Rich Johnston beat me to it recently, it would seem, but this is too good a tidbit not to mention again here: on French alternative comics demigod Lewis Trondheim’s Things To Do list, a quite interesting book is announced. It’s called “L’Association“, and it promises to be the history of that comics cooperative that literally shook the French comics scene.
It’s one of the most interesting stories of recent comics history, in my opinion: a bunch of young cartoonist who, frustrated and disgruntled by the French industry’s publishing practices, decide to start their own publishing house, after the old revolutionary adagio, Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité. After a while some of them manage to gain quite a mainstream type of fame (more particularly Lewis Tronheim himself and David B., whose L’Ascension du Haut Mal was lauded by even the most conservative of papers), which in turn tore deep into the fabric of the group. Many of the original founders left, and found new homes with the more traditional publishers.
Trondheim’s book will be a collaboration with some of those Association founding fathers, such as David B., Patrice Killoffer and Stanislas, and will also feature contributions by Joann Sfar, Anne Baraou, and Jean-Yves Duhoo (and doubtlessly more to follow). As yet it’s not sure whether Jean-Christophe Menu and Mattt Konture, who still keep the Association banner waving, will contribute as well.
The book is scheduled for January of 2011 (rather neatly in time for that year’s Angoulême festival), and will be published by Delcourt in their Shampooing collection , which is essentially Trondheim publishing the books he likes (and what a collection it is !)
As they say in French, A Suivre…
September 7th, 2010 at 6:07 am
Unfortunately, the situation is not as idyllic as described here. Basically, there was a divide among the founders of L’Association around 2005, regarding the direction to take for the structure. From what I’ve heard and read, some bad blood existed too, especially between Menu and Trondheim, the former resenting the latter for publishing too much at larger publishers, and not paying back the structure which had revealed him. Also, Menu wanted to get back to the more radical roots of the initiative, while Trondheim (and David B.) didn’t agree with this stance. This led to a few notable exits from l’Association, with Trondheim, B. and Sfar leaving for greener pastures.
Fast-forward to 2010: Menu is now more or less alone at the wheel of L’Association, and celebrates the twentieth anniversary of its founding with an exhibition and a book, XX/MMX. Trondheim, on his side, had decided to do a “counter-anniversary”, and the book you mention is the result of his project to tell the story of *his* Association, on the grounds that the current structure bearing the name has nothing to do with L’Association as he sees it.
As a result, I’m not sure the book will be a neutral retelling of the history of L’Association, as you seem to indicate. And I’m pretty sure that Menu won’t contribute.
September 8th, 2010 at 4:56 pm
Thanks, Xavier, for making this clear. I didn’t think it was “idyllic” either, but I didn’t really grasp the fundamentalities of the rift, it would seem. Also, I hadn’t made the connection with the XX/MXX project – again, thanks.