Festival u Angulemu, 2007.

[marlowe]

Evo nominovanih - ove godine je sistem simplifikovan, bira se najbolji album godine, 44 naslova se bore za 6 glavnih nagrada, i bira se dobitnik Heritage Award izmedju 6 naslova.
Evo nominovanih:

2007 OFFICAL SELECTION  

Avant La Prison
Kazuichi Hanawa
Vertige Graphic/Coconino Press
Sentenced to three year's imprisonment in 1995 for illegal carrying of firearms, Kazuichi Hanawa related his jail experience in Dans La Prison. As he got a successful reception, he was urged into telling what happened before. But Hanawa gave birth to an amazing work in which abruptly alternate the story of how the author repairs an old gun, a fiction set in the old times and several other digressions... He wrote and drew just as the ideas came to him in the purest Japanese tradition. A free improvisation by an old artist fully mastering his talent.


Black Hole
by Charles Burns
Delcourt
Born in 1955 in Washington, Charles Burns first contributed to Art Spiegelman's RAW comic magazine in 1981 before devoting himself to his great work, a phantasmagorical allegory entitled Black Hole. As a subtle parable on teenage sex and an outlet for AIDS threats, Black Hole portrays a small American city's teenage community in search of adventure to keep boredom and heredity at bay and mysteriously stricken by an incurable STD. Either comically flirting with black humour or turning into a transgender tale that is fascinating by its beautiful and sophisticated line but quite disconcerting by its cruel shape, Black Hole fills the collective unconscious with aesthetically perfect and absolutely disturbing pictures. An acid-trip that will freak you out and leave a bittersweet taste in your mouth.

Canetor
by Charlie Schlingo & Michel Pirus
Les Requins Marteaux
Deceased in 2005, our late Charlie Schlingo distinguished by his exclusive passion for silly stories. Canetor, which he conceived with cartoonist Michel Pirus, abides by the rule. The aim is to deride the great tradition of animal comics as well as play an ambiguous tribute to the 20s tradition of funnies, those big and colourful pages that appeared in American newspapers. One senses Michel Pirus's assumed influence of Chris Ware in terms of graphic style and the sophisticated lines and colour enhance and strengthen the exhilarating power of Schlingo's silly jokes.

Capucin
by Florence Dupré La Tour
Gallimard, coll. Bayou
Florence Dupré La Tour was one of the discoveries of the Young Talent Contest for the 2004 Festival. Her second comic book is marked by an expressive graphic style and vivid colours. The son of a good family and heir to a fallen Knight of the Round Table, Capucin is suddenly poverty stricken. As he is forced to work for the first time to feed his parents, he prefers to leave the family house riding his blue horse, named Rostremond. But the adventure turns out badly. Enrolled by force with thousands of poor and dirty children, he is compelled to serve the basest soldiers and the dark designs of loathsome Bouche Dorée. This is the descent into hell of a selfish character, who is really funny and quite far from usual clichés of children's comic heroes.


Comment Ça Se Fait?
by Nadja
Cornélius
The title 'How Do You Make It?' refers to the way you write a book, to the author's hesitations and procrastinations, as she goes ahead, gets carried away and then steps back and questions herself. This case study that one easily imagines to be autobiographical is pervaded by a most welcome humour. A major author of children's illustrations, Nadja proves to be, and legitimately so, one of the great names of today's comics.


En Route Pour Seattle
by Peter Bagge
Rackham
Incompletely translated back in 1998, the Hate series by Peter Bagge (b. 1957), an alternative culture leader, is at last granted the decent edition it deserved by Rackham. Buddy Bradley and his flat-mates are a bunch of unbridled lads who cultivate laziness, have a couldn't-give-a-damn attitude and rely on their own resources. They go through the American 90s regardless of conventions and suffer many hardships before finding their own place in society. As a sort of generational portrait of the grunge slackers, Buddy Goes To Seattle depicts a trash era that was forgotten too fast by comic art and it still proves that although caricature is excessive in form, its content often sounds right.  

Frank
by Jim Woodring
L'Association
Frank is a cat that reminds one of all the cats belonging to the great tradition of American cartoons. Along with fantasy animals, he goes through a series of mute adventures that are distinguished by their gorgeous colours and narrative flow. It can be wonderful as well as horrible , anything can happen in Frank's world. It is fascinating like dreams. The reader that falls into it as if by mistake gets irreparably seduced and carried away.  

Fun Home
by Alison Bechdel
Denoël Graphic
Autobiography is not always doomed to ordinary things and soporific accounts of tooth brushing and fridge filling. And to prove it, Alison Bechdel evokes her complex relationship to her father, who is more sparing of affectionate and conniving words than reading advice. Family secrets, hidden injuries, gothic childhood, sexual worries and great literature, they are all in this great book which manages to combine a dark humour with a certain lucidity... quite a revelation in 2006!  

Ganges
by Kevin Huizenga
Coconino Press/Vertige Graphic
Kevin Huizenga is the discovery of the 21st century's American scene. Through the series starring Glenn Ganges and his wife, he achieves a fantasy autobiography with fantastic undertones and perfectly illustrates his generation's concerns. Under the disguise of a very classic style, the young author experiments some innovating and ambitious pictorial narrative devices... As a pillar of the excellent Kramer's Ergot anthology, Kevin Huizenga has also his own comic book, Or Else, published by Drawn & Quarterly.  

