Last weekend I was present at the prize award ceremony of the Euro-Kartoenale 2017. As always it was a fine evening and we had the opportunity to see a fine collection of cartoons about the soul theme.
This great variety of interpretations can be seen in the ECC exhibition and of course in the catalogue.
The catalogue costs 15 eur and can be bought in the ECC or the ECC E-shop.
Sometimes there is more than cartoon books. I found this exhibition brochure recently. If you like the work of a cartoonist, even brochures are worth collecting, like this one of the great BRASSER. This brochure counts 20 pages of which half are filled with advertisements. Fortunately, some advertisements are for cartoon and graphic services. André Nollet and Emiel De Bolle were good friends of Brasser and they are still good Flemish cartoonists.
No,he's not the CEO of brewery AB Inbev... he's Carlos Brito the cartoonist (and he likes the Belgian beer) .
Carlos Brito was born in 1943 in Lisbonne and has lived in France since 1963. Cartoonist since 1980, he was already involved in several Portuguese publications during the « Carnation Revolution » in 1974/75. Since then he has published, among others, for Le Monde Diplomatique, La vie ouvrière, Les Nouvelles Littéraires, L’Événement du Jeudi, Politis and L’Humanité. He has drawn for Le Monde from 1983 to 2011 and for Le Canard Enchaîné from 1987 to 2012. He is currently free of any editorial attachment but he is still an active cartoonist (source: Cartooning for peace)
Last Saturday I had the opportunity to meet the artist at the vernissage of his exhibition in the ECC. It was a very emotional moment when, in his speech, he referred to the Cartoon(H)Art for Brussels exhibition (pop-up exhibition in the ECC , tribute to the terrorist attacks in Brussels om March 22 2016). He has lost friends in the terrorist attack on Charlie Hebdo, and he knows as no other the high value of freedom of expression where we fought and still fight for since the French revolution.
I spotted this cartoon. It was drawn some time ago when former French president Sarkozy announced "the end of fiscal paradises". With the Panama Papers this cartoon is actual again. Watch attentively the logo the Belgian newspaper De Tijd uses for the articles about the Panama Papers...
De Tijd newspaper
Carlos Brito
Hereunder a short impression of the opening speech...
A good opportunity to acquire some more cartoon catalogues are the ECC exhibitions. It was a good idea of the ECC staff to make a limited edition catalogue of the work and artists shown in the exhibition.
The current exhibitions shows work of Jerzy Gluzek (Poland ) and of a selection of Croation cartoonists.
I really like the work of the polish cartoonist and illustrator Jerzy Gluszek.
Gabriela Dragun wrote about the art of Jerzy Gluzek here.
Jerzy Gluszek and Rudy Gheysens
Bijschrift toevoegen
In Croatia there is a florishing cartoon scene as you can see in the exhibition.
This year, the 54th cartoon festival of Knokke-Heist invites you from July 5 until Sept 2 to the wondrous universe of Superheroes. Saturday July 4 was the opening of the festival and lots of Superheroes were present indeed. The opening was disturbed by an incident on the street in front of the press tent. We witnessed an intervention by Superman himself...who save a kidnapped girl.
Since the cartoon exhibition moved to an agreeable 900 m² cartoon pavilion at the Knokke beach, no efforts were too great to make cartoons more attractive for a broader public. For that reason, the festival has expanded its view on cartoons. You can not only enjoy the gag cartoons from the Knokke- Heist Golden Hat Cartoon Contest and press cartoons of the Press Cartoon Belgium and Press Cartoon Europe Contest, but now you can meet with superhero cartoon characters.
Belgian comic strip heroes Suske & Wiske and Jommeke
- they certainly can compete with the superheroes from abroad
some superheroes attended the opening for the press...
At first sight I was a bit sceptic, but I was wrong. This was because I am a bit 'old school' concerning cartoons: good cartoons without captions are for me the real stuff. Let's say the kind of cartoons the festival promoted since its start in 1962. It is clear that the exhibition of Press Cartoon Belgium and Europe, together with the cartoons of the Cartoon Festival should give the public a view on the contemporary cartoon scene in Belgium and abroad. On one side, the gag cartoons mostly show us a timeless humor, the editorial cartoons on the other hand express humor and satire on current issues. But when you look good, you'll notice in both genres often the same symbols, caricatures, stereotypes or symbols.
