyed upon her marriage, while she and her husband clashed over the direction of her career.

Vie privée (1962), directed by Louis Malle has more than an element of her life story in it.^{[citation needed]} The scene in which, returning to her apartment, Bardot's character is harangued in the elevator by a middle-aged cleaning lady calling her offensive names, was based on an actual incident, and is a resonant image of celebrity in the mid-20th century.^{[citation needed]} Bardot was awarded a David di Donatello Award for Best Foreign actress for the role.^[15]

In May 1958, Bardot withdrew to the seclusion of Southern France where she had bought the house La Madrague in Saint-Tropez. In 1963, she starred in Jean-Luc Godard's critically acclaimed film Contempt. Bardot was featured in many other films along with notable actors such as Alain Delon (Famous Love Affairs; Spirits of the Dead); Jean Gabin (In Case of Adversity); Sean Connery (Shalako); Jean Marais (Royal Affairs in Versailles; School for Love); Lino Ventura (Rum Runners); Annie Girardot (The Novices); Claudia Cardinale (The Legend of Frenchie King); Jeanne Moreau (Viva Maria!); Jane Birkin (Don Juan, or If Don Juan Were a Woman).

In 1973, Bardot announced that she was retiring from acting as "a way to get out elegantly".^[16]

She participated in various musical shows and recorded many popular songs in the 1960s and 1970s, mostly in collaboration with Serge Gainsbourg, Bob Zagury and Sacha Distel, including "Harley Davidson"; "Je Me Donne A Qui Me Plaît"; "Bubble gum"; "Contact"; "Je Reviendrais Toujours Vers Toi"; "L'Appareil À Sous"; "La Madrague"; "On Déménage"; "Sidonie"; "Tu Veux, Ou Tu Veux Pas?"; "Le Soleil De Ma Vie" (the cover of Stevie Wonder's "You Are the Sunshine of My Life"); and the notorious "Je t'aime... moi non plus".

Bardot pleaded with Gainsbourg not to release this duet and he complied with her wishes; the following year, he re-recorded a version with British-born model and actress Jane Birkin, which became a massive hit all over Europe. The version with Bardot was issued in 1986 and became a popular download hit in 2006 when Universal Records made its back catalogue available to purchase online, with this version of the song ranking as the third most popular download.^[17]

Personal life[link]

On 21 December 1952, aged 18, Bardot was married to director Roger Vadim. In order to receive permission from Bardot's parents to marry her, Vadim, originally a Russian Orthodox Christian, was urged to convert to Catholicism, although it is not clear if he ever did so. They divorced five years later, but remained friends and collaborated in later work. Bardot had an affair with her And God Created Woman co-star Jean-Louis Trintignant (married at the time to actress Stéphane Audran) before her divorce from Vadim.^[11][12] The two lived together for about two years. Their relationship was complicated by Trintignant's frequent absence due to military service and Bardot's affair with musician Gilbert Bécaud, and they eventually separated.^[11]

The 9 February 1958 edition of the Los Angeles Times reported on the front page that Bardot was recovering in Italy from a reported nervous breakdown. A suicide attempt with sleeping pills two days earlier was denied by her public relations manager.^[18]

Family[link]

On 18 June 1959, she married actor Jacques Charrier, by whom she had her only child, a son, Nicolas-Jacques Charrier (born 11 January 1960). After she and Charrier divorced in 1962, Nicolas was raised in the Charrier family and did not maintain close contact with Bardot until his adulthood.^[11]

Bardot's other husbands were German millionaire playboy Gunter Sachs (14 July 1966  – 1 October 1969) and Bernard d'Ormale (16 August 1992 – present).^[11][12][19] In the late 1950s she shared an exchange which was called "la croisée de deux sillages" ("the crossing of two wakes") with actor and true-crime author John Gilmore, then an actor in France who was working on a New Wave film with Jean Seberg. Gilmore told Paris Match: "I felt a beautiful warmth with Bardot but found it difficult to discuss things in any depth whatsoever."