Georges Et Louis - Panique Au Bout Du Fil
by Daniel Goossens
Audie/Fluide Glacial
Somewhere between Flaubert's Bouvard et Pécuchet and Laurel & Hardy stand Georges & Louis. Georges is Louis' wise confidant. The latter has long been obsessed with writing a novel off the beaten track. To that end, he makes one improbable plan after another and they all end in total flops. It is the case once again as he starts working on a sequel to Madame Bovary in the world of computer analysts, as a draft to a children's book... Do not miss the tribute paid to Pierre Desproges and a brief unlikely piece in which all the greatest heroes of French and Belgium comics, caricatures as lost queens, meet in a private party...  

Gyo
by Junji Ito
Tonkam
After Spirale, in which a mountain village fell under a crazy curse, Gyo is the new nightmarish story as imagined by Junto Ito, the master of horror comics, in the wake of Kauo Umezu (L'Ecole Emportée) and hideshi Hino (Panorama De L'Enfer). This time, the threat comes from the sea. Ito delights in confronting his neat couple of young heroes to the most dreadful situations. He displays both a ridiculous and dreary imagery, which is his trademark, setting the reader in an uncomfortable situation, between laughter and disgust. The craziness in the drawings cannot but freak you out.  

L'Homme Qui S'Évada
by Laurent Maffre
Actes Sud
Adapted from Albert Londres, this is the true story of an innocent man's detention, as he is sentenced to a heavy punishment in Cayenne's penal colony for political reasons, and of his paradoxically heroic escape. L'Homme Qui S'Évada is an allegory of the road to freedom, a road full of pitfalls, fake hopes and illusions... Following in the steps of Jacques Tardi, Laurent Maffre retraces a spiritual journey with a skillful use of the medium's possibilities. This is an outstanding first book, subtly but deeply committed and perfectly topical in spite of the specific historical context.  

Ice Haven
by Daniel Clowes
Cornélius
Daniel Clowes himself (b. 1961) labeled Ice Haven as a "narraglyphic picto-assemblage". This pompous phrase must seem surprising but it does illustrate the author's goal. Indeed Clowes brings to light, through a series of anecdotes and a collection of characters, the little details of community life in Ice Haven, a small Miswest city where it is not as cold as it sounds. After Lloyd Llewellyn and its typical fifties imagery, the mythical Eightball series (David Boring, Like A Velvet Glove...) and some commissioned works for the cinema and music industries, Clowes goes back to analysis and smashes the precepts of American culture in Ice Haven, which proves that the author of Ghost World has not lost an inch of his satirical spirit.  

Ils Ont Retrouvé La Voiture
by Gipi
Coconino Press/Vertige Graphic
This book is a real slice of life. A few stolen hours from the existence of two men that are supposed to be repentant gangsters. One does not learn anything about their past nor present, and even less about their future... and yet one gets immediately captivated by this story in which nothing is left to chance as each word, each sentence is meticulously chosen. Though the author does not trouble about the details, everything is crystal clear but weighed down by an omnipresent heavy atmosphere in which it becomes impossible to get one's breath back. Best comic book award winning in 2006, for Notes Pour Une Histoire De Guerre, Gipi proves once again with this short and spontaneous story his perfect mastering of narrative devices, through unequivocal words and concise drawings.  

In The Clothes Named Fat
by Moyoco Anno
Kana, coll. Made In
Moyoco Anno was born in 1971. In The Clothes Named fat was first published in Japan in 1997. The author subtly describes his heroine's psyche - she is both fat and delicate - and follows her in her descent into hell. Noko has a job, a boyfriend and a flat. However the young woman decides to start a diet on the day Saito starts cheating on her with his gorgeous and statuesque colleague, Mayumi. From a compulsive eater, she becomes a heavy dieter. Her actions are ruled by the cult of slimness at the risk of physical and mental damages. Thanks to a plain scenery and a magnificent style, this book retraces the self-quest of a young woman of her time. This manga invites the reader to question appearances.

Jacaranda
by Kotobuki Shiriagari
Milan/Kanko
A giant tree suddenly grows in the middle of Tokyo, wiping out the city in a night's time of sound and fury. Starting from this powerful idea, Kotobuki Shiriagari imagines a 300 page nightmare, amassing one death and destruction scene after another, ad nauseam. This most striking visual work raises complex philosophical issues behind its apparent simplicity. Indeed it refers to the very Japanese awareness of the ephemeral nature of things as well as the concept of renewal and the danger of submitting to a higher power. A book that is off the beaten tracks, with a musical and hypnotic rhythm.

J'ai Tué Adolf Hitler
by Jason
Carabas
Jason's animal characters travel through the ages and take various identities without ever changing their physical appearances, just like the heroes of Trondheim's Lapinot... As disconcerting and elliptic as ever, Jason plunges his reader into a dramatic temporal paradox: what would happen if one could go back in time and kill Adolf Hitler? Born in Norway, Jason now lives in Belgium. His works are translated into several languages and published in several countries, including USA. His comic book entitles Shhh! had been part of the 2003 Official Selection in the 'newcomer' category.  

