This year was no exception, and the quality of the selection was amazingly high, as was the variety in drawing style, subject matter and narration.  One constant though: all entries showed a remarkable level of self-confidence and grip on the medium the artists had chosen.

As of this year, you too can discover the richness of comics to come by heading over to the EspritBD website.  This service, developed with generous financial aid of the French Caisse d’Epargne bank, allows young artists to showcase their works.  It offers a full-fledged authoring kit you can use to turn your pages in a professional-looking e-book, and for each author has his own profile page with links to Facebook, Twitter, a blog, etc.

For readers, EspritBD has a wide range of browsing facilities, from genres and subjects to a number of official selections, such as the Jeunes Talents (showcasing the entries to the Angoulême competition), the Révélation Blog (a selection of the best Webcomics, predominantly in French though) and BD Scolaire (which focuses on comics created by cartoonists in their teens).  You can also create your own bookshelf, or select a number of strips to read after one another in a playlist. And naturally, you can “like” and “share” what you read on your social medium of choice.

EspritBD also has a client for IOS devices, which even allowed us to scan the artwork at the exhibition, and browse the other works by the artist that created it.  It was pretty neat, and in my opinion a very valuable resource for all starting cartoonists.

You can read Wim’s previous posts from this year’s BD festival here, here and also his previews of the festival here, here and here.

There was a very good show in the Comics Museum, tracing the relation between painting and fine art on the one hand, and cartooning on the other. The curators had gathered quite a large number of paintings and other works of art by people who are otherwise known for their comics work. Ranging from Tintin creator Herge and all-round graphical genius Jije (Joseph Gillain) to Guy Peellaert and Baudoin, to experimentalists like Fremok’s Alex Barbier and people like Jochen Gerner and Denis Fremand.

(some of Jije’s work on show at Angoulême)

It was quite revealing, and in a sense quite sad, to see these celebrated classic cartoonists trying their hand at “high art” and failing miserably to reach beyond sheer epigonism. The constrast with the work of contemporary graphical artists, for whom comics are just another medium for expression, was remarkable.

(some of Peellaert’s work on show at Angou)

I was also very amused by the retrospective of French cartoonist Fred. Virtually unknown beyond the borders of his homeland, this writer and artist has been making magical comics in his series Philemon since the late sixties, playing around with all the rules of the medium and storytelling in general,

The result are hilarious romps that often break the fourth wall, tear down the frames and, why not the page itself, use all kinds of media (from cross stitch patterns over old newspaper illustrations to collages with photos of the artist himself) and never fail to be very, very funny, insightful and philosophical at the same time. A lavish multivolume ‘integrale’ of the series was recently published, and it may not be to late for an intelligent English publisher to get in on this after all.

(some of Sardon’s work on show at Angou)

The last exhibition I liked a lot, was a show about the custom made stamps that cartoonist Vincent Sardon uses to create inventive, sardonic and insightful works of art. Using formats and metaphors usually limited to an old-fashioned office environment, Sardon mocks artists who often end up doing the same thing over and over (his do-it-yourself Dubuffet kit was hilarious), or delivers commentary and criticism on any aspect of French life. I especially was moved by his building blocks sets, in which he creates cities or insects by reusing the same fragments over and over.

(Tintin and Snowy appear with Stalin, Marx and Lenin in this work by Sardon)

In my final piece (somewhere later this week), I’ll discuss some of the books I discovered during this festival. In the mean time, a tout a l’heure!

You can read Wim’s report on the impressive Spiegelman exhibition at Angoulême here on the blog

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

Last year Art Spiegelman won the City of Angoulême Grand Prix, and, as tradition dictates, this makes him the acting president of this year’s edition, and his work the subject of one of the major exhibitions.  The Spiegelman show will be divided into two parts.  The first will focus on Maus and how it came to be.  Not only will the show feature all the original pages that make up the entirity of Maus, it will also include no less than 700 drawings, sketches, reference photographs and other documents.  Spiegelman is well-known for how he catalogues and archives his past (just have a look at MetaMaus, one of the best books of last year), so this should be a treat.  Next to Maus the show will also tell the history of Raw magazine, with plenty of original art and artifacts.

In addition to this exhibition, Spiegelman took over the Cité Internationale (the Angoulême comics museum) and built his own Museum on the History and Accomplishments of Comics.  He’s bringing along original artwork by some of those who inspired him, such as Windsor McCay, George Herriman and Harvey Kurtzman, but also from his contemporary peers, such as Justin Green, Jacques Tardi, Chris Ware, and Lorenzo Mattotti (what a roll call of top comic talent).  The show promises to be no less than a personal tribute of a master to the medium that he has helped to make great.

