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?

Cartoon book exhibition

In September our local library is putting the cartoon in the picture. There will be an exhibition of drawings by Karl Meersman and I was asked to present some cartoon books to the public. The big task is to choose which books I'll put in the exhibition. The place is limited, and the book selection will be tough.

The idea of promoting cartoons in libraries is fine. In Flanders (Belgium) where I live most local libraries have were high quality standards,especially of course the library of Wevelgem ;-) ... and Kruishoutem.

I'm curious how cartoons are presented in libraries in other places and countries. Please feed the discussion on our facebook page! What kind of cartoon books do you find in your town's library?

Cartoons and Crowds - part 2

Browsing through his collection of cartoon books, Jean-Marie found  some other cartoonists we can link with crowds.

■ The Frenchman Sempé  has produced a number of drawings of crowds. But for him the important thing is not always in the mass of people, but often in the singularity of a single character.

Sempé : Rien n’est simple (Denoël, Paris 1962)

Sempé: Women and Children First! (Perpetua, London 1962)

■ The German artist Hans-Georg Rauch took advantage of crowds by using them as a material.

http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans-Georg_Rauch
http://rogallery.com/Rauch/Rauch-bio.html
http://www.hans-georg-rauch.de/espresso/index.html

Rauch : Dessins à regarder de près (Planète, Paris 1969)

Rauch : Rauchzeichen (Nebelspalter, Rorschach 1969)

Rauch : La majorité silencieuse (Hachette, Paris 1974)

Rauch : H. G. Rauch. Dessins. L’œuvre gravé / Zeichnungen. Das grafische Werk / Drawings. The Graphic Works (Les Presses de la Connaissance, Paris 1976) This book is a catalogue of exhibitions that took place in Bruxelles, New York, Ottawa, Boston, San Francisco, Montreal, Türbingen, Gent, Stockholm, Colmar Bourges, Oslo, Bochum, Osnabrück, Baden-Baden, Houston, Paris

■ About Dubout, we can say that from the 20's he produced many drawings showing accumulations of objects or characters.

Dubout : Dubout. 200 dessins (Michèle Trinckvel, Paris 1974)

 He set a unique record with his drawing showing the siege of La Rochelle (1627-1628). Knowing there were 5000 besiegers, he decided to keep strictly to this number. To find out how far he was completing his composition, he wrote down on a blackboard the number of characters terminated.

■ Another example is the work of Jacques Lerouge (http://jacques.lerouge.free.fr/)

Related article:
Cartoons and Crowds - part 1

Learn more about:
Jacques Lerouge
Hans-Georg Rauch
Albert Dubout
Jean-Jacques Sempé

Cartoons and crowds - part 1

Some cartoonists and illustrators are fascinated by drawing crowds. Many supernumeraries appear in their drawings.
Martin Handford  became famous with his "Where is Wally?" books. Who can find Wally amongst all the other people in the drawing?

Hereunther a French version Charlie Remonte Le Temps (Librairie Gründ 1988, ISBN 2-7000-4111-9)

Compare this scene with the cartoon of Loup below... same location, other vision...

and a Spanish one Donde esta Wally? (Ediciones B. Barcelona, 1990, ISBN 84-406-1409-8).

From the creators of Where's Bin Laden? there's is the album Where's Elvis and many others... Illustration are by Daniel Lalic.  (New Holland  Publ. Australia, 2009, ISBN 9781741107029).

Can you recognize Elvis, James Dean, Eva Peron and seven gold musical instruments in the drawing above?

More in the cartoon tradition, there is the work of the popular French cartoonist Jean-Jacques Loup.
Carnet de Croquis (Glénat France, 1988, ISBN 2-7234-0876-0) is an example of his work. Loup drew many cartoons for jigsaw puzzles, that even are better examples of cartoons of crowds,like the orchestra.

One of my favourite cartoonists, Roger Blachon published Enfin Seuls (Cherche Midi Edit.,2001, ISBN 2-86274-903-6). He has mastered the art of composing large frescoes with hundreds of characters in as many funny and hilarous situations.

Learn more:
In our next article: some more examples of crowds in cartoons

UK Political Cartoon - www.politicalcartoons.co.uk

Dr. Timothy Benson informed me about the renewed website of the UK Political Cartoon Society.
The site looks great and I'm fond of the Cartoon Books section. I'm  feelling like a kid in a candy shop when I'm seeing all those nice cartoon books!

On the site you can admire and buy new and used cartoon books. Some are rare to find. Here are some examples of books (I own) you can buy on the site:

Learn more:
The Political Cartoon Society