In the 1970s, Bardot lived with sculptor Miroslav Brozek and posed for some of his sculptures. In 1974, Bardot appeared in a nude photo shoot in Playboy magazine, which celebrated her 40th birthday.

Animal welfare activism[link]

In 1973, before her 39th birthday, Bardot announced her retirement. After appearing in more than forty motion pictures and recording several music albums, most notably with Serge Gainsbourg, she chose to use her fame to promote animal rights.

In 1986, she established the Brigitte Bardot Foundation for the Welfare and Protection of Animals.^[20] She became a vegetarian^[21] and raised three million francs to fund the foundation by auctioning off jewellery and many personal belongings.^[20] Today she is a strong animal rights activist and a major opponent of the consumption of horse meat. In support of animal protection, she condemned seal hunting in Canada during a visit to that country with Paul Watson of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.^[22] She sought to discuss the issue with Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada, but her request for a meeting was reportedly denied.^{[citation needed]} On 25 May 2011 the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society renamed its fast interceptor vessel, MV Gojira, as MV Brigitte Bardot in appreciation of her support.^[23]

She once had a neighbour's donkey castrated while looking after it, on the grounds of its "sexual harassment" of her own donkey and mare, for which she was taken to court by the donkey's owner in 1989.^[24][25] Bardot wrote a 1999 letter to Chinese President Jiang Zemin, published in French magazine VSD, in which she accused the Chinese of "torturing bears and killing the world's last tigers and rhinos to make aphrodisiacs".^[26]

She has donated more than $140,000 over two years for a mass sterilization and adoption program for Bucharest's stray dogs, estimated to number 300,000.^[27] She is planning to house many of these stray animals in a new animal rescue facility that she is having built on her property.

In August 2010, Bardot addressed a letter to the Queen of Denmark, Margrethe II of Denmark, appealing for the sovereign to halt the killing of dolphins in the Faroe Islands. In the letter, Bardot describes the activity as a "macabre spectacle" that "is a shame for Denmark and the Faroe Islands ... This is not a hunt but a mass slaughter ... an outmoded tradition that has no acceptable justification in today's world".^[28]

On 22 April 2011, French culture minister Frédéric Mitterrand officially inscribed bullfighting on a list enumerating the country's cultural heritage, a decision which Bardot is currently publicly contesting. "French culture is a culture of enlightenment and has nothing to do with bloody things like bullfighting," she wrote.^[29]

Politics and legal issues[link]

Brigitte Bardot (2002)

Bardot expressed support for President Charles de Gaulle in the 1960s.^[11][30] Her husband Bernard d'Ormale is a former adviser of the Front National, the main nationalist party in France.^[12][30][4] Brigitte Bardot is supporting Front National candidate Marine Le Pen in the 2012 French Presidential Election.^[31]

In her 1999 book Le Carré de Pluton ("Pluto's Square"), Bardot criticizes the procedure used in the ritual slaughter of sheep during the Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha. Additionally, in a section in the book entitled, "Open Letter to My Lost France", Bardot writes that "my country, France, my homeland, my land is again invaded by an overpopulation of foreigners, especially Muslims". For this comment, a French court fined her 30,000 francs in June 2000. She had been fined in 1997 for the original publication of this open letter in Le Figaro and again 1998 for making similar remarks.^[26][32][33]

In her 2003 book, Un cri dans le silence ("A Scream in the Silence"), she warned of an “Islamicization of France”, and said of Muslim immigration:

Over the last twenty years, we have given in to a subterranean, dangerous, and uncontrolled infiltration, which not only resists adjusting to our laws and customs but which will, as the years pass, attempt to impose its own.^[34]

In May 2003 the Movement Against Racism and for Friendship between Peoples (MRAP) announced they would sue Bardot for the comments.^{[citation needed]} The "Ligue des droits de l'homme" (Human Rights League) announced they were considering similar legal proceedings.^[33]