Ki-Itchi!!
by Hideki Arai
Delcourt/Akata
Left to himself at an early age in the slummiest parts of today's Japan, Ki-Itchi learns how to survive on his own. As a teenager, how can he adapt to a society whose rules he rejects? Unless he creates his own rules... Just like in The World Is Mine (Sakka), the other series by Hideki Arai published in French, the satirical author levels a violent and exhilarating accusation against the contemporary hypocrisy and stupidity with malevolent jubilation. Ki-Itchi, a raw icon of strength and integrity, stands alone against the world's injustice and becomes an unforgettable character.  

Kinky & Cosy
by Nix
Le Lombard
Except for Vandersteen's Bob et Bobette, Flemish comics had hardly crossed the border... But thanks to Nix's scathing humour, the cultural barriers, be they real or imaginary, have been falling down, for laughter's sake! Kinky and Cosy are as wild as the South Park Characters, as nonsensical as the Monty Python, as stupid and mean as the Hara Kiri heroes. Discovered in 2004 in Angoulême through the Sint Lukas exhibition, Nix is a real star of Belgium satirical press. His caustic caricatures appear in Pan and Het Algemeen Dagblad.

Lou
by Julien Neel
Glénat
As a genuine self-taught man, Julien Neel (b. 1976) had first intended to make a career in advertising before he realised that his talent would lead him to comics and animation. Flipping through Tcho! magazine, you will soon notice Lou, a little tiny heroine who is not ashamed of it given the joys and turpitudes that life holds in store for her (and for us). Although at first sight, it looks like a children's story, Lou's adventures cheerfully transcend generational frontiers and affect all readers on different reading levels and even more. You will soon become fond of this shewd girl that observes and analyzes life's facts with admirable wit. And the average reader will be glad that a kid recommended him to read it...

Luchadoras
by Peggy Adam
Atrabile
This book was inspired by the bloody history of the Mexican town of Juarez where 400 women have been murdered since 1993. The reader follows the steps of Alma, a barmaid and mother to a little girl. The story is punctuated by the sordid discoveries of mutilated bodies. Each character deals with their own fears. Then comes Jean, a young French photographer that chooses Juarez as an exploration ground. He comes across Alma and falls in love with her... In this black and white book, sincerity gets rewarded by deception or death and fear turns out to be the only shared feeling.

Lucille
by Ludovic Debeurme
Futuropolis
An anorexic teenage girl who lives alone with her mother meets an unhappy young man whose father, a sailor, has just committed suicide. Tackling the issue of teenage crisis, Ludovic Debeurme builds a long and vivid story from which pathos is excluded by a structure in short chapters. Deprived of effects and scenery, the drawings are extremely refined.

"I've been a fan of Debeurme's since he published his first works with Cornelius (Cefalus (2002) and Ludologie (2003)) several years ago. Since that time he has stripped down what was already a rather spare visual style. Indeed, the art in Lucille, with its thin lines and lack of details, comes across as something from the John Porcellino, Anders Nilsen or early-Chester Brown era of American independent comics (there's also some Carol Swain in the framing, though not in the detail work)."
Bart Beaty at The Comics Reporter - Read the full article here.


Lupus
by Frederik Peeters
Atrabile
This is the end of the journey for Lupus Lablemore, a hero of inertia, a runaway and a foster father in spite of himself. With this last episode, Peeters puts a beautiful end to one of the greatest European series of the beginning of the millennium, a subtle, static and melancholy space opera in which the outer space is no setting to laser fights, but rather a reflection of the characters feelings. As Peeters' layout is extremely distended and often fragmentary, privileging close-ups, the story gets a singular rhythm that perfectly matches the stream of feelings.

Magasin Général
by Loisel & Tripp
Casterman
In Notre-Dame Des Lacs, a small isolated city in Quebec, life in the twenties revolves around the wholesale greengrocer's General Store. As a young widow, Marie is crushed by construction works and rumours. She is walking on the tightrope and on on the verge of losing heart... Through this picturesque family story, two great authors who emerged in the 80s joined their talent in drawing and scriptwriting. Loisel and Tripp's warm and sensuous style is perfectly adapted to this action-packed story, enlivened by colourful dialogues, in the best tradition of entertaining comics.

Le Marquis D'Anaon
by Fabien Vehlmann & Matthieu Bonhomme
Dargaud
In the middle of the Enlightenment Age, Jean Baptiste Poulain, aka Marquis D'Anaon (the marquis of lost souls), travels around the world in search of supernatural phenomena, which fascinate him in as much as he fights them for the sake of Reason. He does not come out of this fourth adventure unharmed, neither physically or mentally, as he chases throughout Savoy a bloodthirsty beast that the gullible people awe and identify as the Devil. A breathtaking intrigue rendered in a classical construction and graphic style.

