Arrived in Angoulême fairly late the afternoon yesterday, so last night was spent mostly catching up. As mentioned in several places already, the big story here is the ongoing strike at L’Association (I’ve been writing about it here and here). Their booth, which is placed at the head of the big so-called Noveau monde tent…
In collaboration with the Danish Comics Council the festival Komiks.dk and the Storm P. Museum, the Danish comics site Nummer9 is now resurrecting the Danish comics award, The Ping, named after the great cartoonist Storm P.’s famous sidekick character. The Ping in its original iteration was awarded between 1986 and 1996 and was given to…
I used to write a regular column at Hooded Utilitarian called DWYCK. Then stuff happened. And the column didn’t happen, for way too long. But now I’m back! Er, at least for the moment. No, I’ll really make an effort! Anyway, the essay I have up now is on Craig Thompson’s remarkable new comic Habibi…
Kom til signering af den nye store nordiske tegneserieantologi KOLOR KLIMAX — Nordic Comics Now på fredag d. 25 november i tegneseriebutikken Fantask, Skt. Pedersstræde 18, København, kl. 16-19. Mød tegnerne Peter Kielland, Johan F. Krarup, Mårdøn Smet og Thomas Thorhauge, der alle har bidraget til bogen, samt undertegnede, der har redigeret den. Læs mere…
As mentioned here previously, last Thursday saw the Danish sneak release of the Nordic comics anthology KOLOR KLIMAX (to be released in the US and internationally by Fantagraphics Books in March). It was a fine evening; lots of Copenhagen comics folk turned out. Here are some photos hastily snapped at idle moments. Enjoy! Same day…
Join us this Thursday, 17 November from 5pm, at Din Nye Ven, Skt. Pedersstræde 34, Copenhagen, for the sneak release of KOLOR KLIMAX, the new Nordic comics anthology helmed by the Finnish Comics Society, edited by yours truly and set for American release in March from Fantagraphics Books. The release will see the participation of…
The week in review. Another fine week. Spent a few days in London for work and had the chance to see a number of the exhibitions on display there. I will return to the landmark Leonardo show at the National Gallery presently and hopefully also to the eye-opening Degas show at the Royal Academy, and…
I’ve spent some of the summer interviewing a number of the central figures in and around seminal French comics publisher L’Association (publishers of Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis and many other quality books) about the crisis they’ve been through over the last year or so. An interpersonal crisis that eventually led to a strike amongst the employees…
The Tintin movie makes good on the promise of not disgracing its august comics source. Spielberg is a pro and he delivers what he does best — a sense of adventure and possibility and a sufficiently sensitive approach to his film technology that his characters come alive despite the mo-cap plastic feel. The rewrite of…
The Week in Review What a week. Starting with Fantask’s fortieth anniversary celebration last weekend and ending with my participation at NNCORE’s foundational meeting with a short Berlin jaunt to see the astonishing Renaissance portraits and Hokusai shows there. I hope to return a bit to the portraits (though I can’t promise anything), but just…
These last three days saw the foundational meeting of the Nordic Comics Research Network (NNCORE) at the University of Southern Denmark in Odense. Initiated by lecturer at the Department of History, Culture and Society Anne Magnussen, and funded by a grant from the Danish Research Council, the network seeks to develop relations between comics scholars…
In 1984, when she was 17, Ulli Schneider went to Italy on a lark. She returned to Austria two months later, a changed woman. The following year she had a child and went on with life. She attended art school in Vienna, became an illustrator and produced several children’s books, eventually assuming her mother’s maiden…
That’s my man Lars in 1991 and this past Saturday, respectively. The fortieth anniversary of Fantask was a trip down memory lane for us kids, plus a milestone in Danish comics-, SF-, and gaming culture. Frederik Høyer-Christensen documented some of the day and you can see the results in his flickr stream (including a tour…
Today the Copenhagen comics-, SF- and games store Fantask celebrates its fortieth anniversary. It is the oldest continually existing store of its kind in the world and an institution in Danish Danish comics, SF, and geek culture. An operation built from the ground up by its founders Søren Pedersen and Rolf Bülow (pictured) as well…
Autobiography has been such a defining direction in comics’ new wave of the last 20 years, its innovation so consistent, that it is mystifying still to hear repeated the cliché that most of these new ‘indy’ comics proffer little more than solipsistic tales of melancholy and masturbation. If one considers the work, it is hard…