The Forbidden Planet International Blog Log

I attended the comics festival of Angoulême a couple of times in the past, and even though the event generally has a fairly international feel to it, it’s always been a predominantly French affair, albeit with a good contingent of guests from other lands. With the presidency of Art Spiegelman however, it would seem that Anglophones have really discovered the festival in overwhelming numbers. In the Rue Herge as well as in the different tents English seems to have become the second language of choice.

Similarly, a lot of British and American authors were present  in several booths, as French publishers strongly continue their catching up by adding all and any modern classics to their catalogues. Even Scottish artist and now Australian resident Eddie Campbell came halfway across the world to sign the French translation of his Alec collection, which is on the official selection for the best album award.

(editing RAW)

The main reason to call this the English edition of the Festival, however, are the exhibitions that President Spiegelman created for the CBDI and for the Museum. In the first, he created a very extensive, detailed and complete overview of his own work. From his very early self-published comics to the underground magazines he edited in San Francisco in the early 70s to Raw, Maus and later his work for the New Yorker. Even the Garbage Pail Kids were present in their full glory, sharing wall space with original art, vintage artifacts and prints and an immense amount of sketche and preparatory work.

(above: snap of Spiegelman’s first fanzine at the exhibition, below: The Loonies, very early work from Spiegelman)

Especially the presentation of Maus, which had a whole room dedicated to it, gave a good idea of the impressively maniacal amount of preparation and sketching Spiegelman undertakes before he ends up with his seemingly simple pages. Maus was presented in its entirety, in the form of a gigantic frieze of live sized reproductions of the pages of both books. Every other page was accompanied by preliminary tryouts, sketches, unfinished dialogue or reference material. Much of what was on display is also present in the book MetaMaus, but it still is quite different when you see it in reality.

(above: creating the cover artwork for the brilliant MetaMaus. below: pages from Maus)

In the Museum Spiegelman took on the permanent collection and added his personal touch, focusing on the authors and creators that influenced him, or which he greatly admires. As a result of this the lion’s share of the museum was dedicated to American authors, with original art by anybody from Outcault or MacManus, Milt Gross and Rube Goldberg to Chester Gould and Jack Kirby, Bill Griffith and Patrick McDonnell.

A whole row of display cases was reserved for alternative, underground and current cartooning, by Wally Wood and Bill Elder, Harvey Kurtzman and Rick Griffin, Spain and R Crumb. Many of the pieces were especially for this exhibition lent by collector extraordinaire Glen Bray, and almost all of them were accompanied by very insightful commentary by Spiegelman himself.

A separate room told the story of Raw Magazine and featured original art by Ben Katchor, Charles Burns, RK Sikoryak and many others, along with ephemera like an sketch by Jacques Tardi and a very sweet letter by Burns offering his work for consideration by the magazine.

(the great Jacques Tardi sketches for Spiegelman)

Without a doubt, this was the best show by a President that I have seen thus far in Angoulême. Spiegelman’s successor has a far from easy job waiting for him