Next to Spiegelman, the festival pays hommage to another great creator, who’s probably less well-known beyond France and the French-speaking countries.  With his series Philémon, Fred has created one of the true great philosophical comics, while never ceasing to experiment with narrative structure, page design and language.  The exhibition will feature original plates from books like Magic Palace Hôtel (1980), La Magique lanterne magique (1983), L’Histoire du corbac aux baskets (1993, which won the award for Best Album at the Angoulême Festival in 1994) or L’Histoire du conteur électrique (1995).

Charles Berbérian created the icon for the show L’Europe Se Dessine, in which fifty cartoonists and comic artists from all over Europe visualise what Europe stands for, its origins, strengths and future.  Contributors include Enki Bilal, Milo Manara, Ruben Pellejero, Joost Swarte, Ulli Lust, Anouk Ricard, Nix, Florence Cestac, Andi Watson, Miguelanxo Prado, Kati Kovacs, and others.

More focus on international comics in two more exhibitions, one on Spanish comics (with artwork by Prado, Guarnido, Max, Bernet and more) and one on comics from Sweden (featuring Anneli Furmark, Loka Kanarp, Joanna Hellgren (Frances, Éditions Cambourakis), Knut Larsson, and more.

And I haven’t started to mention all the smaller shows that seem to pop up all over town.  It’s going to be a very full festival, but we’re not complaining !

See Wim’s prevous post in his Countdown to – looking at the Selection – here.

The tradition dictates that whoever wins the Grand Prix at the Angoulème Comics Festival, is invited to curate the next edition of the Festival.  This means that he or she will probably get a major retrospective exhibition (which are always a treat in their own right), but also that the festival will focus on particular topics, genres, authors, etc.  This year, American cartoonist-par-excellence Art Spiegelman is the head honcho of the Festival, and in an interview at the official Press Conference presenting this year’s Festival, he explained what he is trying to do.   The interviewer is French journalist Jean-Luc Hees.

It’s dubbed in French, but with the appropriate mental prowess, you will be able to zone out the French voice, and focus on Art speaking.

The Dept of Epic Awesomeness

A Best Of The Year list for 2011 is not complete without Craig Thompson’s magnum opus Habibi (Pantheon/Faber & Faber).  Not because it’s such a hefty tome (it is), not even because it’s a gripping story (it is not), but predominantly because it’s one of those books that don’t leave you when you read them.  You find yourself coming back to it, thumbing through the pages of delightful art and rereading passages that did not make sense at first, but that are now full of hidden meaning.  This is, in all sense of the words, a major work.

Rarely have I seen the horrors and absurdity of war depicted in such a harsh and hard-hitting manner than in Onward Towards our Noble Deaths (Drawn & Quarterly) by manga god Shigeru Mizuki.  It’s a loosely autobiographical tale of Mizuki’s involvement in the battle on one of the tiny islands in the Pacific during World War II.  The baffling lack of realism on the part of the commanding officers, the sheer disdain by everybody for conscripts (who were “worth less than horse” and the senselessness of these lives lost for no reason at all – it leaves you breathless.  Literally (and I mean, literally)

Life’s a Bitch Dept.

Life With Mr Dangerous (Villard) confirmed my eerie suspicion : Paul Hornschemeier is just so much better than Chris Ware in depicting the drudge of daily life, the misgivings and self-doubt of your average 21th Century human, and the impossibility of real relationships, and doing so in a style that is at once daring and experimental, and more than pleasing to the eye.  It’s not as good as his masterpiece, The Three Paradoxes, but it’s dangerously close.

One of the very few pamphlets I bought this year (and yes, I know that contributes to the total annihilation of the industry), is Optic Nerve 12 by the very slow Adrian Tomine (Drawn & Quarterly).  Every time I think I’m over him, he brings up this kind of work that is simply amazing.  The book is only 42 pages, and largely consists of a really deterministic tale on how delusions of grandeur are bound to fail, and one about what happens is you happen to look exactly like a porn star.  Tomine storytelling at its best.

Read Up On Your References dept.

2011 was also the year that witnessed the publication of  the complete edition of Brian Walker’s The Comics (Abrams) at the incredibly affordable price of $ 24.99.  This book gives an overview of the history and evolution of American newspaper comics from the Yellow Kid all the way to the Boondocks.  It’s littered with concise but comprehensive profiles of all the great creators, but the best part is the artwork, which is abundantly present and lavisly reproduced.  No library should go without it !

