ECC Cartoonbooks Club: The beach, cartoons, a gnome and Cowboy Henk: cartoons at the Belgian coast 2010

Last weekend I've visited the Knokke-Heist Cartoonfestival 2010. This year the exhibition is in a big nice pavilion on the beach of Knokke. An excellent location to introduce lots of people into the magnificent world of cartoons. I think the organizing committee took a good decision to do so.

main entrance

seaview from the back of the tent

exhibition flyer

Jan De Maesschalck section

Herman Van Rompuy cartoon by Karl Meersman

This year's main exhibition is the first 'Kabouter Wesley' retrospective. Kabouter (gnome) Wesley is a very popular comic strip and cartoon character here in Belgium (and Holland) and he attracts many young visitors to the cartoon exhibition. His creator, Jonas Geirnaert is guest cartoonist of the festival.

"I hate visitors! Go away!" (says Kabouter Wesley)

Kabouter Wesley video game

Another exhibition is of drawings and cartoons by guest cartoonist Jan De Maesschalck.
There are the two other exhibitions: a selection of the winners and selected work of the international cartoon competition (won by Ludo Goderis, Belgium) and the Press Cartoon Belgium and Press Cartoon Europe works.

Check the Press Cartoon Belgium and Europe 2010 catalogue.(ISBN 978-94-61-31002-6, 17,50 euro)

immigration cartoon by Agim Sulaj (La Stampa, Italy)

Ryanair cartoon by Marec (Het Nieuwsblad, Belgium)

This book offers a fascinating mix of the cartoons form Press Cartoon Belgium 2010 (98 cartoons from 22 Belgian artists) and 50 nominations for Press Cartoon Europe 2010 by 33 cartoonists form no less than 30 European countries. Together, these images provide a topical, hilarious and sometimes poignant look back on the stories that dominated the Belgian and European news in 2009.

In Bredene, 20km West of Knokke, you can visit the Cowboy Henk exhibition (for free). Cowboy Henk is an extraordinary comic book character created by Herr Seele (Peter van Heirseele) and absurd cartoonist Kamagurka.(Luc Zeebroek). Here are some photo impressions of the expo: