shewhomust (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
shewhomust) wrote2019-10-12 07:55 pm
shewhomust) wrote2019-10-12 07:55 pm
Being Belgian
We started the day with a panel on banned books - comics censorship in the 21st century. Waiting outside, I fell into conversation with a lady dressed in a black suit, complete with black lace wings and a silver badge: she explained that she was role-playing a character from a comic by a friend of hers, about a retired fairy godmother who joins the Vancouver police force as a detective. If I had had my wits about me, I would have asked if I could photograph her (and the copy of the book she showed me): but I didn't, so there is only this verbal record, and a note that the book might be worth a look, if I came across it. The panel itself brought together five interesting speakers, any one of whom I would cheerfully have listened to at greater length, but who somehow never added up to more than the sum of their parts. Charles Brownstein of the CBLDF was a polished and sympathetic speaker, and Elyon's, a Cameroonian working in Congo Brazzaville, brought a different perspective to the question.
We had just time for a little shopping before our next events: the Oxfam bookshop, where I found a copy of Astérix en Corse, and Page 45 for less random purchases. Thedurham_rambler stuck with Plan A, and went to the launch of Rain, and I headed back to the Brewery to hear Benoît Peeters talking about Belgian comics from Hergé to Brecht Evens. This fell into the inevitable trap, was too leisurely talking about Hergé and ran out of time to consider the more recent and less internationally known artists: I was going to say I would have liked to hear more about Brecht Evens, and that remains true, but I'm embarrassed to see a familiar cover on his website: did I actually order one of his books from my comics supplier, and is it in a to-be-read pile somewhere? Takeaway fact: the use of the term ligne clair to describe Hergé's style originates with Joost Swarte, in Dutch, so we really ought to be talking about klare lijn.
Lunch was enabled by the Flemish government:
I think a chip van is an excellent form of cultural outreach. I was next to Duncan Fegredo in the queue, and was tempted to squee at him: the Graphic Novels Reading Group is currently revisiting some Vertigo titles (there is a Post in Progress on this subject) and I have just enjoyed rereading Enigma. But never come between a man and his chips...
After lunch I went to two separate panels titled Belgian is Best, in which first Paul Gravett and then Alex Fitch attempted to wrangle some sort of coherence from a disparate bunch of creators. Alex Fitch was slightly the more successful of the two, in that he had gained a degree of control over the slide show: we still had a selection of images from the featured artists in constant rotation, but at least now they could call on him to stop! there! no, back!.. Even so, I came away from both panels thinking I could probably match image to artist for about 60% of the slides. Paul Gravett's task was complicated by the inclusion of one artist who required an interpreter, but then Alex Fitch had one who hadn't asked for an interpreter and probably needed one. In addition, this being Belgium, it wasn't always clear what each artist's original language was: I was grateful to Joris Vermassen for commenting, very late in the panel, that he had had to come to England to meet fellow professionals from as small a country as Belgium, and launching us at last into a conversation about that fractured culture.
And that, bar a little book buying in the International Marketplace, and a visit to Booths to buy chili for dinner, was that.
We had just time for a little shopping before our next events: the Oxfam bookshop, where I found a copy of Astérix en Corse, and Page 45 for less random purchases. The
durham_rambler stuck with Plan A, and went to the launch of Rain, and I headed back to the Brewery to hear Benoît Peeters talking about Belgian comics from Hergé to Brecht Evens. This fell into the inevitable trap, was too leisurely talking about Hergé and ran out of time to consider the more recent and less internationally known artists: I was going to say I would have liked to hear more about Brecht Evens, and that remains true, but I'm embarrassed to see a familiar cover on his website: did I actually order one of his books from my comics supplier, and is it in a to-be-read pile somewhere? Takeaway fact: the use of the term ligne clair to describe Hergé's style originates with Joost Swarte, in Dutch, so we really ought to be talking about klare lijn.Lunch was enabled by the Flemish government:
I think a chip van is an excellent form of cultural outreach. I was next to Duncan Fegredo in the queue, and was tempted to squee at him: the Graphic Novels Reading Group is currently revisiting some Vertigo titles (there is a Post in Progress on this subject) and I have just enjoyed rereading Enigma. But never come between a man and his chips...
After lunch I went to two separate panels titled Belgian is Best, in which first Paul Gravett and then Alex Fitch attempted to wrangle some sort of coherence from a disparate bunch of creators. Alex Fitch was slightly the more successful of the two, in that he had gained a degree of control over the slide show: we still had a selection of images from the featured artists in constant rotation, but at least now they could call on him to stop! there! no, back!.. Even so, I came away from both panels thinking I could probably match image to artist for about 60% of the slides. Paul Gravett's task was complicated by the inclusion of one artist who required an interpreter, but then Alex Fitch had one who hadn't asked for an interpreter and probably needed one. In addition, this being Belgium, it wasn't always clear what each artist's original language was: I was grateful to Joris Vermassen for commenting, very late in the panel, that he had had to come to England to meet fellow professionals from as small a country as Belgium, and launching us at last into a conversation about that fractured culture.
And that, bar a little book buying in the International Marketplace, and a visit to Booths to buy chili for dinner, was that.
no subject
no subject