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Marcinelle School

22 Sep

by Philippe Capart

Translated by Annick Pellegrin

Original publication: Capart, Philippe. “École de Marcinelle.” Capart, Philippe. “École de Marcinelle.” La Crypte tonique nov/déc 2012: 21-27. Print.[1]

 

In 1998, I was thousands of kilometres away from Belgium, poring over a light table in an animation studio under the Californian sun. I had brought with me issues of the magazine Spirou from the late 50s. The magazine contained in its pages some of the most beautiful creations by Franquin, Morris, Tillieux, Roba, Peyo, Jijé. I was trying to share my enthusiasm for these works with my US colleagues. Flipping through the pages of one issue, one of them had this naively violent reaction: ‘Did the same artist illustrate the whole issue?’. Appalled, I went through the magazine with him, trying to explain the profound originality of the authors of my childhood… only to gradually perceive, insidiously, the accuracy of his remark. The noses, the eyes, the ears, the attitudes, the mouths, the speech bubbles, the lettering, the framing, the colours all plotted to reinforce this appearance of uniformity. I was discovering the automatic graphic processes scattered in the pages of the magazine Spirou and that swarmed and gratified us with the famous ‘école de Marcinelle’ (Marcinelle School).[2]
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Posted by on 2016/09/22 in Guest Writers, La Crypte Tonique

 

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Review: Take It as a Compliment by Maria Stoian

13 Sep

By Harriet Earle

 

Winner of the 2016 SICBA Best Graphic Novel Award and the Independent Publisher’s 2016 Outstanding Book of the Year Independent Spirit Award.

Unfortunately, it’s probably happened to all of us. We find ourselves in a situation that does not feel quite right—perhaps it was a stranger on the bus standing uncomfortably close or a sense of being followed when walking home in the late evening. Unfortunately, it’s probably happened to a large number of us that we’ve been in situations far more dangerous. Sexual harassment and assault exists on a scale and it is wrong to suggest that the ‘lower’ end of the scale should be dismissed. Often, such actions are dismissed and victims are told to ‘take it as a compliment’, a grim suggestion when we consider how uncomfortable and personally violated these behaviours can make us feel. The issue of sexual harassment and assault have become of increasing importance in the social conversation of the 21st century but often the focus is on men targeting women and ignores the wider issue of female-to-male and same-sex harassment. Enter Maria Stoian’s 2016 comic Take It as a Compliment. Taking that horrible yet common phrase as its title, this not really Stoian’s story—it’s a collective memoir of sexual assault, created by survivors and filtered through Stoian’s artwork.

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Posted by on 2016/09/13 in Comics Forum 2016, Reviews

 

News Review August 2016

04 Sep

Americas

United States

Research

There is a call for papers for an edited collection titled Representations of the Mother-in-Law in Popular Culture. Deadline for submissions is set for the 16th October 2016. Link (English, ST)

The edited collection The Comics of Hergé: When the Lines Are not so Clear has been published. Link (English, ST)

There is a call for contributions to the proposed collection, The Dark Side: A Supervillain Reader, edited by Robert Moses Peaslee and Robert G. Weiner. Reprinted submissions and abstract proposals for new material are due by the 15th October. Link (English, WG)

Miller’s Daredevil and the Ends of Heroism, by Paul Young, has been published through Rutgers University Press. Link (English, WG)

The Routledge Companion to Comics, edited by Frank Bramlett, Roy T Cook, and Aaron Meskin, has been published through Routledge. Link (English, WG)

Forging the Past: Seth and the Art of Memory, by Daniel Marrone, has been published through the University Press of Mississippi. Link (English, WG)

There is a call for papers for the proposed volume, Drawing out the Shadows: Responses to the Holocaust in Graphic Narratives. Abstracts are due by the 17th October. Link (25/08/2016, English, WG)

Columbia University Libraries’ Rare Book & Manuscript Library has acquired the personal archives of cartoonist Howard Cruse. Link (30/08/2016, English, WG)

The Comics of Hergé: When the Lines Are not so Clear, edited by Joe Sutliff Sanders, has been published through the University Press of Mississippi. Link (English, WG)

Asia

Japan

Culture

The Ghibli Museum is celebrating its 15th anniversary with a special exhibition titled “All Aboard! The Cat Bus to the Ghibli Forest”. The exhibition runs until May of 2017, and offers a look back at older exhibitions, as well as new exhibits. Link (English, JBS)

There will be an exhibition related to the yearly Kyoto International Manga Anime Fair at Kyoto International Manga Museum titled “DAGASHIKASHI Exhibition – Kyoto store” (a series from manga magazine Weekly Shonen Jump). From the 17th September until the 16th October. Link (English, JBS)

Europe

Belgium

Culture

Guy Dessicy, co-founder of the Centre Belge de la Bande Dessinée and Hergé colourist, has died aged 92. Link (30/07/2016, French, LT)

Germany

Culture

The 6th Graphic Novel Day is going to take place in Berlin on the 11th September; guests include Marc-Antoine Mathieu and Barbara Yelin. Link (01/08/2016, German, MdlI)

