A daily drawing by Blutch
Fumetto was certainly a blast. Essentially the festival takes over the town of Lucerne, Switzerland, and mounts about a dozen exhibitions, holds panel discussions and demonstrations, as well as signings and tours. It’s a non-commercial festival, with one great store located in the festival center and that’s it. It was wonderfully well-organized, well programmed and just, well, kinda perfect. It’s also interestingly broad, encompassing illustration and art as well as more traditional comics. By the end, we were told, 150,000 people had been through the festival. For me, it was a great chance to be involved with a different vision of what a festival can be, as well as a fun international cultural exchange. After all, PictureBox was there in the form of an exhibition by Frank, Lauren and CF, as well as a show by Yokoyama. But so was Ever Meulen, with a wonderful little retrospective. And so was Blutch, the “artist-in-residence” who provided excellent new drawings everyday in his hotel lobby. Mark Newgarden mounted, for me, the best exhibition of the festival, with a conceptually tight showing of his original artwork and ephemera. Shary Boyle was there with a fantastic show, and so was David Shrigley, not to mention Daisuke Ichiba, Elvis Studio, Alex Baladi, and numerous others. Anyhow, here are some pictures from the scene and there is much, much more on Flickr. Thanks to Lynn Kost and the Fumetto staff for such a wonderful experience!
Elvis Studio’s show.
Study for RAW cover and finish by Ever Meulen.
Newgarden made gorgeous large-format prints of Love’s Savage Fury.
Preggers Lauren is a great cook.
CF and Yokoyama bonded.
Yokoyama live drawing demonstration.
CF: I love Ernie Bushmiller! Mark Newgarden: Me too! CF: Let’s be friends! Mark: OK!
The epic signings.
Oh yeah, one day me and Frank went to see Lee Perry at his mountain retreat an hour from Lucerne. He and Frank collaborated on this Batman drawing.
At the feet of THE RULER.