Meanwhile, back in Angoulême
Feb. 25th, 2006 08:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shewhomustOnly not meanwhile, of course: a whole month ago. I missed being able to post while I was away, I was surprised to find myself taking notes, and now I'm back, and skipping things I might otherwise have written about, in order to complete my record of our time in France. The things we find out about ourselves...
There was standing room only at this second in the series of two-headed interviews between the generations. I thought the session with Fred and Joann Sfar was unfocussed, but I soon learned otherwise: compared to Gotlib and Larcenet, they were articulate and on-topic. Gotlib was one of my heroes in the 70s, and his weekly piece in Pilote, usually consisting of a mock-lecture, in which a scientist in a lab coat explained some serious matter, despite interventions from Isaac Newton or a ladybird, always made me laugh. I'd have been happy to hear him talk about his work, and to learn about a contemporary artist who worked in the same tradition, but it was not to be.
Considering which, it was an extremely funny session: in a "you had to be there" way. Larcenet arrived first, and proceeded to warm up the audience by getting us to do a Mexican wave (for which the French is, apparently, faire un [h]olà: so I learned something). Next came the anonymous interviewer, and Larcenet stated unpacking his hold-all: look, this is what someone's just given me at a signing! It was a bottle of gin, which went straight back into the hold-all. Then, again: and look, someone gave me this - a bottle of Breton whisky. Has anyone ever tried this? Yes, but I wasn't going to say so). Everyone must try it; and a plastic beaker is filled (to the brim, or nearly) with whisky, and handed to the front row, with instructions to pass it along, and speak up when it needs refilling. And that's what we did, so throughout the conversation which followed, the whisky was passing along the rows of the audience, with periodic interruptions for a refill.
Gotlib (Marcel Gottlieb) arrived, and we did our Mexican wave, and Larcenet explained that although he had read Gotlib's strips as a child, he did not see him as a particular influence. This was not said ungraciously, but discouraged certain lines of discussion.
Two things I did retain from the conversation, then: asked about his collaboration with Goscinny (co-creator of Astérix) on the Dingodossiers, Gotlib said that it had, of course, been a great honour and a pleasure, but that Goscinny had obliged him to draw things he didn't want to draw (factories and bicycles seemed to be particular bugbears). I was also entertained to note that a question which yesterday had fallen very flat (why is it that there are now no comics magazines, although the album format flourishes?) today provoked a lively discussion.
There was standing room only at this second in the series of two-headed interviews between the generations. I thought the session with Fred and Joann Sfar was unfocussed, but I soon learned otherwise: compared to Gotlib and Larcenet, they were articulate and on-topic. Gotlib was one of my heroes in the 70s, and his weekly piece in Pilote, usually consisting of a mock-lecture, in which a scientist in a lab coat explained some serious matter, despite interventions from Isaac Newton or a ladybird, always made me laugh. I'd have been happy to hear him talk about his work, and to learn about a contemporary artist who worked in the same tradition, but it was not to be.
Considering which, it was an extremely funny session: in a "you had to be there" way. Larcenet arrived first, and proceeded to warm up the audience by getting us to do a Mexican wave (for which the French is, apparently, faire un [h]olà: so I learned something). Next came the anonymous interviewer, and Larcenet stated unpacking his hold-all: look, this is what someone's just given me at a signing! It was a bottle of gin, which went straight back into the hold-all. Then, again: and look, someone gave me this - a bottle of Breton whisky. Has anyone ever tried this? Yes, but I wasn't going to say so). Everyone must try it; and a plastic beaker is filled (to the brim, or nearly) with whisky, and handed to the front row, with instructions to pass it along, and speak up when it needs refilling. And that's what we did, so throughout the conversation which followed, the whisky was passing along the rows of the audience, with periodic interruptions for a refill.
Gotlib (Marcel Gottlieb) arrived, and we did our Mexican wave, and Larcenet explained that although he had read Gotlib's strips as a child, he did not see him as a particular influence. This was not said ungraciously, but discouraged certain lines of discussion.
Two things I did retain from the conversation, then: asked about his collaboration with Goscinny (co-creator of Astérix) on the Dingodossiers, Gotlib said that it had, of course, been a great honour and a pleasure, but that Goscinny had obliged him to draw things he didn't want to draw (factories and bicycles seemed to be particular bugbears). I was also entertained to note that a question which yesterday had fallen very flat (why is it that there are now no comics magazines, although the album format flourishes?) today provoked a lively discussion.
