The Comics Bureau

I’ve pos­ted about this before, but thought that Greg McElhatton’s review of Willy Linthout’s ‘Years of the Ele­phant’ deserved a link.

Linthout cre­ates Charles Ger­mon­prez as his alter ego in Years of the Ele­phant, a busi­ness­man in his 50s liv­ing with his wife Simone, whose son Jack has just leapt off the roof of their apart­ment build­ing to his death. There’s no warn­ing, no sign that this is com­ing, and Linthout appro­pri­ately starts the book with a one-page strip as a typ­ical day is sud­denly shattered by the arrival of police at the door bear­ing the bad news. As Charles is reel­ing from the shock, we get the title pages and intro­duc­tion, almost like the open­ing cred­its after a teaser on tele­vi­sion. In some ways, Years of the Ele­phant starts with a punch to the gut and never relents from that moment on.

It’s dif­fi­cult at times to read Years of the Ele­phant, to see the grief, des­pair, and even delu­sions that Charles goes through in the days, months, and years that fol­low. Jack was Charles’s only son, and the loss quickly turns into a linger­ing specter that refuses to let go. Some scenes look at first to be played for laughs, as Charles tries to save the the pave­ment that Jack’s chalk out­line was upon, or when the click­ing noises of a breath­ing appar­atus are believed to be a mes­sage from bey­ond the grave for Charles. The laughter, though, is almost a hys­ter­ical giggle more than any­thing else. As Charles goes through what appears to be a series of men­tal break­downs, his pre­cari­ous grip on real­ity slips bit by bit. What might ini­tially look to be cop­ing mech­an­isms rap­idly turn into dan­ger­ous delu­sions, ones that help Charles avoid the sad­ness that threatens to over­take him, and as a reader you begin to won­der at what point things will turn back to nor­mal for Charles. Except, of course, in some ways that’s the big mes­sage of Years of the Ele­phant; it will never be “nor­mal” again for Charles. The sui­cide of his only child is most likely going to haunt him for the rest of his life, even if the degree to which it does so might change over time.

From the splen­did folk over at Tabella Pub­lish­ing come a couple of books by Øivind Hov­land, a Scand­inavian artist whose approach to illus­trat­ive storytelling is simple and precise;

Even if you only have one small image at your dis­posal, a story can still be told. And that, in a nut­shell is my aim, to tell a story using whatever means I have.

Trail and Error, pub­lished in 2008 is the story of Jean Bab­tiste de Bomber­aque, an adven­tur­ous chap from the early days of avi­ation. Essen­tially a book about determ­in­a­tion and ambi­tion, it depicts the tit­u­lar tri­als and errors of the young aviator’s career. For­bid­den Planet write up an inter­est­ing review;

Trial and Error is incred­ibly short for a graphic novel, it’s just 32 pages long, but since each double page is actu­ally a very clev­erly designed single flow­ing image, the action start­ing on the left and flow­ing, without panel bor­ders, over to the right in a single sweep­ing move­ment – it’s effect­ively  just a 16 page story, with no dia­logue and even very few cap­tions. But that doesn’t mat­ter since Øivind Hovland’s art does all the storytelling we need, all lush, thick blacks to begin with, and later, as the dreams of flight really begin to take off, more and more dom­in­ated by white as the sky begins to fill the pages, free­ing us to fly with Jean Bab­tiste de Bomberaque.

A Day in the Life of Alfred, pub­lished in 2009, is the story of routine and isol­a­tion. Using a very lim­ited palette, Hov­land depicts the story some­what non-traditionally, using maps, sym­bols, col­our and char­ac­ter. The book is not just a story, it is an exer­cise in the inter­change­ab­il­ity of text and image. This can feel like you have ‘missed’ some part of the story some­how, but it does bear up to repeat read­ings. Again, here is a For­bid­den Planet review;

And that’s it, book over, reader left ques­tion­ing. Did I miss things? Was there more there than I’d seen? I can’t work out whether that feel­ing means it hasn’t quite worked or it def­in­itely has – is it bad to feel like I’ve missed some­thing, is it good that get­ting to the end made me go back and study the book’s pages with a more ques­tion­ing eye?

