(A quick note in advance : if you’re not familiar with Belgium’s constitutional setup, read up here – and don’t laugh, this is serious) It seemed like quite a good idea : let’s put up an exhibition in the Flemish Parliament buildings celebrating that artform that our country is rightly famous for: comics. And so [...]
Continue reading...Friday, May 17, 2013
Seminal BD magazine Spirou is celebrating its 75th anniversary this year, and, as we have already remarked on here before, that event will not pass unnoticed. There are special books, exhibitions, special editions of the magazine itself; there’s even talk of bringing back the Dutch language edition that sadly saw its demise some six years [...]
Continue reading...Wednesday, May 8, 2013
When he died in 1983, Tintin creator Hergé was laid to rest in the Dieweg cemetery in Uccle, which is a suburb of Brussels. As the cemetery had already been declared a national heritage in 1958, an exception had to be made for this to be arranged: normally only people with family tombs received permission [...]
Continue reading...Thursday, May 2, 2013
Let’s face it, most of us can’t draw a straight line, let alone make a comic of our own. Then how do we immortalise ourself in our favourite medium? Don’t despair, friends, there is a solution. French (very) alternative comics publisher Les Requins Marteaux just launched a campaign to fund the publication of Olivier Texier’s [...]
Continue reading...Thursday, April 25, 2013
As it is their custom, our friends at BoDoï visited the French comics festival Rencontres de la BD in Aix-en-Provence, and they came back with loads of pictures of the various exhibitions and shows, featuring work by Herr Seele, BlexBolex, Zeina Abirached and many more, so those of us who couldn’t make it can still [...]
Continue reading...Friday, April 19, 2013
In a quite unique and unprecedented move, that created quite a stir in the Franco-Belgian comics community, cartoonist François Schuiten (Les Cités Obscures and many more comics works – not to mention other artistic projects) recently donated some eighty percent of his original comics pages to a series of cultural institutions around Belgium and France. [...]
Continue reading...Monday, April 15, 2013
In a surprise move, Apple has forced French digital comics distributor Izneo to remove 1500 titles from its catalogue of 4000. These titles are supposed to be not in compliance with Apple’s content rules and regulations. Izneo specialises in the digital redistribution of existing comics from renowned publishers such as Gallimard, Dupuis, Futuropolis or Dargaud, [...]
Continue reading...Monday, April 8, 2013
Even though it can boast a very lively comics scene, with quite a few productive authors and a rather impressive publication schedule, Spain is not a country that springs to mind when talking about new and contemporary comics. The new anthology, Panorama (published by comics publisher Astiberri, announced for the end of May), wants to [...]
Continue reading...Friday, March 29, 2013
I recently received a strange email from a chap who called himself Doktor Nekrophilius Brillenschnitzel (I hope that’s a pseudonym), asking if I cared to have a look at the art on his blog. I did and I was amazed. Brillenschnitzel is a German who creates artwork that hovers happily along the borders of the surreal [...]
Continue reading...Wednesday, March 13, 2013
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I like experimental and abstract comics and often find myself in awe of cartoonists who are willing to go beyond the obvious and try to think through an idea to its extremes, until there is nothing left but the pure narration, the pure visual effect or, why the hell not, the pure absurdist joke. A [...]
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Tuesday, May 21, 2013
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