Tag Archive | "Wim"

From our continental correspondent – the widsom of the crowd

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

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It would seem that the latest fad amongst the internet cognoscenti is the crowd.  The idea that, in the end, the best thing (whatever that may be) will be chosen by the most people, is, of course, one of the basic tenets of the whole current social media rave.  Recently, however, internet startups have been [...]

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From our continental correspondent – Flemish Comics For The World

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

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Several quite good pieces of news popped up recently about comics from my neck of the woods that are now making it around the wider world (well, the English-speaking part of the world, at least). Our editor Joe pointed out to me that the English edition of Judith Vanistendael’s De maagd en de neger has [...]

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From our continental correspondent – A Bit Of Closure for “seuls”

Monday, April 19, 2010

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Forget about what the deal was with the island in “Lost”. Never mind whether Tony Soprano got shot or not in that diner. Who cares what McNulty made of his life after The Wire. What francophone comics lovers want to know is, what about those children in “Seuls” ? We wrote about this series by [...]

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From our continental correspondent – The Gripes of (digital) Wrath in France

Wednesday, March 31, 2010

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It would seem that the introduction of digital in a certain type of medium, whether it’s an artform, a news medium or a form of entertainment, never happens without some serious misunderstandings about who should reap the fabled benefits of that new opportunity.  Come to think of it, digital has got nothing to do with [...]

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From our continental correspondent – comics will guide you

Monday, March 22, 2010

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Here’s something I’ve been wanting to bring to your attention before. Everybody knows the Lonely Planet series of travel books – the alternative, low-cost guides to the wonders the world has to offer. I had seen a Lonely Planet guide to Brussels in a few shops before, with a quite familiar illustration on the cover, [...]

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From our continental correspondent – L’association at the Sismics festival

Thursday, March 18, 2010

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For its 2010 edition, the annual Sismics alternative comics and graphic art festival in Sierre, Switzerland, seems to have hit the jackpot.  In the past, the festival focused on the less-than-mainstream, quite often quite obscure, self-published comic, but this year they’re playing in a major league.  Legendary French comics cooperative L’association will be celebrating its [...]

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From our continental correspondent – the Smurfs at the World Fair

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

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The Flemish comics blog Strip Turnhout just announced that the Smurfs will be present at the coming World Fair 2010 in Shanghai, China.  The little blue men will be the official mascots of the Belgian-European pavillion, which will open on May 15th.  They were selected because of their Belgian roots (they were created by Belgian [...]

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From our continental correspondent – Moomin at the Belgian Comic Strip Centre

Monday, March 8, 2010

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At the Brussels Belgian Comic Strip Centre, a nice little exhibition has been put up about Moomin, Finland’s best known contribution to comics. Originally, creator Tove Jansson (1914-2001) wrote and illustrated a series of illustrated novels featuring the white, hippopotamus-like creatures. Over the years though, the world of the Moomins expanded and currently includes television [...]

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From our continental correspondent – the Clear Line conquers Europe

Friday, February 26, 2010

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In 2008 the European Commission organised a competition to create a comic that would illustrate how Europe contributes in fighting suffering and injustice in the world.  The winner turned out to be then 43-year old Erik Bongers, who had never published a full-fledged comic book before (even though he is a regular contributor to the [...]

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Now we are Five…

Thursday, February 25, 2010

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It’s hard for me to believe but today marks the fifth birthday of the Forbidden Planet blog. It’s a peculiar feeling because in one way it doesn’t really feel like it’s been five years since I posted that first blog item but on the other hand it also feels like we’ve been a part of [...]

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From our continental correspondent – Netherlands to be the guest country at Ficomic Barcelona

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

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From May 6th to May 9th this year, the 28th edition of Ficomic, the Salón Internacional del Comic will take place in the Feria de Barcelona.  Not a lot is known as yet about the programme: a recent press release only revealed that among the confirmed guests were Gilbert Shelton, Jeff Smith, Liberatore, Lewis Trondheim, [...]

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From our continental correspondent – 24 heures de la BD, a quick selection

Friday, February 12, 2010

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This year’s edition of the 24 heures de la BD, a competition of 24-hour comics that is organised in the margins of the Angoulême Festival, is especially interesting for non-French speakers, as one of the constraints was that the story had to be totally wordless, or “muette” as the French put it.  It also should [...]

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From our continental correspondent – comics in crisis: BD sales part II

Thursday, February 11, 2010

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This piece continues my review (see yesterday’s post) of Xavier Guilbert’s analysis of sales figures in French comics for 2009, as published in the French comics magazine Du9.  In this part, Guilbert looks at the role of manga in the French market, and at the success stories of 2009. When you walk around in comic [...]

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From our continental correspondent – crisis hits comics: BD sales part I

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

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At the end of last year, the French Association of Comic Critics and Journalists released its Bilan, or annual report on the state of the industry (rather than the art, even though we are in France).  They were rather optimistic, seeing many new publishers and publications, and a growing number of authors working in the [...]

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From our continental correspondent – Next in comics: the commentary track

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

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Marketing boys never stop.  In the US, they’ve tried to flog you multiple copies of comics by using different, “exclusive”, covers, while in France they typically add limited edition prints and ex-librises to them, or whip together a “dossier” to go along with the album.  And sometimes they actually succeed in creating something nice, like [...]

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