I’m com­ing down on the side of good. When I went back I was look­ing for the pat­terns, look­ing for the details I’d missed, look­ing at the art to spot the con­nec­tions, the trig­gers to Alfred’s troubles. And as I read it again, and again, and again (it’s only 50 pages and maybe 500 ish words after all) it got bet­ter each time.

Much of Hovland’s work is sparsely nar­rated but lav­ishly illus­trated. In format, both books are sim­ilar to children’s books. Don’t let this ana­logy fool you though, the storytelling shows a deft­ness and sub­tlety of visual nar­rat­ive that bears up to repeat read­ings. You don’t so much ‘read’ Hovland’s work as take in each ele­ment of the type, image, com­pos­i­tion and nar­rat­ive. Great stuff. Go and buy it all immediately.

Matt Brady, over at War­ren Peace writes up a couple of knock-down art­icles on Didier Lefevre & Emmanuel Guibert’s The Pho­to­grapher. The first is a par­tic­u­larly insight­ful review;

While this is Lefevre’s story, told dir­ectly from his per­spect­ive and mak­ing heavy use of his memor­ies and accom­pan­ied by hun­dreds of the pho­to­graphs that he took, French car­toon­ist Emmanuel Guibert is the one that really brings it to life in com­ics form, cap­tur­ing the like­nesses of every­one Lefevre encountered and mak­ing the land­scapes and vil­lages seem like real, lived-in loc­ales. The pho­tos are inter­spersed through­out the pages, such that they often seem like com­ics pan­els among the rest of the illus­tra­tions, but Guibert fills everything out, mak­ing the char­ac­ters seem to move and live in the way that static pho­to­graphy can’t. But he does this without being showy, stick­ing to muted col­ors and subtle fig­ure work. It’s only when you look closer that you real­ize the great work he does, cap­tur­ing real­istic ges­tures, move­ments, and facial expres­sions, and put­ting just the right amount of detail into the folds of cloth­ing and the objects in the back­grounds, such that the art­work doesn’t stand out from the pho­tos, but also emphas­izes the way they can more fully cap­ture real­ity. It’s all per­fectly paced and put together for the best flow, pro­pelling the eye across the page without call­ing atten­tion to itself.

The second is a short ana­lysis of one sequence from the book;

This is actu­ally nearly four pages of com­ics, with two pan­els per tier, but I sep­ar­ated them and laid them out hori­zont­ally to demon­strate the way Guibert makes the whole thing work as one long walk through a detailed land­scape. It’s pretty gor­geous, like one of those scenes in a Woody Allen movie in which two char­ac­ters have a con­ver­sa­tion while walk­ing down a Man­hat­tan side­walk and the cam­era just fol­lows them, never look­ing away. But what struck me was how well the chan­ging land­scape matches the mood of the scene; at the begin­ning, when the con­ver­sa­tion between Didier Lefevre, the pho­to­grapher of the title, and Juli­ette, the leader of the human­it­arian mis­sion to Afgh­anistan, is lim­ited to a fairly benign sub­ject, they are cross­ing smooth ground:

This of course goes without say­ing, but if you don’t already own a copy, sweep your com­puter from the desk and run out without a coat or shoes to get a copy of this book. I’m sure I’m not alone in stat­ing that this isn’t just a comic book. This is a mas­ter­class in the sub­tleties of visual storytelling.

Paul Gravett writes up a brief his­tory of the graphic novel,

To know where we are going to, we need to know where we’ve come from. This is true of our lives as well as our cul­ture. In the case of the com­ics medium, its date of birth used to be hotly con­tested. Twenty years ago, on Octo­ber 30th 1989, it was finally to be decided at a his­toric sum­mit or “Incon­tri” organ­ised by the Lucca Com­ics Fest­ival in Italy. When the inter­na­tional jury con­vened to determ­ine which was the first major char­ac­ter, all but one mem­ber gave in to Amer­ican lob­by­ing and signed an agree­ment select­ing The Yel­low Kid, cre­ated by Richard F. Out­cault and pub­lished in Joseph Pulitzer’s New York Worldnews­pa­per. Below is Por­tuguese expert Vasco Granja’s copy of the agree­ment which is trans­lated along these lines:

“The eleven inter­na­tional spe­cial­ists, gathered in Lucca, estab­lish by abso­lute major­ity that 1896 was the year of birth of the com­ics. This was the year in which, through the char­ac­ter of The Yel­low Kid, the com­ics, assum­ing the express­ive con­tri­bu­tions provided pre­vi­ously by cre­at­ors from vari­ous coun­tries, launched those spe­cial lin­guistic char­ac­ter­ist­ics which would trans­form it into a new medium of communication.”