Michel
by Pierre Maurel
L'émployé du moi
Michel records sounds. And that's normal: he is a sound engineer. He is recording a report and he hopes t gets broadcast. But deep inside, he feels that it won't work, but still he does it, just to keep going, just to please himself. Pierre Maurel makes comics. and that's normal: he is a cartoonist. He makes his books for himself and he hopes it gets some readers. But deep inside, he feels that it won't work, but still he does it, just to keep going, just to please himself.

Mon Fiston
by Olivier Schrauwen
Éditions de L'An 2
A tiny little boy and his single father are the heroes of these unpredictable adventures that soon take a disastrous turn. The kid's small size makes him the ideal prey to crocodiles, the Pygmies' hostage, and in brief, the victim of numerous traps. Strongly reminiscent of early American colour comic strips (as as Feininger's), Olivier Schrauwen's work oozes a crazy humour that brings out the father's love to his son.

"Mon Fiston, Schrauwen's first book, a knowing pastiche of early twentieth-century comics influences, is one of the most provocative comics I've read this year. What it lacks in length and scope it more than makes up for in subversive, obsessive depth. Mon Fiston, with its simple, strange short stories, is a book like few others. Its retro sensibilities are so pronounced that it reads like an undiscovered classic, like something from the pages of Art Out of Time. Yet, at the same time, it is so thoroughly contemporary in its critique of turn-of-the-last-century masculinity and image making that it also seems utterly contemporary."
Bart Beaty at The Comics Reporter - Read the full article here.


Non Non Bâ
by Shigeru Mizuki
Cornélius
As it remains an unknown territory of the 9th Art, the Japanese comic scene continues to surprise us by its diversity, through masterpieces of incomparable romantic strength. Along with Tezuka, Mizuki is one of the great manga authors and therefore, one of the greatest authors across the world... In the country story of Non Non Bâ, he achieves the perfect mix between The War Of The Buttons and Lovecraft's Cthulhu, interweaving Japanese archaic folklore (and its ancestral Animalistic rites) and contemporary social features. This pathos-less unidentified comic object cannot but stir you up.

La Nouvelle Frontière
by Darwyn Cooke
Panini Comics
Eisner Award winner for Best Limited Series last year, The New Frontier by Darwyn Cooke (b. 1962), an ace storyboard artist and animator, retraces the historical context from which emerged the greatest DC Comics superheroes. From the Pacific war in 1945 to the rise of glittering cities in the sixties, Cooke shows how Superman, Wonder Woman, Batman, The Flash and Green Lantern came into being within the American historical continuity. Above all, he mischievously looks back on the darkest hours of Uncle Sam's land. When the Congress and ignominious Senator McCarthy try to blacklist superheroes and when Washington declares war on mystery men, is the American dream still legitimate?  

L'Oeil Privé
by Blexbolex
Les Requins Marteaux
Blexbolex is one of the rare authors in the young generation who carries on with the deconsruction of the clear line, as initiated by Joost Swarte in the 70s. Here, this approach is coupled with a reinterpretation of the detective genre. He twists it in the same way, achieving a perfect balance between form and content. Half tribute, half parody, this postmodernist work is full of humour and sophistication.

Orage Et Désespoir
by Lucie Durbiano
Gallimard, coll. Bayou
Summer beaches are always the perfect scenery for teen age love stories, in Rohmer's films as well as in reality... Orage and Désespoir (ie Thunder and Despair) are two young girls who still dream about their Prince Charming or Vampire... for romance, at least in its English sense, does not exclude the supernatural nor the fantasy. Starting from the love complaints of two teenage girls, the plot soon evolves into a scenario that could have been Mario Bava's, though rather craving for naivety than blood! A fresh air blown by one of the most discreet, though most talented cartoonists of today's French comic scene.  

Panier De Singe
by Jerôme Mulot & Florent Ruppert
L'Association
The Mulot & Ruppert duo is the latest discovery of the alternative comic scene. Following Safari Monseigneur, in which they debunked the colonialist imagery and indulged into a rejoicing slaughter, Panier de Singe stars the same couple of psychotic photographers, played by the authors themselves, who in turn look for zoophilic scenes to shot, humiliate their models in the studio and get lost in an orgy for mutilated persons. This funny and mean hoax, livened up by brilliant dialogues, is coupled with a play on the medium through phenakistoscopes and encrypted images.  

Pascal Brutal
by Riad Sattouf
Fluide Glacial
A vision of the future halfway between Tu Danses Le Mia, an 80s French rap hit, and Mad Max, when ultra-free marketeer Alain Madelin gets to be President of the Republic and society has undergone a genetic mutation as the first weed-babies come to life... In this social and cultural chaos in which prevails consumption, be it sexual or economical, a man stands up and tries to define, in his own screaming way, the new masculinity, halfway between the ape and the amoeba: this is Pascal Brutal, Raid Sattouf's new exhilarating character. With this new series, the author of Jérémie emerges as one of the brightest satirists of his generation, to say the least!

Les Passe-Murailles
by Stéphane Oiry & Jean-Luc Cornette
Les Humanoides Associés
Jean-Luc Cornette spends his time observing people that surround him. But though incredibly acute, his look drifts sooner or later from reality to fantasy. The characters in this new volume of Passe-murailles all look like real life. But they are not that common as they can walk through walls. They are allowed a bunch of tricks and undergo a series of adventures, which stand halfway between urban tale and sheer fantasy. Cornette does excel in mixing different styles. Stéphane Oiry is gradually building a graphic style of his own, as eloquent as sophisticated and ranks among today's best illustrators.  