In the book, she also made comparisons of her close gay friends to today's homosexuals, who "jiggle their bottoms, put their little fingers in the air and with their little castrato voices moan about what those ghastly heteros put them through" and that some contemporary homosexuals behave like "fairground freaks".^[35] In her own defence, Bardot wrote in a letter to a French gay magazine: "Apart from my husband—who maybe will cross over one day as well—I am entirely surrounded by homos. For years, they have been my support, my friends, my adopted children, my confidants."^[36] Bardot's book was also against miscegenation; made attacks on modern art, which Bardot equated with "shit"; drew similarities between French politicians and weather vanes; and compared her own beliefs with previous generations who had "given their lives to push out invaders".^[37]

On 10 June 2004, Bardot was again convicted by a French court for "inciting racial hatred" and fined €5,000, the fourth such conviction and fine from a French court.^[38] Bardot denied the racial hatred charge and apologized in court, saying: "I never knowingly wanted to hurt anybody. It is not in my character."^[39]

In 2008, Bardot was convicted of inciting racial/religious hatred in relation to a letter she wrote, a copy of which she sent to Nicolas Sarkozy when he was Interior Minister of France. The letter stated her objections to Muslims in France ritually slaughtering sheep by slitting their throats without anesthetizing them first but also said, in reference to Muslims, that she was "fed up with being under the thumb of this population which is destroying us, destroying our country and imposing its habits". The trial^[40] concluded on 3 June 2008, with a conviction and fine of €15,000, the largest of her fines to date. The prosecutor stated that she was tired of charging Bardot with offences related to racial hatred.^[6]

During the 2008 United States presidential election, she branded the Republican Party vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin as "stupid" and a "disgrace to women". She criticized the former governor of Alaska for her stance on global warming and gun control. She was also offended by Palin's support for Arctic oil exploration and for her lack of consideration in protecting polar bears.^[41]

On 13 August 2010, Bardot lashed out at director Kyle Newman regarding his plans to make a biographical film on her life. Her response was, "Wait until I'm dead before you make a movie about my life!". Bardot warned Newman that if the project progresses "sparks will fly".^[42]

Influence[link]

Statue of Brigitte Bardot in Buzios, Brazil

In fashion, the Bardot neckline (a wide open neck that exposes both shoulders) is named after her. Bardot popularized this style which is especially used for knitted sweaters or jumpers although it is also used for other tops and dresses.

Bardot is recognized for popularizing bikini swimwear in early films such as Manina (Woman without a Veil, 1952), in her appearances at Cannes and in many photo shoots.

Bardot also brought into fashion the choucroute ("Sauerkraut") hairstyle (a sort of beehive hair style) and gingham clothes after wearing a checkered pink dress, designed by Jacques Esterel, at her wedding to Charrier.^[43] She was the subject for an Andy Warhol painting.

In addition to popularizing the bikini swimming suit, Bardot has also been credited with popularizing the city of St. Tropez and the town of Armação dos Búzios in Brazil, which she visited in 1964 with her boyfriend at the time, Brazilian musician Bob Zagury.^[44] A statue by Christina Motta^[45] honours Brigitte Bardot in Armação dos Búzios.

Bardot was idolized by young John Lennon and Paul McCartney.^[46][47] They made plans to shoot a film featuring The Beatles and Bardot, similar to A Hard Day's Night, but the plans were never fulfilled.^[12] Lennon's first wife Cynthia Powell lightened her hair color to more closely resemble Bardot, while George Harrison made comparisons between Bardot and his first wife Pattie Boyd, as Cynthia wrote later in A Twist of Lennon. Lennon and Bardot met in person once, in 1968 at the Mayfair Hotel, introduced by Beatles press agent Derek Taylor; a nervous Lennon took LSD before arriving, and neither star impressed the other. (Lennon recalled in a memoir, "I was on acid, and she was on her way out.")^[48] According to the liner notes of his first (self-titled) album, musician Bob Dylan dedicated the first song he ever wrote to Bardot. He also mentioned her by name in "I Shall Be Free", which appeared on his second album, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan.

She dabbled in pop music and played the role of a glamour model. In 1965, she appeared as herself in the Hollywood production Dear Brigitte (1965) starring James Stewart, one of the few American films in which she appeared. She refused to travel to Hollywood to film her scene, requiring the needed cast and crew members to travel to film in Paris.^{[citation needed]}