Another great book “about comics” is Art Spiegelman’s MetaMaus (Pantheon/Penguin), the extensive companion volume to his graphic novel, Maus.  In this book, Spiegelman presents the back story of the comic, how it came to be, what the hurdles were, the influences of the people around him, etc.  The real gem of this edition, however, is the bonus DVD containing the complete Maus, along with audio commentary, linked reference texts and preliminary versions of nearly every page.  A real gem.

Dept. of music to my ears

I wrote earlier about La Maison de Pain d’Epice (Dupuis) by the French cartoonist and musician Cleet Boris (see here – begging to be translated and published in English, publishers that is a hint), and there’s not really a lot to add to that.  I simply fell in love with this book – its format, the artwork, the honesty of the stories, the humor that accompanied really painful passages, and the large dose of healthy nostalgia that it exhudes.  And, let’s not forget, the fact that Boris is one of the few artists that can draw a believable guitar.

Not really about music, but closer to jazz than I have ever seen a comic go, is Daytripper (Vertigo), by the Brazilian wonder duo Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá.  The book reads like a series of variations on an age-old theme (“If I die tonight, what will my life have been ?”).  Moon and Bá take you on board for what can only be described as a series of every-evolving and accelerating sax solos, only to end in a climax that leaves you stunned and deeply moved at the same time.

Close To Home dept.

To round off, two books from my neck of the woods.  If Boerke In Hollywood, Pieter De Poortere‘s latest collection of strips about his anti-hero, Boerke (Oog En Blik / De Bezige Bij) doesn’t finally get him noticed across the pond, I don’t know what will.  The book contains 53 silent parodies on famous movies – sometimes hilarious, sometimes zany, quite often totally over the top, but never not funny.  And always meticulously drawn in De Poortere’s signature style, combining filth with picture book like innocence.

When I was a kid, my parents used to read Knack, a weekly news magazine that also contained a very strange strip, called Iamboree.  It basically features a number of ancient greeks discussing philosophical conundrums and mundane problems with the same profundity and relentless logic, always ending in totally absurd situations.  I was intrigued by these stories, most of which I didn’t quite understand.  To coincide with this year’s festival, Strip Turnhout asked venerable creator Gommaer Timmermans to make a selection of ten years worth of strips.  And to my great delight, they are still as great as ever.

From the shortlist for the 2012 edition of its annual award, the French ACBD (the Association of Comics Critics and Journalists) has given the prize (the Grand Prix De la Critique) to the graphic novel, Polina, by Bastien Vivès.  Earlier this year, the book was also awarded the Libraries Prize in France.

We wrote about Polina earlier.  Let’s hope that these accolades will prompt an English-language publisher to take up the risk of translating this acclaimed work into English (hint).

Incidentally, at the latest Japan Expo in Paris,  the Association also gave out its Asia award for Gerry Alanguilan’s Elmer, which is available in English and is much recommended.

Spanish illustrator and cartoonist FH Navarro is creator Sushi Online magazine and of the beautiful Dos Hojas, which I described as “one of the most poetic and thoughtful little comics I’ve read lately” – see my review here.  He has started a new webcomic, Zoe.  This time, “I don’t speak Spanish” is no excuse for checking it out, since Navarro also faithfully publishes an English-language version of every page as they come out.

It’s still a bit early to tell what it’s all about, but it features the moon, vampires and victorian explorers, so there’s not a lot that could go wrong!

This way of appealing to a larger audience by providing English versions of your webcomic is starting to be the new thing, it would seem. Israeli cartoonist Asaf Hanuka has been doing this with his The Realist for a while now, and Amir and Khalil’s Zahra’s Paradise was even published in no less than thirteen languages.

As is probably well-known by now, Stephen Spielberg managed to successfully turn Tintin into a movie.  Alan Baran, an intimate friend of Hergé’s and his last private secretary, was also the man who conducted the first negotiations with Spielberg.  And he liked what he saw. UK and European audiences have already enjoyed the film and with the US release imminent we present a very special feature today courtesy of our friends at Stripgids, who have kindly allowed us to translate their original article:

December, 1982. A telephone call from our publisher, Casterman from Tournai, tells me that a request has arrived for information about the movie rights to the Tintin books.  The letter is signed by Kathleen Kennedy.  She was writing to us on behalf of Stephen Spielberg.  Tintin’s spiritual father, who was a great fan of the Spielberg who did Duel, Indiana Jones and ET, was very excited about the news.