La Perdida
by Jessica Abel
Delcourt
According to most Spanish dictionaries 'la perdida' means the loss or escape. If the word does encompass all senses throughout Carla's adventures, a young 20 year old American girl who decides to exile in Mexico with her spirited boy-friend, one naturally wonders about the hidden meaning of the title. Jessica Abel (b. 1969) - an emerging author of the new American indie comic and fanzine scene - chose to set her story in Mexico to combine the soft exotic rhythm and the violence entailed by idleness and need. But as Carla says, can one be exiled from a country that is not their own?

Le Photographe
by Emmamuel Guibert, Didier Lefèvre & Frédéric Lemercier
Dupuis/Aire Libre
This is the last part to a triptych as imagined by Emmamuel Guibert from Didier Lefèvre's story and pictures when he traveled around Afghanistan in 1986. It relates the trip back to Pakistan, an extremely harsh journey that will bring the photographer to his limits... Just like in Alan's war, Guibert transcends the documentary style into gorgeous images, harmoniously alternating drawings and photos. This account on a country at war is interesting in itself, but thanks to Guibert, it takes on a wider strength and dimension.

"I am an admitted Guibert junkie. I'll buy anything that he puts his pen to... And I can't for the life of me fathom why Sardine de l'Espace is his only work translated into English (no offense to that work for kids), when his work for adults is so much stronger. If someone like First Second takes a chance on Le Photographe (ideally a single-volume 260-page book) I think that it would have a good chance to become a cross-over hit in the way that Persepolis did, because it has the same qualities of timeliness, topicality, and the skilful telling of a very human story that will be of interest to a large number of readers."
Bart Beaty at The Comics Reporter - Read the full article here.


Pourquoi J'Ai Tué Pierre
by Olivier Ka & Alfred
Delcourt
"Pierre is a leftist priest. He is cool. He is funny. He is not a priest but a real guy. For me, it is as if I had a new uncle, a good one, who laughs, sings and tickles." With a sense of modesty, Olivier Ka relates the manipulative process devised by an adult to entrap a child or how a childhood, or rather an entire existence, can be destroyed by a rape. Alfred subtly illustrated the painful story without feeling compelled to show everything about it but suggest how one's intimacy can get seriously damaged and ruined... A striking book that shows once again that there is no taboo, painful though it may be, for the comic medium.  

Le Sang Des Voyous
by Loustal & Paringaux
Casterman
Revenge is a dish best eaten before one is cold - such could be the title of the story if it had come out as a crime book... Loustal and Paringaux, the mythical duo of À Suivre magazine, made a dark thriller, as grating and sublime as a Mile Davis piece. Sapped by illness, a professional killer carries out his last contract, a very personal one, as he kills all those who prevented him from living a happy life. Thanks to a masterful use of chiaroscuros, in the drawings as well as the plot, the authors of Barbey et la Note Bleue undoubtedly achieved a future classic.  

Sorcières
by Daisuké Igarashi
Casterman/Sakka
Considered to be one of the best newcomers in Japan, Daisuké Igarashi is the high priest of Nature and its mysteries. In parallel to his comic activity, he has also been a farmer for several years... Be they kindly or fiendish, Igarashi's witches are the guardians of an ancestral truth that is jeopardised by contemporary civilisation. Spiritually close to Kenji Miyazawa's poems, these collected stories are distinguished by their graphic power and the strong animistic beliefs of their author.
 
Universal War One (UW1)
by Denis Bajram
Soleil Productions
Starting from the basic, though over used, scientific premise of spatio-temporal relativity and its drifts, Denis Bajram places his sci-fi story in a context where past, present and future intertwine, assemble and dissemble. The paradox originates in an unfathomable and impenetrable wall, which threatens to wipe out mankind. To try and understand this enigmatic phenomenon, a death-dodger squadron embarks upon a terrible chase throughout space-time, in the far reaches of the real world. But are they ready to face the truth? Denis Bajram (b. 1970) has contributed to the renewal of fantasy comics since 1996 with Cryozone (Delcourt) and UW1 (Soleil), an ambitious work that finds a conclusion in the 6th episode published this year.  

La Volupté
by Blutch
Futuropolis
Blutch is the greatest French living cartoonist, and his worldwide influence on his peers brings evidence to it. But unfortunately his works, contrary to some of his followers, have not reach the general public yet. Maybe because you have to get rid of your rational tendency to fully immerse into those ravishing and repelling stories that are similar to dreams or nightmares. In La Volupté, Blutch explores the mysteries of sex while shaking up narrative conventions with this absurd poetical style of his own.

Wimbledon Green
by Seth
Le Seuil
This gorgeous book focuses on the fetishist and monomaniac figure of the comic book collector and conjures up Saint Ogan and Ever Meulen... The craziest rumours have spread about this comic erudite, reminiscent of Citizen Kane. Who is he really? Is he an imposter or genius? A crook or a benefactor? As a nostalgic herald of the thirties, Canadian cartoonist Seth continues to explore some new ways into comic art, in the wake of his esteemed fellows Chris Ware and Daniel Clowes. Note that the French edition is the perfect replica of the original one, which is kind of rare in the latest translations of English-language comics.  

Wizz et Buzz
by Winshluss & Cizo
Delcourt, coll. Shampooing
They are even more stupid than the Pieds Nickeles! It has been ages since French comics had bred such a trashy and funny pair, namely Wizz and Buzz. This whacky variation on the hackneyed series of gags often found in comics. Cizo and Winschluss, the authors of the unforgettable Monsieur Ferraille (the undisputed star of the 30th Angouleme Festival), renew children's comics in an absurd fashion and regardless of the politically correct... This is a masterpiece whose subversiveness is much more subtle than it might appear upon first reading. It will make some smile and others gnash their teeth!  

Zipang
by Kaiji Kawaguchi
Dargaud/Kana
As they are mysteriously transported back to the Pacific war ship, a ship's crew from the Japanese Self-Defense Force tries to remain neutral and not alter the course of history. Through Zipang, Kaiji Kawaguchi (Spirit Of The Sun. Eagle) asks a fascinating question: what would be our reaction if we could change the course of history? And in doing so, he puts in perspective the way his fellow citizens' attitudes have changes. Zipang is a manga that combines entertainment and reflection qualities, obviously foreshadowing to a future classic.  


 The Heritage Award

Golgo 13
by Takao Saito
Glénat
Golgo 13 is an emblematic character of Japanese comics. He was created in 1969 by Takao Saito as an eponymous hero to a series whose publication is still going on to this day. He is a legendary professional killer but his motives seem obscure. He fulfills his contracts in an emotionless way. This 1,000 page book collects the 13 best episodes according to a readership survey. The oldest stories feature the killer in action while he disappears from the latest in favour of a popular geopolitical work. A massive work.  

Hato
Osamu Tezuka
Cornélius
This work by Osamu Tezuka is very little know though it was one of his favourite stories. The 'god of manga' revisits the traditional Japanese tale, combing a typical collection of animals such as kappa, tanuki or foxes, to the specific dramatic figures of the time, samurai duels, peasant's rebellion, etc. Hato relates the parallel course of two brothers whose fate is to fight against the mountain gods that are warring against each other at the expense of mankind. This three-volume series is described as a 'graphic novel' by its publisher, for it combines comic style and illustrated text.  

Little Nemo In Slumberland: Le Grand Livre Des Reves
by Winsor McCay
Delcourt
Dream is at the core of the creation process according to great cartoonist Winsor McCay (1867-1934). He was a real genius in experimenting innovative graphic forms that allowed him to push back the apparent limits of the comic medium... Little Nemo is a young boy lost in Slumberland. He goes through dreamlike adventures in which the metamorphosis of beings and things is as constant a principal as the stories ending when Nemo falls out of bed! An essential masterpiece of worldwide comic art, which gets republished in French for the very first time and in its original size.  

Sergent Laterreur
by Touïs & Frydman
L'Association
Serialised between 1971 and 1973 in Pilote magazine, Sergent Laterreur's ranting had a considerable impact on the readers of the time. They were fascinated by the Sergent's stupidity - and the obedience of the troop embodied by one fat soldier - as much as by the beauty of these pages, reminiscent of Feineinger's Kin-der-kids and Pop Art. For the very first time, this scathing, antimilitarist comic gets a complete colour edition.  

Service Des Cas Fous
by Gébé
L'Association
What makes Gébé unclassifiable is his specific turn of mind. Service Des Cas Fous illustrates his taste for unconventional humour and comical fantasy. Published in the early 80s, these pages constitute the files of a police department whose job is to solve inexplicable cases. After quick inquiries, they draw conclusions but instead of clearing up the mysteries, they catch the readers off their guard by reshaping the logical scheme in some unexpected way. If you like short stories and Gébé's neat drawings, you will enjoy getting baffled by this book.  

Les Vents De La Colère
by Tatsuhiko Yamagami
Delcourt/Akata
This is a political fiction in which a fascistic secret police spreads terror in Japan. By investigating into a case of industrial pollution, the young hero opens his eyes on the world around him and in which the rebirth of the far right goes hand in hand with an excessive militarism. But he must pay the price for his lucidity... This diptych was elaborated in the early 70s and uses the graphic style of children's mangas to relate a disillusionment followed by the emergence of a political awareness. A radical and harsh parallel world acting as a real antidote against the end of ideology.

[marlowe]

Ovde se mogu videti naslovne strane nominovanih - http://infobd.over-blog.com/article-5131176.html

Kornelijuse, vidim da tvoja kuca ima dosta nominacija.
Ne hvalis se, a kamoli da obrnes koju turu i pocastis raju.
Neka, ja i dalje navijam za tebe.

[Cornelius]

Znaš kako je, Marlowe. Cilj je ove godine da prodamo maksimum albuma i da otkupimo foruma Znak Sagita. Boban nam rebnuo cenu, pa smo pali na bulju. Šta da se radi. Bar ćemo posle imati najuvrnutiji sajt za NF, F, H i S u Evropi, a moći ćemo i da gazdujemo (mislim Čola i ja).

