Zygmunt Zaradkiewics - Poland

I had the opportunity to meet Zygmunt Zaradkiewicz in the ECC, where he was as director of the Warsaw Cartoon Art and Caricature Museum during the Cartoon Museum Meeting 2012.

Zygmunt is a Polish graphic designer, illustrator, cartoonist and painter and as I talked with him, a warm and kind personality.

Zygmunt Zaradkiewics and Jan Oplinus (ECC, 8 Sept 2012)

Zygmunt was so kind to bring along a brand new catalogue of his exhibiton now in September. 

As a cartoon book lover, one of the most beautiful moments one can have is to open a book or catalogue from an artist you hardly know or knew before and then be overwhelmed by the quality of the drawings you see for the first time. 

Well, I had such a moment when I saw the work of Zygmunt Zaradkiewicz and I'm happy to be the owner now of an excellent catalogue. Even the lay-out, with gold-coloured pages is noteworthy. It's a pitty that I can't see the original art as Warsaw is a long way from where I live... 

An exhibition of  Zygmunt Zaradkiewicz`s works entiteld "narrative drawings form the distance and close-up" will open on the 25th of September, 2012 in Warsaw Cartoon Art and Caricature Museum of Poland. In this exhitbition, works from the 1972-2012 period, including those, awarded in major Polish and international competitions.  

Learn more:

Zygmunt Zaradkiewicz's website

Warsaw Cartoon Art and Caricature Museum (Facebook)

Warsaw Cartoon Art and Caricature Museum website

Cartoon Book Exhibition in Wevelgem (Belgium)

In September our library is bringing  the cartoon under attention and I was asked to exhibit some cartoon books of my collection.
I hope by this, people discover the world of cartoons and its cartoonists. Promoting the cartoon is one of the goals of ECC Cartoonbooks Club.

In a leaflet I made for the exhibition, I refer to a very nice quote of cartoonist Roger Penwill:

“The slogan of FECO is “Drawing the world together”, something nobly positive in our sadly troubled times. Being top banana of FECO has given me unique opportunities to meet cartoonists from all over the world. I have laughed, drawn, eaten, drunk and even danced with them but, most importantly, I have enjoyed their cartoon books.”
 (Roger Penwill, Assembled Cartoons, 2003)

Learn more:
A Busy Belgian cartoon week 

Braderie de Lille 2012 and cartoon books

The first weekend of September is a high day for me as a cartoon book collector.  Each year, on the first weekend of September, 2 million visitors invade the streets of Lille (France)  for the annual flea market, called in french the "Braderie".I'm always looking forward to attend this  Braderie de Lille, the biggest flee market in Europe. There's eBay and so many other modern ways to search for books on the internet, but in Lille you can go hunt for cartoon books the old fashioned way: walking through the streets, looking at hundreds of stalls,  searching in boxes, negotiating book prices,  and hoping to find something interesting... fun fun fun...

These are the books I found this year:

My friend Jean-Marie told me the books of Solo, Bonnot and the magazine 'Le Dessin d'Humour' are quite rare and hard to find. So I was lucky to find this books, during a 20 km walk through the streets of Lille.

Hereunder some other impressions:

450 eur... not my budget

some old magazines

200 euro each...  I didn't buy

you have to look a little bit closer here...

for other collectors

someone collecting this stuff?

books, books, books... where are the cartoon books?

Who buys the Queen?