I dagens udgave af Information kan man læse min anmeldelse af ugens med spænding ventede nummer af Charlie Hebdo med den bemærkelsesværdige forside ovenfor. Jeg skrev teksten til en meget stram deadline, så bær over med den lidt stakåndede præsentation, den manglende reflektion og en lidt brutal redigering. Jeg håber at skrive noget mere dybdegående snart.
Archive for the 'comics and cartooning' Category
Charb (RIP) channels Dostoyevsky's "Grand Inquisitor"
Today witnessed a mockery of the values of human dignity and community, fundamental concepts in all the major religions, not least Islam. It has already been repeated much today, but this really does feel like an attack on us all, and not just in the West, but much more broadly.
My thoughts are with the families and loved ones of the victims, while my hopes are with our societies to handle this outrage in the right way. There must be a robust response to the perpetrators and, more broadly, the mindset that motivated them, but ultimately the solution is more democracy and more freedom of expression for everyone, not less. Insha’Allah.
I ugens bogtillæg til Information kan man nu læse min anmeldelse af Craig Thompsons storværk Habibi, nu udgivet på dansk af Fahrenheit. Der er blevet redigeret lidt i teksten, men den er stadig ok. Læs den her.
Ønsker du mere om Habibi, kan den her 2011-serie af artikler fra Hooded Utilitarian anbefales. Jeg selv bidrog også til den med en mere grundig tekst end ovenstående.
Lige her op til jul står min anmeldelse af Tardi’s Fandens til krig at læse i Information. Læs den tegneserie — det er mesterens måske definitive holmgang med værkets genkommende temaer. Årets danske tegneserieudgivelse.
Den landede for nogle uger siden, men det gør den ikke mindre aktuel. Den Store Storm P.-bog er et overflødighedshorn af den danske humorists bedste værker — valgt på tværs af tid og genre. Den dækker hele karrieren og alt fra ungdommens grove satire og ekspressionistiske maleri over banebrydende tegneserier som De tre små mænd og Nummermanden og Den kulørte side til klassiske plakater og ‘opfindelser’ og ikke mindst, alderdommens flue-bevingede visdomskondensater. Og meget mere.
Bogen er redigeret af Steffen Rayburn-Maarup fra forlaget Aben Maler i samarbejde med Storm P.-museet og Alvilda, der som bekendt i disse år har gang i en større udgivelsesrække med Storm P. Og jeg har haft æren at skrive forordet, hvilket trak tænder ud, men endte med at være en fornøjelse. Storm P. er svær at skrive om, fordi hans geni er så svært at indkredse, og fordi han bare er sjovere en dig og mig og hvad vi kan finde på at sige om ham. Men jeg har i efterhånden en del år gerne villet prøve kræfter med opgaven og her kom den så. Jeg havde givet mig selv alt for dårlig tid til at producere det gennemarbejdede essay, jeg førhen havde forestillet mig at ville skrive, men sådan er virkeligheden jo og jeg endte med at være godt tilfreds, selvom meget (‘i en perfekt drømmeverden’, som min mand Thorhauge altid siger) kunne have været bedre.
Men hul idet, det er Storm Ps. fantastiske og usigeligt morsomme tegninger det handler om, og dem har den her bog in spades. Læs den.
PS — bogen er også planlagt til udgivelse i USA, hos kvalitetsforlaget Fantagraphics. Hvornår ved jeg ikke, men du kan læse mere om det her.
Fra Rybergs Gigant
I ugens Bog(Forum)tillæg til Information kan man læse min anmeldelse af en håndfuld nye danske udgivelser med forbavsende mange fællestræk. Mit postulat er, at de er udtryk for en bredere tendens blandt tidens yngre tegneseriemagere, nemlig at ny, personligt vinklet tilgang til de traditionelle genrer.
De anmeldte tegneserier er Lars Kramhøft og Tom Kristensens Inficeret, Tatiana Goldbergs Anima, Glenn Augusts Lava og Rune Rybergs Gigant.
Læs anmeldelsen her. Men bemærk venligst, at overskriften og rubrikken (som det er reglen med avistekster) ikke er mine.
I dennes uges bogtillæg til dagbladet Information kan man læse min anmeldelse af Søren Glosimodt Mosdals tegneserie Fimbulvinter, om Erik den Røde, Leif den Lykkelige og overgangen fra den gamle til den nye orden i vikingetidens Grønland. Et bjergtagende billeddigt, men også noget af en torso, der lader de løse ender flagre. Anmeldelsen kan læses her.
This review is was originally published in Danish at Rackham in 2004 and is reprinted here as a supplement to the short essay Yvan Alagbé’s comics that I’ve just published over at The Comics Journal.
The French-Belgian publishing structure Éditions Frémok, or FRMK for short, has now been in the game for ten years, initially separately, as Belgian Frémok and French Amok, and since 2002 together. They have managed one of the most consistent and challenging publishing programs in avant-garde comics. They have unerringly emphasized the boundary-breaking, the experimental, and often fine arts-oriented comics by some of the most innovative creators in Europe, people such as Thierry van Hasselt, Olivier Marboeuf, Dennis & Olivier Deprez, Stefano Ricci, Silvestre, Kamel Khélif, Vincent Fortemps, Michael Matthys, Dominique Goblet, Martin tom Dieck, Nabile Farès, Aristophane, and the Dane Søren Mosdal.