[marlowe]

Nego, sta kazes za ponudu?
Meni se ne cini nesto posebno privlacnom. Posebno vasa produkcija.

[Axle Munshine]

Moram da priznam da sam i ja pomalo iznenadjen ovim nominacijama.Naginjanje Angoulemea ka Americi i Aziji mi se nimalo ne dopada,ipak je ovo prvenstveno festival frankofonog stripa,ili je barem to bio...

[Cornelius]

Žan-Mark Tevne, bivši direktor Festivala, otvorio je angulemski festival ka inostranstvu. Cilj je širenje ponude, širenje tržišta, širenje horizonta...

[Alex]

Dabogda na sledećem Angulemu bili sve srpski stripovi.

[Cornelius]

Dodao bih i - hrvatski. Imam tamo prijatelje, a nezavisno od toga imaju i dobre crtače. Zato, Alexe, nek im Bog dâ ssrpske i hrvatske stripove (Da navedem onaj čuveni Aristotelov gnevni usklik - Govori srpskohrvatski da te čitav svet razume).

[Cornelius]

Angulemske nagrade 2007:

Nagrada "Najbolji album"

NON NON BÂ
Shigeru Mizuki
Editions Cornélius


Nagrada "Otkriće"

PANIER DE SINGE
Florent Ruppert & Jérome Mulot
L'Association


Nagrada "Suštinski album"

BLACK HOLE
Charles Burns
Delcourt
 
LUPUS
Frederik Peeters
Atrabile
 
POURQUOI J'AI TUÉ PIERRE
Olivier Ka & Alfred
Delcourt

LUCILLE
Ludovic Debeurme
Futuropolis
 
LE PHOTOGRAPHE
Emmanuel Guibert - Didier Lefèvre - Frédéric Lemercier
Dupuis / Aire Libre


Nagrada "Nasledje"

SERGENT LATERREUR
Touïs & Frydman
L'Association


Nagrada "Alternativni strip"

CANICOLA

[marlowe]

E, svasta. Pa to je toliko matoro, da me cudi da uopste ulazi u konkurenciju. Evo sa wikipedie:


Shigeru Mizuki (水木しげる, Mizuki Shigeru), born March 8, 1922 in Sakaiminato, Tottori) is a Japanese manga author, most known for his shonen Japanese horror manga Ge Ge Ge no Kitaro. A specialist in stories of yokai, he is considered a master of the genre. To a lesser but still notable degree, he is also known for his World War II memoirs, as well as a writer and biographer.

Life
Born in the coastal town of Sakaiminato, Mizuki was originally named Shigeru Mura (武良 茂 Mura Shigeru), the second of three sons. Described as a drifting, curious child, his earliest pursuits included copious amounts of drawing and hearing ghost stories from a local woman he nicknamed "Nononba" [1].

However, in 1942 he was drafted into the Imperial Japanese Army and sent to New Britain Island in Papua New Guinea. His wartime experiences affected him greatly, as he contracted malaria, watched friends die from battle wounds and disease, and dealt with other horrors of war. Finally, in an Allied air raid, he was caught in an explosion and lost his left arm. A southpaw, after the war he taught himself to write and draw with his right hand. While a prisoner of war on Rabul, he was befriended by the local Tolai tribespeople, who offered him land, a home, and citizenship via marriage to one of the local women. Mizuki acknowledged he considered remaining behind, but was shamed by a military doctor into returning home to Japan first to face his parents, which he did reluctantly.[2]

Upon arriving home, Mizuki had initially planned to return to New Guinea; however, the Occupation of Japan changed that. His injuries and loss of his writing arm did little to help, nor did the fact that his older brother, an artillery officer, was convicted as a war criminal for having prisoners of war executed. From his return until 1956 he worked as a movie theater operator until his break as a cartoonist.

In 1957, Mizuki released his debut work, Rocketman. Since then, he has published numerous works, both on yokai and military works. He has also written many books on both subjects, including an autobiography about his time on New Britain Island and a manga biography on Adolf Hitler. When not working in either field, he paints a number of subjects, though these works are not as well known as his literary ones which have made him a household name.

In 2003, he returned to Rabaul to rekindle his friendship with the natives, who had named a road after him in his honor.

In 2005, Shigeru Mizuki appeared in a cameo role in Yokai Daisenso ("The Great Yokai War") directed by Takashi Miike, a film about (of course) yokai. A brief explanation about his works also is mentioned in the film.


Sakaiminato
Sakaiminato, the birthplace of Shigeru Mizuki, has a street dedicated to the ghosts and monsters that appear in his stories. One hundred bronze statues of the story's characters line both sides of the road. There is also a museum.


