The week in review Whew! What a week. It seems the great things that have been brewing in Danish comics for the last few years are finally starting to make waves, what with a year of excellent and innovative homegrown comics, the resurrected Ping Awards, plans proceeding for an official educational track for comics makers…
This year, Danish comics culture is seeing the revival of the Ping Awards, an industry award last given back in the Nineties. Once a hall of fame prize, it is now awards cartoonists in five categories in the manner of the Angoulême Fauves. This year focuses on comics published in 2011, and five Danish comics…
The Ping Awards gala last night? A success, no doubt about it. Sold out, full house, crowded and fun! The young event team had pulled out all the stops and were almost entirely stress-free. Things just worked. Anyway, this was a major event in the small subculture that Danish comics, and one we hope will…
Tonight is the night of the grand PING gala at Lille Vega in Copenhagen. The resurrected Danish comics award will be handed out in six categories for the first time! Who rocked the comics internet in Denmark? Who arrived on the scene with the biggest bang? Who spoke most convincingly to the youth? What’s going…
Gitte Broeng and Mikkel Damsbo at the Charlottenborg Spring Show opening. Their comic “Relocating Mother” shines next to a full-size plush shark. Bringing comics to the mount. Read “Relocating Mother” in KOLOR KLIMAX. Available now.
Today the Nordic anthology KOLOR KLIMAX, published by Fantagraphics Books, ships from Diamond and thus becomes available in the US direct market. Chock full of the best and brightest in Nordic comics, one of the comics hotspots of the world right now. Look for it in your nearest comics store or wait for its bookstore…
På torsdag åbner Charlottenborgs forårsudstilling, i år med 70 kunstnere fra hele verden, deriblandt danske Gitte Broeng og Mikkel Damsbo, der udstiller originalsiderne til “Relocating Mother,” deres bidrag til den store nordiske antologi KOLOR KLIMAX, redigeret af undertegnede. King ind forbi til ferniseringen og hils på kl. 19-22!
The week in review Running late as usual, it’s a new week, but what? This weekend the great Leonardo show at the National Gallery in London closed and I regret not having had time to post something more detailed than my Weekendavisen review from back in November while it was still open, but that’s how…
I spent last weekend at Angoulême and as usual I covered the festival for The Comics Journal. Here are my post for Friday and Saturday, dealing with the two astonishing shows (co-)curated by festival president Art Spiegelman, and here are my thoughts on the festival as a whole. I travelled to Angoulême with representatives of…
Leonardo had only recently arrived in Milan when in 1483 he was given the opportunity to realize in a painting the thoughts he had been formulating privately about art and life. The resultant picture was a watershed in his career, and in Western art. The commission was for an altarpiece depicting ‘Our Lady with her…
Over at The Comics Journal my review of Fantagraphics inaugural volume of their edition of the complete Carl Barks Disney comics is now online. What do you think about the choices made for this edition?
We’re getting to that time of year when us Northern European comics fans head south to sample the first taste of spring in comics at the Angoulême festival. As in previous years, I will be covering the event for The Comics Journal, so peep their site for updates come Thursday and through the weekend. I’ve…
This year’s Angoulême festival was a solid if somewhat unremarkable one, plagued more than usual by the cultural myopia that has always characterized it to an extent. Its organizers described it as a success, but below the surface, it turns out, lurk conflicts of financing and responsibility.
It has just been announced that Art Spiegelman is the recipient of this year’s Grand Prix at the Festival Internationale de la Bande Dessinée in Angoulême. Selected by the festival’s academy, which is composed of former recipients, he joins Will Eisner and R. Crumb as the third American (and fifth non-francophone) to be bestowed this,…
As usual Saturday brought the crowds to Angoulême. It is difficult to get around, but it brings to the festival a heady atmosphere of art and commerce. Even the Association staff decided today partly to suspend their ongoing strike in order to support their artists who had turned up to sign their books. Killoffer, Gerner,…