I don’t know if you noticed, but see how Denis Gif­ford signed his name ‘Ally Sloper 1876′, sig­nalling his dis­sent at the agree­ment that the Yel­low Kid was the birth of com­ics. Check out the Early Com­ics Archive to read more Ally Sloper.

Paul Gravett writes an art­icle on Angouleme 2010. I really want to get to this. Really badly.

It’s that time of year again when people start mak­ing their ‘Best of the Year’ lists. When it comes to com­ics, I’ll be doing mine quite soon, as well as tip­ping you off on the Most Anti­cip­ated Graphic Nov­els to come out through 2010. Also, as before, I’ll be sound­ing out inter­na­tional con­nois­seurs for their favour­ites. Mean­while, over in France on Fri­day 4 Decem­ber, the 37th Angoulême Inter­na­tional Com­ics Fest­ival announced at its Press Con­fer­ence their three offi­cial selec­tions of the 86 best bande dess­inée books out of nearly 5,000 pub­lished in France in 2009. Can you ima­gine hav­ing this much choice, this huge an annual production?

Jim Holt at the New York Times writes up a fine review of Logi­co­mix, writ­ten by Aposto­los Dox­i­adis & Chris­tos H. Papadi­mitriou and illus­trated by Ale­cos Papad­a­tos & Annie Di Donna.

The story proper opens on Sept. 4, 1939, three days after the Nazi inva­sion of Poland. Ber­trand Rus­sell is giv­ing a pub­lic lec­ture at an Amer­ican uni­ver­sity on the role of logic in human affairs. Angry isol­a­tion­ists in the audi­ence chal­lenge Rus­sell to explain how logic could jus­tify par­ti­cip­at­ing in a world war. Ah, he responds, but what is logic?

In a series of flash­backs, Rus­sell recounts his epic struggle with that ques­tion. We see him first as a little boy, in the 1870s, being brought up by his grand­par­ents after the mys­ter­i­ous — to him, at least — dis­ap­pear­ance of his mother and father.

With the Lottery-funded Thought Bubble Fest­ival in Leeds fast approach­ing, here is a ‘super-link’ post, start­ing off with a series of mini inter­views (min­ter­views) pos­ted up on the Thought Bubble blog;

Hugh ‘Shug’ Raine,
Marc Ellerby,
Steve Tillot­son,
Jack Fal­lows,
Lizz Lun­ney,
Adam Cad­well,
Emma Vieceli,
Charlie Adlard,
Frank Quietly,
and Ben Temple­smith so far…

Exhib­it­ors this year include (alphabetically);