Sadly, Hergé was not able to accept the invitation to come to Los Angeles for a first meeting with the American director.  His health does not allow a long an tiring journey.  But he asks me to take the trip in his place, to hear from Spielberg himself how he wants to bring Tintin to life on the silver screen.  Of our first meeting, I’ll always remember how he said, “Tintin, that’s Indiana Jones for children”, as well as his eagerness to find out everything about Hergé, for whom he had enormous admiration.

At the end of my stay in California I delivered a draft to Spielberg with a summary of our expectations for the project.  And a little later we received a declaration of intent which broadly sketched the particulars of the future contract.

Tuesday, February 22, 1983, at about 11 AM in the Studios Hergé in Brussels.  This would turn out to be my very last professional conversation with Hergé, and it only has one subject : Steven Spielberg’s proposal for turning Tintin into a movie.  Hergé and I discuss the letter from America at length, and in great detail.  To me one item in the proposal was quite fundamental : it stated that, in accordance with Californian laws, Hergé would have no right to veto in any case of artistic difference. In my opinion, that was unacceptable.  However, Hergé immediately had an answer, and it was clear as day : “I know I’m running the risk that I will not be able to recognize my own characters, but Spielberg is a creative artist himself, and I want to give him my confidence.”

The two men were to meet each other a couple of weeks later in Brussels.  However, Hergé’s death decided differently.  Nevertheless, the contract was signed one year later in New York, with a personal commitment from Spielberg : “I’ll do anything to make you proud of my work…”

Saturday, October 22, 2011, at about 8 PM in the UGC Cinemas in Brussels. I have just attended an advance performance of The Secret of the Unicorn.  Almost thirty years have gone by since we first spoke with Spielberg.  I feel like a child who is finally allowed to open a long-awaited present.  I feel relief when I say that Spielberg has ket all his promises : this is indeed an ‘Indiana Jones for children’, and the film testifies of the enormous respect that Spielberg felt for Hergé.  The homage to Hergé at the beginning of the movie was very moving in that respect (* possible slight spoiler warning, don’t read italics if you don’t want to know! * If you haven’t seen it yet, watch in one of the very first scenes for a street caricaturist drawing our hero in a cartoon style in a marketplace, the street artist’s face modelled after the great Hergé himself in a lovely, subtle touch – Joe) .

Die hard Tintin aficionados will probably have some difficulty with recognizing him on the silver screen, in 3D no less.  Yes, the film unmistakably bears the Spielberg brand.  Yes, the script allows itself numerous liberties vis-a-vis the books it is loosely based on.  Yes, some of the chase scenes are bound to become Hollywood classics.  And indeed, an enormous promotional machinery has been set in motion in order for the producers to earn back their investments.

And still, above all I feel immense joy.  Because Tintin has found the way to adventure again.  I have no doubt that he will be able to excite children all over the world again.  Their expectations, their demands even, have changed over the years, and Spielberg really gets that.  He succeeds in overwhelming them with all the magic of the world of Tintin, to which he adds a new dimension.

Hergé, an artistic genius from the twentieth century who did not want Tintin to survive him in new adventures, knew damn well what he was doing when he put his trust in Spielberg, an artistic genius of the twenty-first century.  Tintin is still alive and kicking, and he divides his time these days between his fatherland, Belgium, and Hollywood : two worlds that are different in so many ways, but also both are the birthplace of modern visual culture.

Long live Hergé’s Tintin books !

Long live Steven Spielberg’s Tintin movies !

Originally published in Stripgids – reproduced with kind permission.  With thanks to Stripgids’ Toon Horsten and special thanks to Marcel Wilmet.

This coming Tuesday, December 13th, is the 30th anniversary of the declaration of martial law in Poland, which was essentially one of the first events that ultimately led to old Soviet Block falling apart some ten years later, and liberal thinkers across the globe announcing the End of History.

Since it also ultimately led to the accession of Poland into NATO, the Alliance headquarters in Brussels are organising a seminar with international historians offering various perspectives on the crisis, its origins and its consequences.

Also on the menu is a book presentation and signing with Marzena Sowa and Sylvain Savoia, the creators of Marzi, a comic about life in Poland during the last years of Communist rule as seen through the eyes of a young Polish girl (read our earlier review here).  It is a very moving comic, that covers subject matter from daily survival under communist rule to children’s angst and getting involved in the history of things.

An English edition of Marzi was published by Vertigo earlier this year, and is available from the FPI webstore; you can check out a preview here.