Date: Tue, 28 Jan 1997 15:07:46 -0500 (EST) To: [c--m--x] at [world.std.com] From: [kurt dunder] at [mail-server.dk-online.dk] (kurt_dunder) Subject: Angouleme report/ Re: Danish comics This is Frank Madsen from Denmark: Just back from Paris and Angouleme. No phone connections on the hotel rooms, that would allow my modem to connect, so I write this from my home studio. Sussi and I arrived with our baby Sundag 19th. We stayed at Hotel Cluny Square in the 5th arrondissement, one street south of the Seine river. Apart from eating and visiting places like Louvre [off topic], we found time to stroll the streets around the hotel. Across the street was Boulinier (20 Boulevard Saint Michel, 75006 Paris), where I bought the forbidden 1st version of L'Affaire Blake (Blake and Mortimer). First I thought it was a scoop, because Dargaud supposedly had been forced to withdraw them from the stores, but soon I found out, that this edition was the most common (in fact, it was only when I came to Angouleme and saw Dargaud's stand, that I managed to find the new legal version with the reversed cover).=20 We also visited FNAC in Les Halles. A lot of space was dedicated to bande desinees. People stood all over and read comics. Some times it was very hard to find a particular title, because people refused to move away from the shelves they were leaning to while reading.=20 FNAC may be huge, but in fact Librairie d'images (84 Boulevard Saint-Germain, 75005 Paris, closed on Sundays) had a much wider spectrum of comics. I managed to get some books here, that I looked for in vain at FNAC. They have a basement department with lot of older stuff. Wednesday, we took the TGV-train to Angouleme. Most of the nordic guests were aboard the same train, but in different waggons. The finnish (and swedish) contingent occupied the bar during most of the trip. In Angouleme we were received by Tove Bakke from the norwegian cultural board, who had organised the trip and the nordic exhibition in Angouleme. We were handed our yellow official guest badges and put aboard a bus to hotel Ibis some 5 kilometers outside of the main town.=20 The danish contingent consisted of Sussi and myself, Peter Snejbjerg and his wife, Teddy Kristiansen, Kim Hagen, Peter Madsen and my editor Jens Trasborg from Carlsen Comics.=20 Every morning at 9, 10 and 11 o'clock a free bus arrived at the hotel, and brought us into Angouleme. The main square is Champ de Mars, where the festival is centered around two gigantic tents. On the opposite side of the street were the press center.=20 Because we had brought out son along, much time were spent changing napkins, feeding him with bananas, walking around in the old city and other off topic stuff. Two days in a row we dined at a greek restaurant, Athena, where the food was good and the staff was very kind. It was also the favourite place of l'Echo des Savanes' staff. Friday the ceiling was covered with their yellow balloons. There were many exhibitions. Ted Benoits and van Hammes Blake and Mortimer work could be seen inside a huge, rusty container, dumped on the square in front of the justice palace. Juillard's pictures had been painted on a lot of houses.=20 The nordic exhibition was placed in the Paper Museum just opposite the CNBDI comics museum. There was original works from some 16-20 artists, approximately 4 from each of the 5 nordic countries (Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Iceland), and a short biography of each. I must say, that especially the danish presentation were far from giving a fair picture of what is going on in the nordic countries. There were four black/white originals (all intended for colour publication) from each of the four danish artists, and that was all. No samples of their many printed books (which are in colour) and only four out of the 70-some professionally published comics artists in Denmark. The impression must have been "alternative, black-and-white stuff with a limited audience". But then again, I said no to manage the danish part of the exhibition, so maybe I shouldn't complain. The black-and-white original concept was a restriction from the festival organizers, but I think it backfired.=20 Thursday at 5 PM, there was a press conference at the E. Leclerc Forum. For some obscure reason, the 20 invited artists were placed anonymously among the audience with no introduction whatsoever, and a the podium sat a french interviewer, a french-speaking translator from Iceland, a finnish artist who had lived and studied comics for four years in Angouleme and Tove Bakke from the norwegian cultural board. The talked for an hour or so about finnish and icelandic comics, and the circulation figures of the norwegian Donald Duck magazine (which are huge, but nonetheless off-topic regarding nordic comics). At the end, Tove Bakke asked the nordic artists among the audience to stand up, much to the surprise of the french interwever ("Oh! Are these all nordic artists? Incredible!").=20 In the international rights area, the nordic countries were represented by a stand called Gare du Nord, with samples of norwegian, finnish and swedish books, and the exhibition's official publication, also titled Gare du Nord. Denmark were not mentioned for some reason. The publication had forgotten some of the danish contributions (a.o. Sussi Bech's and Peter Snejbjerg's comics) and the swedish editor had changed the name of my character Kurt Dunder to Ben Fender. Very strange and puzzling.=20 Well, apart from the nordic exhibition, the free VIP bar proved to be a great success among the scandinaves. The six viking raids of Paris during the 9th century were nothing compared to the pillagery of french champaign, brandy, red wine and espresso, that was endured by this humble establishment. If the exhibition had not convinced the franks, that we were a bunch of limited-audience black-and-white ignorants, surely by now they= knew.