2 Tone Com­ics,
Aaron Murphy,
Accent UK,
Adam Cad­well,
Al Maceach­ern,
Andi Wat­son,
Apo­ca­lypse Com­ics,
Ariel Press,
Asth­matic Com­ics,
Banal Pig,
Bang! Bang! Com­ics,
Bey­ond Mono­poly,
Black Lib­rary,
Cazbounces Books,
Chamon­kee,
Charay­dis Com­ics,
Chris Doherty,
Chris Garside,
Cine­book,
Claude Trollope,
Com­ics Cre­at­ors Guild,
Cos­mic Apple,
Cute But Sad,
David O’Connell,
David Gold­ing,
Dealer Com­ics,
Dean Orm­ston,
Des­tin­a­tion Venus,
Adam Lowe,
Don’t Panic,
Doc­tor Simpo,
Dr Sketchy,
Drastic Com­ics,
Dumpy Little Robot,
E-Merl,
Fet­ish Man,
Fiona Steph­en­son,
Fly­ing Mon­key Com­ics,
For­bid­den Planet,
Francesca Cas­savetti,
Frozen Real­ity Stu­dio,
Future Quake,
Games Work­shop,
Genki Gear,
Glyndwr Uni­ver­sity Com­ics, (dis­claimer — I teach on this course)
Gothy Beans,
Grimm Com­ics,
Gun­nerkrigg Court,
Har­oldinium Com­ics,
Hello Aunt Alicia,
Hex­gib­ber,
Her­man Peaks,
Hope For The Future,
Hyde Park Pic­ture House,
Infin­ity & Bey­ond,
Ink Soup,
Insom­nia Pub­lic­a­tions,
Jemma Web­ster,
Joe Decie,
Joe List,
Kristyna Baczyn­ski,
Large Cow,
Leeds Anime Soci­ety,
Leeds Com­ics Soci­ety,
Leeds Sci-fi & Fantasy Soci­ety,
Leonie O’Moore,
Little Ter­rors,
Liz Green­field,
Liz Lun­ney,
Lucky Tar­get Com­ics,
Magic Beans Com­ics,
Magda Borey­sza,
Marc Ellerby,
Mat­thew Craig,
Mod­ern Mon­stros­ity,
Mor­o­n­oid,
Murky Depths,
Naniiebim,
North­ern Delight,
OK Com­ics,
Omni­v­ista­scope,
Paper Jam Com­ics,
Paul Fryer,
Paul Rainey,
Pop­corn Pea­cock,
Quick­sil­ver Com­ics,
Ragada­bah,
Richard Smith,
Reet! Com­ics,
Rob Jack­son,
Sam John­son,
Self-Made Hero,
Scarygoround,
Sgt. Mike Battle,
Shef­field Space Centre,
Soar­ing Pen­guin,
Sour Meat & Moose,
Space­Babe 113,
SmallZone,
Span­dex,
Split Infin­ity,
Sum­mer Rain,
Tempo Lush,
The Juz­zard,
The Fallen Angel Media,
Time Bomb Com­ics,
Tokyo 15,
Tom Cock­er­ham,
Touche Tees,
Trav­el­ling Man,
Turn­ing Cog Cre­ations,
Twi­light Zone,
UK SF Out­reach,
Veli­cia,
Viz Media,
We Are Words & Pic­tures,
Wild­ways Com­ics,
Wynn Ryder,
and finally, Zip­Gun Com­ics.

Apo­lo­gies in advance for broken links and incor­rect pages!

Head on over to Henning’s site to have a look at his fant­astic work.

Head over to Paul Gravett’s site to read a review of Flem­ish car­toon­ist Willy Linthout’s ‘Years of the Elephant’.

And then in a mas­ter­stroke, he solves the ques­tion of how to rep­res­ent and per­son­ify his own dead son by using the chalk out­line of his fallen body. And in turn, this leads to his decision, based on his Flem­ish pub­lisher Ria Schulpen’s sug­ges­tion, not to com­plete his sketched, uninked draw­ings but to leave them in their unre­fined, pen­cilled state, urgent, vul­ner­able, as if to emphas­ise the human hand and heart behind them.

Willy will be appear­ing as part of the Com­ica events this year in con­ver­sa­tion with former children’s laur­eate Michael Rosen on the 23rd Novem­ber at the ICA. Details here.

As a mat­ter of urgency, get yourselves over to Elec­tro­com­ics, an online pub­lisher that relies on dona­tions to main­tain them­selves. There is so much great work to see on this site — get over there and show them some support.

The com­puter screen, con­sidered a bad part­ner, when it comes to read­ing lenghty texts, is all the bet­ter suited as a space to pro­ject the advanced pictorial lan­guage of comics.

The inter­net is provid­ing dir­ect and afford­able means of dis­tri­bu­tion and thus helps even dar­ing and less com­mer­cial com­ics pro­jects to become avail­able worldwide.

Via vol­un­tary dona­tions, read­ers are in a pos­i­tion to hon­our the artist’s work. The mode of vol­un­tary pay­ments can be main­tained longterm, if enough read­ers are will­ing to act fair and pay accord­ing to the com­par­at­ively mod­est price sug­ges­tions (ca. 1,50 Euro an e-book).

This image is taken from ‘Alien in Rus­sia’ by Finnish artist Marko Tur­unen. Head over to his site ‘Super­tur­unen’ and ‘Daada’. This makes me wish I could read Finnish…