{"id":8464,"date":"2011-02-05T22:09:41","date_gmt":"2011-02-06T03:09:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/?p=8464"},"modified":"2011-02-05T22:09:41","modified_gmt":"2011-02-06T03:09:41","slug":"angouleme-2011","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/?p=8464","title":{"rendered":"Angouleme 2011"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Le Dernier Cri <\/a>had a poster hanging in the local Quick<\/em> (a McDonalds<\/em>-like fast food place) telling all of the families eating their burgers to \u201cfuck off rape rape rape.\u201d I wish I had a photo of that to share, but here are some quick Angouleme 2011 notes below\u2026<\/p>\n

Bastien Vives and Merwan draw their recent Pour L\u2019Empire<\/a><\/em> series (published by Dargaud) entirely on the computer with wacoms. There\u2019s no original art. Compare a page from the book with a dedication I found online that they both drew by hand:<\/p>\n

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The computer lines are absolutely constant, no variation. Not necessarily better or worse, just different. This is probably going to become more and more common and eventually, like comics coloring, the majority of line art will also be done on the computer. I can\u2019t help but think it\u2019s a fundamentally different experience for the cartoonist. A lot of working on comics, for me, involves having the pages sitting around or taped on the wall and glancing at them while eating cereal or walking around the room. When it\u2019s on the computer, you\u2019re only seeing the pages when you\u2019re actively working on them. They\u2019re never drifting around in real space. Think about it: for all of the New Yorker<\/em> illustrations that are colored by the computer (basically, all of them) the illustrator didn\u2019t see that lying on their table or sitting on their desk. They didn\u2019t decide to dab a different color on it after it caught their eye while they were doing something else. They clicked on the computer, finished it, and the only time they see it in real space is after it\u2019s been printed.<\/p>\n

Vives and Merwan are one of many collaborative teams in France (Ruppert and Mulot <\/a>spring to mind, as well as Pommepuy and Cosset<\/a>) where both members write and draw, as opposed to the one-writing-the-other-drawing collaborations found in the States. I didn\u2019t get to talk to them very much about it, but they said it\u2019s more like an animation studio and they work side by side. Ruppert and Mulot send scans to each other and sometimes employ third people to execute different elements of the comic. If there are collaborative comics done in the States like this, I can\u2019t think of any off the top of my head.<\/p>\n

I like going to Angouleme (this is my third year) just to be exposed to differences like this. Of course, there are the obvious differences, like the fact that there are no thin monthly serialized comics, they have the BDs and the elaborate dedications. But there’s also different points of reference or different interpretations of the same material. The current exhibit at the Angouleme museum this year was titled \u201cParody\u201d and it was devoted to Mad <\/em>magazine-type comics. I think the drawings<\/em> of Mad<\/em> magazine guys (like Jack Davis and Mort Drucker) have had a big influence on the French cartoonists (like Blutch and Chauzy\u2014a \u201cspringy\u201d line) while the sensibility<\/em> of Mad <\/em>is more of an influence on the Americans (like Crumb and Clowes\u2014the snarky attitude.) Different interpretations of the same material.<\/p>\n

Anyway, let’s cut to the chase: scans! One of my favorite comics I got at Angouleme this year looks like it was drawn entirely on the computer. It\u2019s by Hok Tak Yeung<\/a>, Qu\u2019elle Etait Bleue Ma Vallee<\/em>, published by Actes Sud<\/a>. This book has bizarre, intense colors that are impossible to scan accurately, but here are a few scans of it anyway:<\/p>\n

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Another fave is Girl\u2019s Don\u2019t Cry<\/em> by Nine Antico<\/a>, published by Glenat<\/a>. I heard she had a new B&W book published by L\u2019Association<\/a>, but I couldn\u2019t get that one due to the strike. I\u2019ve never seen such a visually striking comic that\u2019s composed entirely of talking heads. Amazing.<\/p>\n

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And my third favorite find is Alien<\/em> by Aisha Franz<\/a> which is out in German from Reprodukt<\/a>. She’s one of many cartoonists living in Berlin right now. I can\u2019t read German or French (or the stack of Chinese mini-comics I got) but I just look at the pictures and Alien<\/em> reads super-smoothly without the words.<\/p>\n

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Before I go, I have something for you, Art Spiegelman, Pulitzer Prize-winning Devil\u2019s Cleavage <\/em>star and (we\u2019re sure!) devoted Comics Comics<\/em> reader: Please consider Marc Bell, John Pham and I for 2012\u2019s “drawing concert” (when cartoonists draw and it’s projected behind a band playing.) This year Baru, Flao and Chauzy drew with Jon Spencer\u2019s Heavy Trash <\/em>on the stage. Let the North Americans take over and show how it\u2019s done! Frank of course wants in on this too. We will settle for any band! Just get us up there!<\/p>\n

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Le Dernier Cri had a poster hanging in the local Quick (a McDonalds-like fast food place) telling all of the families eating their burgers to \u201cfuck off rape rape rape.\u201d I wish I had a photo of that to share, but here are some quick Angouleme 2011 notes below\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[62,92],"class_list":["post-8464","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","tag-angouleme","tag-bande-dessinee"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8464","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8464"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8464\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}