=20 The festival was a huge arrangement, but everything went smooth, also the free navettes (mini-busses), that could be asked for in the press room, and that would transport you back to the hotel. Saturday afternoon, we left Angouleme and returned to Paris, very tired and exhausted from the experience. Paris seemed a quiet and cosy oasis after this. The Angouleme prices: Alph'art du public: Ted Benoit for L'Affaire Blake Alph'art coup de coeur: Fabrice Neaud for Ego Comme X Alph'art du scenario: Edmond Baudoin for Le Voyage Alph'art meilleur album: Nicolas Dumontheuil for Qui a tu=E9 l'idiot? Alph'art communication: Mazan for La mal=E9diction de Phil=E9as Fog Alph'art du meilleur album etrang=E9r: Pellejero and Zentner for Le Silence= de Malka=20 Alph-art humour: Florenc Cestac for Le D=E9mon de Midi Alph'art jeunesse 7-8 ans: Rypert and Tarvel for L'=E9tang qui R=E9tr=E9ciss= ait Alph'art jeunesse 9-12 ans: Jerome K. Jerome Bloche, tome 11, Coeur de= droite,=20 by Dodier Grand =C9cureuil d'or, du concours scolaire: Catherine Meurisse Alph'art fanzine: Tao =20 An then a few comments to the danish comics thread (?) that has popped up during the week: Nevins, Mark wrote (to Stig Olsen): >Wow, Stig, thanks for the overview of Danish comics! I don't know if I'll= be >able to find any of this stuff in Angouleme (maybe with Scandinavia as the >theme there will be people selling Scandinavian comics?) >I was definitely planning on raiding Frank and Sussi's tables--and now I'm >even more eager to see the stuff! We hadn't any tables, and had only brought along a dozen of our comics to show to french and belgian publishers. That proved harder that expected. We stood in the wrong lines, the editors hadn't arrived yet and when they arrived, they were not the people, we should talk to and so on. >>I don't know if there will be comics by Claus Deleuran in Angouleme. >Wow! The Danes really do seem to have minds geared toward encyclopedias, >don't they? Deleuran may be similar to Gonick's work, but it actually= sounds >to me more like Saxo Grammaticus's _Gesta Danorum_, or maybe the massive >"ethnographic" compendium of Olauus Magnus (was he Norwegian, Danish, or >Swedish, technically?)--two of the great medieval northern European heirs= of >the encyclopedia tradition. If you've looked at the facsimiles of Olauus' >work, you'll see it even has really cool cartoony woodcuts--my favorite are >the ones of the Lapps cruising in to cause trouble on their skiis (skiis= were >a great marvel in the Middle Ages to all of the non-Lapps--people already >thought the Lapps were magical beings, and the fact that they could "fly"= on >snow made them only more terrifying). Does Deleuran talk at all about= these >sorts of literary precursors? On the 400 pages in full colour, he managed to finish before his death, he tells the history of the world, with emphasis on Europe and Scandinavia, from the creation of the universe until year 950 AD (or so). I has always been very historically interested, and I can think of no other work, that combines the same amount of facts and pictures. You will find lots of references to Saxo Grammaticus, the lapps and so on. A pity, he were not to finish this great work.=20 More information at www2.dk-online.dk/users/seriejournalen/news.htm (look for Claus Deleuran among the news stories) >>Then there is Poul Arne Kring's series about Bolette Hansen, private detective >in Copenhagen in the 1920es >Denmark's answer to Adele Blanc-Sec? :-) Hardly. Paul Arne Kring's work dates back to the early 70s, and his drawings are much more perfect and detailed that Tardi's charming doodles. Kring's drawings reminds me of elegant cigarette advertisements and Vogue magazine of the 20's. I edited "Gale Streger", in which some of his stuff were printed, and you can order them online from www2.dk-online.dk/users/berger/ >>Another anthology worth a look is "Fahrenheit" - not always my cup of tea, >>but good for a representative view of what's going on in Denmark. >Hmmmmm--this one sounds good! Can also be ordered from www2.dk-online.dk/users/berger/ Let's have more questions about danish comics. You can have all the answers you want. Kind regards, FRANK MADSEN ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Frank Madsen [S--ou--n] at [dk-online.dk] or [Kurt Dunder] at [dk-online.dk] Writer/artist http://www2.dk-online.dk/users/Seriejournalen/ = =20 Brandts Vaenge 11 http://www2.dk-online.dk/users/Kurt_Dunder/ DK 3460 Birkeroed Phone: Home: (+45)45829545. Studio: (+45)31356968= =20 DANMARK Fax: Studio: (+45)31356968 Work: Studio Gimle, Noerrebrogade 55 A, 2, DK 2200 Koebenhavn N, DANMARK _\_/_ __________________________________________________________ | .. ? | | C \___U | "Potatoes? You can have my serving, Bill. They're scarab | \ _/ ___ balls, rolled dung, hard on the surface to preserve the | |__| | moisty center, where the scarab's larvae is safe and | | well fed. But your idea isn't that far off, because ac- | | tually the larvaes of the scarab make up a valuable pro- | | tein source, if we should ever loose our provisions...! | |__________________________________________________________| Read more from "Kurt Dunder in Africa" on his homepage on the internet..! (www2.dk-online.dk/users/kurt_dunder/) Also visit these great danish comics-related sites: NOFRETS HOMEPAGE - Sussi Bechs fabulous series about a minoan princess in pharaonic Egypt. (www2.dk-online.dk/users/nofret/)=20 CARLSEN COMICS - home of the biggest publisher of graphic novels in DK. (www.forlagetcarlsen.dk) SERIEJOURNALEN - Denmark's largest online magazine on comics. Loaded with news, features and stuff. (www2.dk-online.dk/users/seriejournalen/) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- _________________________________________________________________ To leave this mailing list, send mail to [m--r--o] at [world.std.com] with the message UNSUBSCRIBE COMIX