Right, back from Denmark and Odense, where I participated in the opening of the exhibition on comics and contemporary art at Brandts klædefabrik, Comix. It was a good time. A nice show and plenty of nice people, some familiar others not. The Bunker will hopefully be running a review as well as a photo reportage…
This is the last installment of our interview with cartoonist Anders Nilsen; 1, 2, 3. Moving on to the much more traditionally narrative Big Questions. It’s evident that you had been leading up to Algernon’s descent into Hades for a while before it became obvious that that’s what you were doing. What made you decide…
Mig bekendt var Jakob Martin Strid den første tegneserietegner, der sidste år kunne modtage Statens Kunstfonds eftertragtede 3-årige arbejdslegat. Ganske vist lagde Kunstfondets litteraturudvalg i sin motivation mest vægt på Strids børnebøger, og vist var legatets første afkast til offentligheden da også færdiggørelsen af sidste års hit-børnebog Min mormors gebis. Men forleden dumpede så et…
Continuing our interview with cartoonist Anders Nilsen; 1, 2, 4. CAMBRIDGE-CHICAGO 2007 A lot has happened since we last spoke : back in the Fall of 2004, I believe it was : but I think I would like to pick up more or less where we left off, which will also maintain the chronology somewhat.…
Predictably, the Swedish cartoon affair incited by Lars Vilks’ drawings of the Prophet Muhammed as a ’roundabout dog’ and other things, has gotten to the ridiculous point where a bounty has been placed on his and his editor’s heads by purported Al-Qaeda affiliates, he has received numerous death threats and others warnings (most of them…
Continuing our interview with cartoonist Anders Nilsen; 1, 3, 4. Another reason I asked is that I just read your new book [Dogs and Water], which seemed a little bit more constructed than your previous work. I mean, it doesn’t come off as tightly constructed or anything, but there seems to have been some guiding…
In the wake of Jonathan Ross’ documentary on Steve Ditko, which aired on BBC 4 last night and again today (no, I didn’t see it. A valiant effort at finding a set that provided access availed me nought, alas), a good deal of Ditko-related material has surfaced on the web. Go to the site and…
Anders Nilsen (b. 1973) is coming into his own as one of his generation’s simultaneously most intellectually inquisitive and intuitively astute comics artists. Since the debut of his ongoing, “core” series Big Questions (9 issues published so far, 1999-2007), he has been unswerving in his exploration of, well, some of the big questions of life,…
Noah Berlatsky has ignited an interesting discussion on the state of contemporary ‘alternative’ American comics with a typically harsh blanket assessment of the state of the art form in America. Tim Hodler responds, Berlatsky answers and clarifies, while Eric Reynolds and others make interesting points in his comments section. Oh, and Hodler re-responds. I don’t…
Coming up at Brandts Klædefabrik in Odense, Denmark, is ‘Comix,’ an exhibition dealing with the intersection of comics and fine arts that is increasingly rewriting the rules for the former and stimulating the latter these years. The exhibition incorporates works by fine artists working with comics and cartoon vocabularies or deriving inspiration from the ethos…
There’s a new online resource for comics fans – www.comic-feed.net, an aggregator assembling select, quality-controlled blogs for your one-click reading pleasure. Go check it out, and keep an eye on it.
Taking his cue from the recent postings on Douglas Wolk’s fine chapters, from his new book Reading Comics, on Grant Morrison (parts I, II, III, IV) Noah Berlatsky comments on what he sees as Morrison’s ‘signature weakness’, namely his failure to think visually and to truly collaborate with the artists he works with. While I…
Danish cartoonist Allan Haverholm, who last year released his grand graphic novel Sortmund (“Blackmouth”) – Richard Dawkins meets Hellboy! – has just refurbished his internet presence at www.haverholm.com, and is now blogging. Check in with him for his interesting and often contentious thoughts on comics.
As a special treat here in the Bunker, we present Danish cartoonist Christian Skovgaard’s latest comic, “Owl,” for your reading/ogling pleasure! Christian Skovgaard Petersen is one of the Danish scene’s most promising graphic talents, with a sly sense of the weird in the world. He was in BLÆK, he published the strip “Hotellto,” amongst other…
In what is a rather depressing turn of events, news came earlier today that cartoonist Guillermo Torres and writer Manuel Fontdevila have been fined €2.500 each for their cartoon, on the cover of satirical weekly El Jueves, back in July, of the Spanish Crown Prince and his wife in doggy-style position. “Insulting the Crown” is…