Awards
Mizuki has won numerous awards and accolades for his works, especially Ge Ge Ge no Kitaro. Among these are:

1990 Received Kodansha Manga Award.
1991 Received Shiju Hosho Decoration.
1995 For the 6th Annual Tokyo Peace Day, he was awarded with an exhibition of his paintings, entitled "Prayer for Peace: Shigeru Mizuki War Experience Painting Exhibition"
1996 Received Minister of Education Award.
1996 His hometown of Sakaiminato honored him with the Shigeru Mizuki Road, a street in his town decorated with bronze statues of his Ge Ge Ge no Kitaro characters and with other designs relating to his works.
2003 Received Kyokujitu Sho Decoration.
2003 Sakaiminato honored him again with the Shigeru Mizuki International Cultural Center.

Selected works

Manga
Ge Ge Ge no Kitaro
Akuma-kun
Yamato
Hitler: A Biography
Kappa no Sanpei

Books
Mizuki Shigeru no Nihon Yōkai Meguri (Shigeru Mizuki's Ghosts and Demons)
Rabauru Senki (Memories of Rabaul)

[Cornelius]

NonNonBâ se u Francuskoj pojavio pre nekoliko meseci. Angulemski festival nagradjuje albume koji su izašli na francusko tržište tokom prethodne godine. Znači ima logike. Drugo je pitanje zašto se nagradjuje klasik koji je inicijalno izašao pre 15 godina. Mislim da je u pitanju diplomatska odluka. Na francuskom tržištu mange drže 45 odsto, tako da je Francuska druga zemlja po izdavanju mangi, odmah iza Japana. Trudeći se da pomire vrhunski strip kvalitet i nove tendencije, oni su se odlučili za Mizukija, kao kompromis.

[Boban]

Očigledno je Angulem namerio da se uvrsti u japansku ponudu po Evropi, a ovo deluje kao vrlo jednostavan način... sledeće godine se može očekivati bar stotinjak japanskih fanova više nego sada, a računajte da svaki od njih dolazi sa podebelim buđelarom.

[Cornelius]

Grešiš Bobane. Njih ne zanimaju turisti, nego opšte tendencije u strip izdavaštvu. Oni samo manjim delom žive od tih koji dodju da prošetaju Festivalom. Najveća kinta stiže od prostora prodatog izdavačima, sponzora i državnih dotacija. Oni samo idu na ruku krupnim izdavačima.

[Boban]

A zamisli kada se sjate bogati japanski izdavači, željni da se predstave publici u Evropi, a Angulem postane još jedna rupa za prodor.
Cornelijuse, nikada ne potcenjuj moć novca.
A cinjenica je da su Japanci ludi za Zapadnim tekovinama i uopšte me ne bi čudilo da za koju godinu kupe ceo Angulemski festival.

[Cornelius]

Ne potcenjujem moć novca, ali ima tamo druga priča. Naime, bivši direktor Tevne otvorio je Festival za strane stripove objavljene u Francuskoj, jer je moralo da se podje ka novoj i mladjoj publici. Ima se utisak da mu je uspelo. On je prošle godine bio otpušten, jer je velika igra u pitanju. Država bi volela da pripoji Festival Muzeju stripa u Angulemu. Kako muzej pripada državi, tako bi i Festival, razradjen i svetski poznat, pripao državi. Znači, prodor stranog kapitala je strogo kontrolisan, baš da ne bi došlo do odlaska u tudje ruke. Strip je u Francuskoj veliki biznis i na njemu počiva 13 % čitavog izdavaštva (sve štampano na papiru).

[marlowe]

Dobro, ali cudno mi je da nesto sto je ipak davno izaslo moze da ujde u konkurenciju za strip godine.
To je kao da oskara dobije neki izgubljeni film D. W. Grffitha koji je pronadjen ove godine. Dobro, mozda preterujem, ali po meni nije daleko.
No, da se vratimo na pobednika i istaknemo opis iz nominacija.
Cisto da se gul zapali. A i ti Konrelijuse uze p[rvu nagradu i opet nista. Kupujes forum sada?

Non Non Bâ
by Shigeru Mizuki
As it remains an unknown territory of the 9th Art, the Japanese comic scene continues to surprise us by its diversity, through masterpieces of incomparable romantic strength. Along with Tezuka, Mizuki is one of the great manga authors and therefore, one of the greatest authors across the world... In the country story of Non Non Bâ, he achieves the perfect mix between The War Of The Buttons and Lovecraft's Cthulhu, interweaving Japanese archaic folklore (and its ancestral Animalistic rites) and contemporary social features. This pathos-less unidentified comic object cannot but stir you up.

[Axle Munshine]

Nisam iznenadjen ovim sto se desilo,vec razocaran,skroz...rekoh ja pre neki dan da mi se nikako ne dopada sto idu na ruku azijatima...Ako se ova tendencija nastavi,a verovatno hoce,mange ce za koju godinu progutati autenticni frankofoni strip,nas voljeni BD,eee...

[Axle Munshine]

Lepa vest za mene danas iz Angoulemea je da je ovogodisnji dobitnik Velike Nagrade Angoulemea(Grand Prix) sjajni Argentinac Jose Munoz,najpoznatiji po serijalu A.Sinner.Munoz ce dakle dogodine predsedavati festivalom,kao sto je to ove godine cinio i cini Lewis Trondheim,a koji je inace danas,po tradiciji sa balkona,objavio vest o ovogodisnjem laureatu.