Via Neorama (thanks, Marko!) comes a link to a free PDF version of Yeni Akrep, which presents a collection of cartoons and articles on and by a variety of creators from different countries. It is actually in several languages and although only a part of it is in English I’d still highly recommend downloading it for a look as there is some very interesting material in there, including a section which compares political cartoons from several nations for their similarities, although rather nicely it stresses this is in the nature of comparing similarities artists have used for stories, not to accuse anyone of plagiarism: “The cartoons we are going to publish in this page are those examples from the World Cartoon Art which are similar to each other… By doing this, we do not have any aim of creating an atmosphere of discussion or accusing anyone… We aim only and only at showing the similarities in the World Cartoon Art and preventing their repeat...”
(clockwise from the top left: Oðuz Gürel from Turkey, Yeni Akrep International Digital Cartoon and Humor Magazine, No: 26 , 2004; the Ukranian’s Marina Turovskaya, 12.08.2007, Cartoonists Rights Web Page; Pakistan’s Kurd Mohammad Kamýl, from the International “Simavi” Cartoon Competition Albume, 1989, Turkey and finally the black and white on the bottom left is from Ercan Akyol of Turkey, from the International “Knokke-Heist” Cartoon Festival Albume, 1987, Belgium)
Elsewhere there are updates on a large number of international comics and cartooning competitions and events from round the world, many of which I’m sad to say I’ve never come across before, which is another good reason for having a read – that wide world of comic art we keep talking about is even wider than we think! And for those of you who actually are cartoonist there are links, contacts and deadline dates (as well as prize information) for many international cartooning competitions which are still accepting submissions, a very handy resource all wrapped up and presented in a colourful package.
There’s a memorial article to Argentinian artist Roberto Fontanarrosa who died in July of this year, the article very sweetly dedicated to an artist who did that most wonderful of things, made people laugh: “His major credit was to create the comic strip done with delirious humor and a touch of poetry and domestic philosophy, all full of hilarious phrases and crazy comparisons. An admirer of Woody Allen, he used parody as his main style, copying in a very funny ways the stories of superheroes, courageous gauchos (Argentinean cowboys) and heartless mafia men, as his famous character “Oily Boogie” parodying the “Dirty Harry” played by Clint Eastwood, and turning all of it to the absolute humour, up to a point where you guessed he had a lot of fun doing it.” What a lovely way to be remembered. Fontanarrosa created some 33 humour books, not counting other work he provided illustrations for and yet I suspect many outside South America may never have come across him. Another good reason to be reading this – yes, a lot of it is in different languages, not just English, but most of it in the international language of comics and cartoons, and we know that goes across all sorts of geographical, political and cultural borders in a way few other things can.
(Cover to the latest Yeni Akrep, cartoon art by Maria Colino of Spain; a horse with a toilet bowl for a saddle, I simply couldn’t resist posting it here! Somehow I can imagine the ghost of Marcel Duchamp looking at this and laughing)
Fri, Sep 14, 2007
Comics and cartoons