From Our Continental Correspondent – Blexbolex named “most beautiful book of 2008″

Mon, Feb 23, 2009

Awards, Books, From our Continental Correspondent

At the Leipziger Buchmesse (12th to 15th March) the award for the most beautiful book of the year will be given to L’imagier des gens by French cartoonist BlexBolex (published by Albin Michel Jeunesse).  Every year the Buchmesse selects the world’s best book design, and this year BlexBolex’s book was chosen from 704 titles from 36 countries.  The award, the so-called Goldene Letter, will be handed to BlexBolex on March 13th (from the official site it also appears there is a distinct comics and manga programme at Leipzig).

Limagier des gens blexbolex Albin Michel Jeunesse.jpg

(cover to L’imagier des gens by Blexbolex, published by Albin Michel Jeunesse)

The book, L’imagier des gens, consists of a number of portraits of people according to their occupation or job.  BlexBolex strongly refers to graphical design practices from the fifties and sixties, and uses a strongly associative way of working.  Last year, it already made it to the list of 25 plus beaux livres in France, together with the beautiful L’ABC 3D by Marion Bataille.

Limagier des gens Blexbolex un hypnotiseur un genie.jpg

(two examples from L’imagier des gens by and (c) Blexbolex)

(with thanks to my mom and to Belgian supreme literary blogger Dirk Leyman – if you read Dutch, you need to read this blog)

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This post was written by:

Wim - who has written 342 posts on The Forbidden Planet International Blog Log.


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2 Comments For This Post

  1. Kenny Says:
    February 23rd, 2009 at 12:39 pm

    I bet this is great – I thought the 3 pager in Kramer’s 7 was about the best thing in there.

  2. Ane Says:
    February 3rd, 2010 at 10:57 am

    I’m a student of semiotics, visual culture and literature, and I’m considering to write a small thesis about this book. Could anyone help me find more complete information on the prize this book has won, the statement of the jury, the other nominated books?

    At the moment I’m just googeling around, but I can’t find any good information about this. When I have looked properly at the material I could contact the publishers about this. At the moment I am not sure if I am going to write about it or not.

    I can read english, spanish, any scandinavian language. My german and french are so-so, and I assume the pages will be in these languages. Please put a link here anyway if you know where I can read more about this.

    Thankyou!

1 Trackbacks For This Post

  1. From our continental correspondent – Blexbolex for Bastia | The Forbidden Planet International Blog Log Says:
    January 7th, 2010 at 12:10 am

    [...] since his Abécédaria was chosen as the most beautiful book at the 2008 Leipzig Book Fair (see here), it would seem that the world has (finally) discovered French cartoonist and illustrator [...]