Their publications are unequivocally high art and as such expose themselves to criticism on two flanks. One is the risk of pretentiousness and postulated profundity, the other is the inevitable comparisons with other forms of visual art, comparisons which tend to put this kind of sequential painting to a disadvantage. Unsurprisingly, FRMK’s publication history is one of precarious and not always successfully negotiating these difficulties, but the fact that they persist is entirely to their credit. It is refreshing to see somebody uncompromisingly asserting their belief in the potential of the medium to fathom the wide expressive range that has traditionally been the domain of other media. Continue reading ‘Soul on Fire’
I denne uges bogtillæg til dagbladet Information står min anmeldelse af Rikke Villadsens udfordrende tegneserie Et knald til at læse. Check den her.
Har netop anmeldt sæsonens bedst modtagne, bedst sælgende og uden sammenligning mest overvurderede tegneserie, Henrik Rehrs Gavrilo Princip, for Information. Du kan læse anmeldelsen, med titlen “En dans i havregrød”, her. Billedet ovenfor er ikke gengivet i anmeldelsen, med det er det, titlen konkret henviser til.
Nikoline Werdelin for the win!
It’s been a week and half since the big show, but I still think this year’s Ping awards deserve a few words for what little international audience this site still has after months of hibernation.
The Ping awards is an annual set of awards given to comics in Denmark in the manner of the Angoulême Fauves or the American Eisners. Founded by the Danish Comics Council, the awards are a revivification of a differently conceived, hall of fame-type award of the same name which was bestowed on single creators through the early nineties, as well as of the awards programme hosted by the comics biennial Komiks.dk from 2004-2010. The Pings are named after one of the best known characters created by one of the greatest Danish cartoonists, Robert Storm Petersen, aka. Storm P. (1882-1949). Continue reading ‘Boom PING PING’
For et par uger siden blev min anmeldelse af Johan F. Krarups topunderholdende Cliffs monologer fra sidste år offentliggjort. Check den her.
The week in review
OK, I’ll try again. As should be evident, I’m not finding much time to blog these days, but I refuse to let go entirely, and who knows if times might not turn more propitious, Bunker-wise in the not-too-far future? Also, the National Gallery internet presence, which I’ve previously hinted at, is also still in the works. So, not much to say right now, but I have some links to share!
Passing the mantle: Thomas Thorhauge and Stine Spedsbjerg at the Danish Comics Council general assembly in March
It happened a few weeks ago, but I figured I should still note it here: we have a new chairman, or rather chairwoman, of the Danish Comics Council. Elected at the general assembly on 18 March, Stine Spedsbjerg succeeds my pal Thomas Thorhauge who had decided to step down. Stine is a successful online cartoon diarist and earns her keep in advertising. She’s enormously enterprising and resourceful — I can’t think of a better person to take over.
The Danish Comics Council was founded in 2009. I was part of the founding group along with a diverse group of comics professionals, and have sat on the board since. Considering that we have had no funding apart from the annual fee paid by members, it’s been a productive five years: we’ve had a hand in the establishment of a state-approved cartoonist’s programme (BA, ‘graphic storytelling’) at the Animation Workshop in Viborg, Denmark — the first of its kind in Denmark; we’ve managed to place the semi-private Comics Museum archive with a state-recognized institution, the Storm P. Museum in Copenhagen, which secures it for the future in terms of preservation, collection, expansion, research and facilitation; we’ve created an comics award, the Ping, given annually to cartoonists in a number of categories; we’ve undertaken annual registration of all comics published in Denmark, published annually in a small compendium; we’ve arranged two conferences at the University of Copenhagen, one of which helped stimulate the establishment of the Nordic Network for Comics Research (NNCORE): we’ve partnered with the ambitious Danish comics biennial Copenhagen Comics; we’ve brought comics to wide audiences through live cartooning and other activities; and quite a lot more.
While Thomas takes a well-deserved breather (though remaining at the Council’s board), there is plenty for Stine to get up to. The Comics Council is still essentially an unfunded organisation and other affiliated groups such as Copenhagen Comics will also depend on more steady sources of funding to survive — the hope is eventually to secure larger, ongoing partnerships with possible patrons, as well as with the Danish State to help secure an institutional infrastructure for Danish comics in the future. And I know Stine also has ambitions for preaching the comics gospel to a much wider audience than is currently the case.
Here’s to the next half-decade!
Photo: Henrik Conradsen
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Charlie Hebdo at The Comics Journal
I recently published a review of the latest, 7 million print run-issue of Charlie Hebdo over at The Comics Journal. I have a second article, which delves further into the contentious and complicated issues surrounding the massacre, the cartoons and journalism of the magazine, and a bit of everything else, so stay tuned.