The Ephemerist

Flemish world affairs magazine Mo seems to be the first one to ask current sensation Judith Vanistendael to do a regular strip. Vanistendael has been dubbed the new Satrapi with her debut graphic novel, “De Maagd en de neger” (”The Virgin and the Negro”, Oog & Blik), in which she tells the story of her love for an African asylum seeker, and of how her family came to terms with it. Her style is eerily reminiscent of people like Dupuy and Berbérian, and even though the story’s pace sometimes reveals of practice, the book is without doubt one of the major debuts in European comics this year.

(translation of the strip :
Acts of the Grandparents, 2
Nov, 2000 - Well, it fits like a glove !
Nov 2002 - And hup, on to the next one…
Wow, Grandma ! Completely my style !)

Flemish artist Lectrr drew this cartoon to illustrate an article on the World Bank in the latest issue of Mo, a Flemish World Affairs magazine.

Flemish theatre troupe “Skagen” currently is performing in “Winterkant”, based on Louis Ferdinand Céline’s “Voyage Au Bout De La Nuit”. They asked comic artist Phillip Paquet to create a back drop for the performance. Paquet clearly found inspiration in Jacques Tardi’s work for the illustrated edition to the novel.

In 1961, the Belgian comic weekly Spirou produced a few very nice stamps as a freebie for their readers. The stamps featured popular heroes, such as Benoit Brisefer, Tif et Tondu, Jerry Spring, and others. Enjoy (and yes, I nicked these images from Ebay)…

Chris Ware has made a very catchy animation for the television version of This American Life. The story is quintessentially Ware, with kids having bright ideas and being very mean to one another.

(Thanks, as ever, Drawn!)

I’ve been an avid follower of the Heroes TV show ever since the Flemish Network VT4 started airing the episodes in chunky two-in-a-row omnibus editions. Sweet ! Jack Bauer is so nowhere !

Briefly, the show deals with real-life people who turn out to have developed some supernatural abilities, such as a regenerative body, the ability to fly, etc. One of them, a painter, is able to see the future and paint it when he’s under the influence of heroin. The paintings he makes play a very important part in the series, as they help the characters to figure out where to go next.

The paintings’ style was eerily familiar, but I just couldn’t put my finger on it. However, Forbidden Planet comes to the rescue. They report on an auction to be held with the artwork, and its creator turns out to be none other than Tim Sale, who is only the creator of my favorite Batman story of all time (The Long Halloween), and also the artist of about the only readible Hulk story ever (Grey).

So there, mondays can be nice after all…

In a recent interview for Flemish weekly Focus Knack, acclaimed German film director Florian Henckel Von Donnersmarck (who won this year’s Oscar for the best foreign film for Das Leben Der Anderen) professes his love for the work of Belgian comic writer Jean Van Hamme. He says :

“The really great artists, like Picasso, Hemingway and Friedrich Von Schiller, were no pretentious snobs. The same goes for Jean Van Hamme by the way.

I mean it. I am an enormous fan of that Belgian comic author. Thorgal, Largo Winch, XIII, The Joker, I read almost all his stuff. There aren’t that many script writers on his level. It would be a great challenge to adapt his stories for film.

On second thought,the plot to XIII, for example, is so intricate that I couldn’t possibly cram it all in just one film. Besides, history proves it : of most comic books that a film was made of, the majority sucked.”

An English edition of XIII was recently published by Dabel Brothers.

(The picture above was taken from La Tribune De Bruxelles, which recently profiled Van Hamme as a “Very Important Brusseleir“)

Dan “Mr Toast” Goodsell showcases a few Scrappy Candy Wrappers, paper bags used in the 1930’s by the Runkel Brothers Company to wrap their candy in (obviously). They featured a cool cartoon character, reminding me of Our Gang and other street urchins. Very nice find, Dan !

We went to Scheveningen some weeks ago, which was nice. Drank a cup of coffee at a beach hotel, and found a beautiful brochure for the Amsterdam zoo Artis. I don’t know who designed this, but it sure made my day !

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