The discussion on French nigh-mainstream comics continues! (scroll to the bottom for full linkage). Alex Holden, who chimed in earlier, returns with more comments:
Hi Again Matthias-
I have still been thinking about this discussion a bit.
I can’t agree with your statements that Blutch (in particular) is not interested in exploration, since he has been pretty restless in the way he’s been drawing comics the last 10 years. Since Peplum and Mitchum, I guess after Vitesse Moderne (a pretty book, but not a great read to prove your point…), he seemed to drift away from the brushy “ink orgy” style he had become influential for. C’était Le Bonheur is 95% super thin pen lines and the new Petit Christian stories in “Ferraille Illustré” have capitalized on what I have always thought he should do: comics in the style of his dédicaces (pen, brush and ink, but with a colored pencil for more depth).
Since then, La Volupté has taken this idea even further by eliminating the ink completely and moving completely to charcoal and pencils. I guess these are all still visual components, and could be described as surface elements, but I just don’t think that is the case. I don’t think the mysterious fogginess of the art in La Volupté would work for Le Petit Christian and the thin art of C’était Le Bonheur would fail to produce enough mystery or darkness for La Volupté.
Just read Joe Sacco’s “Down! Up!” from the latest Harper’s. A new strip from Sacco is a relatively rare thing, and 16 new pages is certainly a welcome event, especially when they’re this good. Reporting from Iraq, Sacco has sat in on a couple of American officers training a group of Iraqis to be soldiers in the country’s new army. You know, the ones that are getting killed faster than pretty much everyone else there.
Jeg har før reklameret for Bennis website – www.benniboedker – her i Bunkeren, men nu har han lagt en række af sine artikler om børnelitteratur og tegneserier op i PDF. Blandt artiklerne om tegneserier, skrevet til Information, finder man hans kritik af en række af de nye tegneserier, Rackham har slået på tromme for de seneste år – Det store onde, By af Glas, Persepolis, osv., og sågar hans anmeldelse af vor egen BLÆK. Klik ind og check det ud, Benni er stadig en af de bedste tegneserieskribenter i Danmark.
Whoa, I just discovered some more pictures taken at this year’s Angoulême festival that I’d forgotten all about. Amongst them are pictures of such luminaries as Alison Bechdel, Thierry Cappezzone, Sergio Toppi and Dan Zettwoch – check ’em out in our Angoulême album.
Back in Cambridge after a pleasant stay in Boston that even left time for a (very) brief trip to New York. Though family business and socializing was the main objective and thus had first priority, I did manage to eat some culture. What follows are some random musings on holiday reading, viewing and consumption.
The discussion of French comics continues here at the Metabunker! Xavier Guilbert, who previously took issue with my rather polemical essay, is back with more comments, and he brought a link to an interesting discussion of the argument with him. This has prompted me to write what I guess is almost a new version of my essay. Here’s Xavier’s email:
Hello Matthias,
Here I am back with yet another reaction to your comments. I must say that the French-language forums (especially here) have been a little puzzled by your comment, not really understanding what really was your gripe with the authors you mention, in general, and your definition of “serious” versus “trifles” in particular.
A-film har i længere tid antydet, at man har planer om at filmatisere Claus Deleurans mesterværk, Rejsen til Saturn, men nu er det officielt: Det Danske Filminstitut har bevilget 5,8 mio. kr. i støtte til en computeranimeret spillefilm. Filmen skal instrueres af Craig Frank, Thorbjørn Christoffersen og Kresten V. Andersen.
A-film har angiveligt fået Casper Christensen, Frank Hvam og Iben Hjejle til at lægge stemmer til løjerne. Allerede nu spår Metabunkeren, at filmen bliver omtrent ligeså vellykket som en hvilken som helst Alan Moore-filmatisering (uden sammenligning, i øvrigt …).
:
Se filmens hjemmeside (filmen kommer snart!).
By no means breaking news, but still a curious and interesting cartoon-related Danish incident: A few weeks ago, Director General of DR (Denmark’s Radio, the state-sponsored public service radio and TV network), Kenneth Plummer, was offended by a cartoon by Roald Als, published in the daily newspaper Politiken. The cartoon depicts Plummer as a lazy watchdog in chains. The sign on his doghouse reads ‘The Dog Bites – not’, and indicates that Plummer is hired to obey the Danish Liberal-conservative Government (but doing a bad job of it). Next to him, with the whip, is the Minister of Culture Brian Mikkelsen, while Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen, dressed in a caveman outfit (as always in Als’ cartoons), says: “He’s a lousy watchdog! A pinko lackey just passed him!” (this refers to the government’s long-held perception of DR as a left-leaning organization).
Plummer felt so offended by this that he emailed Politiken‘s editor-in-chief, Tøger Seidenfaden, to complain about it, asking the latter to instruct the cartoonist to refrain from depicting Plummer that way again. Daily tabloid Ekstra Bladet (same publisher as Politiken) got hold of the email and now claims that Kenneth Plummer feels offended by the depiction of him in chains because his family apparently descends from slaves (Plummer refuses to explain this aspect to Ekstra Bladet‘s reporter, but says his children are having a hard time because of the cartoon)
If you’re in Paris, tomorrow’s the opening of my buddy, sculptor Paul Toupet’s latest gallery show at Galerie l’Art de rien in the 18th arr. He is exhibiting with painter Axel Kriloff. Go check it out: the opening is from 6-10 PM and the show runs till May 6. On April 20, there’s a special event, “Lapins en folie” going down there between 8 and midnight. Here are the flyers: Toupet, Kriloff. More info at the gallery’s website and at Paul’s site & Kriloff’s site.