Laughter in the Courts of Law: On Riss’s Graphic Report on the Papon Trial

Abstract

This essay studies a minor genre often overlooked in the literature addressed to how historical trials are represented, discussed and remediated by cultural texts (such as films, novels, theatrical plays): graphic trial reports, representations of historical trials in the form of comics. Its focus is on the graphic trial reports published in the French magazine Charlie Hebdo in the 1990s, more specifically on the dispatches published in weekly instalments in 1997 and 1998 from the trial of former Vichy functionary Maurice Papon (1910–2007), drawn and written by Riss (Laurent Sourisseau), and later published as Le Procès Papon (2017). By analysing this book’s peculiar sense of humour, the essay proposes to reflect on the following questions: What does it mean to regard criminal proceedings as a comedy? Can laughter constitute a serious response to a trial, one that exposes the larger issues a trial broaches? What is the role of humour in the ‘affective life of law’, the capacity of trials to touch, move and affect the audiences that follow the proceedings in and outside the courtroom?