The exhibition, “Holocaust im Comic”, travels on to Cologne where it is shown from the 5th November until the 18th December, accompanied by talks on the 5th, 12th, and 25th November. Link (04/08/2016, German, MdlI)

An exhibition of the latest Max-und-Moritz-Preis winners is going to be shown at the Wilhelm Busch Geburtshaus Wiedensahl from the 4th September 2016 until the 28th May 2017. Link (25/08/2016, German, MdlI)

An exhibition of comics from Kenya is going to be shown in Bremen from the 7th September until the 8th October. Link (29/08/2016, German, MdlI)

Obituary

Lothar Dräger (Mosaik) died on the 9th July. Link (18/08/2016, German, 18/08/2016)

Research

The 10.000th record has been entered into the Bonn Online Bibliography for Comics Research. Link (15/08/2016, German, MdlI)

The proceedings of the workshop, “The Mediality and Materiality of Contemporary Comics”, which took place in Tübingen last year, have been published as a special issue of the Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics. Link (22/08/2016, German, MdlI)

Portugal

Culture

From the 28th August until the 11th September the Pavilhão Multiusos of the São Mateus Fair in Viseu will host the exhibition “Infante Dom Henrique na Banda Desenhada” (Dom Henrique in Comics). Entrance is free. Link (17/08/2016, Portuguese, RR)

Spain

Culture

Fantagraphics has published an anthology of contemporary Spanish comics authors called Spanish Fever. Stories by the New Spanish Cartoonists. Five of the authors included in the anthology (Santiago García, Ana Galvañ, David Rubín, Javier Olivares and José Domingo) will also be present at Small Press Expo (SPX), which will be celebrated at Bethesda (Maryland) from the 17th to the 18th September. Link (08/08/2016, Spanish, EdRC)

Spanish-Turkish cartoonist Dogan Güzel was arrested (and later released) among 22 other journalist from the Istanbul-based newspaper Özgür Gündem. Link (17/08/2016, English, EdRC)

Obituary

Víctor Mora, Spanish comic author and creator of many legendary Spanish comics classics (including Capitán Trueno and El Jabato), has passed away. Link (17/07/2016, Spanish, EdRC)

UK

Research

European Comic Art 9.1 has been published by Berghahn Journals. Link (English, WG)

The Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics 7.3, a special issue on Mediality and Materiality of Contemporary Comics edited by Jan-Noël Thon & Lukas R.A. Wilde, has been published. Link (English, WG)

*                    *                    *

News Editor: Simon Turner (comicsforumnews@hotmail.co.uk)

Correspondents: Enrique del Rey Cabero (EdRC, Spain), William Grady (WG, United States and UK), Martin de la Iglesia (MdlI, Germany), Lise Tannahill (LT, Belgium), Renatta Rafaella (RR, Portugal), Jessica Bauwens Sugimoto (JBS, Japan) and Simon Turner (ST, US).

Click here for News Review correspondent biographies.

Click here to see the News Review archive.

Suggestions for articles to be included in the News Review can be sent to Simon Turner at the email address above.

 

 
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Posted by on 2016/09/04 in News Review

 

Review: At War with Yourself: A Comic about Post-Traumatic Stress and the Military by Samuel C. Williams

02 Sep
Review: At War with Yourself: A Comic about Post-Traumatic Stress and the Military by Samuel C. Williams

By Harriet Earle

 

In my last review for Comics Forum, I asked my father to give his opinion on two medical education comics. As a non-scholar and an infrequent reader, I thought he would be able to offer a different perspective and he may be a better representative of the target audience than me, someone who practically eats comics for breakfast. For this review, I asked for his help again, partly because of his ‘lay status’ but also because he is a retired RAF officer and the topic of Samuel C. Williams’ At War with Yourself is Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in a retired soldier, his friend Matt. PTSD is a relatively recent and hotly contested condition; it entered the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) in 1980 and since then has been a staple in pop culture representations of returning veterans, plagued with nightmares and hair-trigger alertness. However, this representation is not only largely incorrect, it is also very unhelpful to those with the condition.

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Posted by on 2016/09/02 in Comics Forum 2016, Reviews

 

The Bi-Monthly ComFor Update for August 2016

16 Aug

 by Laura Oehme

As usual, July and August have been comparably quiet months for German comics studies, but there were some interesting developments nevertheless. We, the online editorial team of the German Society for Comics Studies (ComFor), still managed to publish two posts each week about conferences, publications, exhibitions, and other developments concerning comics studies in Germany with lots of information I don’t want to keep from you, starting off with some very sad and some very good news.

The very sad news reached us only days before the deadline of this column: Unfortunately, Christian Maiwald discontinues his German-language comics blog “dreimalalles”. Maiwald’s thorough documentation of anything connected to comics enriched Germany’s comics landscape tremendously and often served as a source for our own ComFor posts. In the name of the whole ComFor editorial team, I would like to take the opportunity to thank Christian Maiwald for two years of hard work and dedication to the comics community. Read the rest of this entry »

 
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Posted by on 2016/08/16 in ComFor Updates

 
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