Superman came to Knokke and defeated some bad guys...
The Superhero theme for the Cartoon Festival is quite cool and I'm sure it will be very successful. The organizers hope that last year's number of visitor's (more than 83.000) will be exceeded. Superheroes are very attractive to children, they adore them, and weren't we all children before? My friend Haswel Kunyenje told me some time ago when we wanted to set up a cartoon project in his country Malawi, the children over there are very fond of Superheroes like Spider-Man or Superman. Children all over the world are the same: they adore Superheroes.
I was taken by surprise by the creative set-up of the exhibition with its integration and combination of superhero cartoons. Curator Christophe Floré and his team have done a great job and produced a magnificent exhibition for young and old. The idea to reproduce a batmobile (The Tumbler) and position it in front of the cartoon pavilion shows the creativity of the exhibition team. Believe me, this is will be one of the finest attractions on the Belgian coast this summer. Who wouldn't have a picture of his children or himself sitting in that mobile? (and it produces an appropriate sound!)
Back to the exhibition. The journey starts with the legendary ancient Greeks and the Trojan Horse (superheroes are of all times, starting with Achilles and Odysseus) and ends with a glimpse of the heroes' future. You walk into a dark alley, where the American Comic heroes protect you from all calamities. Find out in the lab why heroes are so exceptional. Prins Boerke, by the hand of Pieter De Poortere, tells you how it was to be a hero in the Middle Ages. Our Belgian family comic heroes bring us closer to home but often also in exotic places. More than 440 humorous and adventurous cartoons can be admired.
Entering the exhibition you'll notice a superhero poem. "Cartoons and poetry fit together and have some similarities: they are often published on the same page in a newspaper, they are to the point, and both art forms have a big brother: poems have literature, cartoons have comic strips" says curator Christophe.
curator Christophe Floré
Starting with the ancient Greeks
For the Marvel and DC Comics section (Batman, The Hulk, The Avengers...) , the makers of the exhibition consulted the people of Brainfreeze.be! (a Belgian website dedicated to comics, games, superhero stuff...). They would be sure that every detail was all right. Comic adepts are not amused when you write the name of their heroes wrong. An example: you always write Spider-Man with hyphen! I met the people of Brainfreeze and they are quite cool. I like people with a passion.
The exhibition does not forget our own Belgian superheroes Jommeke and Suske and Wiske. We know them of their beloved comic strips, but this time they are into cartoons... In other rooms we notice some other ingredients for a good hero's story: weapons and gadgets, a weird adversary and the fight between good and evil. "The battle is not only fought between superhero and villain, but every superhero fights against himself and evil forces in his own mind. We let the visitor think and let him make a choice between the bad and the evil", says the curator.
A good example of this is the Star Wars Saga and Anakin versus Luke Skywalker. Some scenes out of the movie are reproduced in Lego. Villains are imprisoned in a safe and in a lab we can see how gadgets are developed. There is even a time machine to go to back to the Middle Ages, where cartoonist Pieter De Poortere shows his creature Boerke in a parody of King Arthur and the Knights of The Round Table...
In his introduction to the exhibition, council member Jan Morbee emphasised the importance of superheroes for children. For that reason, different activities for children are available: hero cards, a hero game, a photo booth and superhero workshops. Very remarkable are the many smart Lego scenes in the exhibition that show superheros in action. Lego Certified Professional Dirk Denoyelle and the Lego club did a great job. An good example of the use of Lego is a recontruction in Lego of the ancient Greek Minotaur labyrinth. In the labyrinth you spot the Minotaur, but also Pac-Man. This refers to the evolution of archetypes through the ages, until they pop up in modern game culture.
Jan Morbee
cartoon by Lectrr and Steve
cartoon by Charlotte Dumortier
cartoon by Joris Snaet
cartoon by Erwin Vanmol
Mr Karel Anthierens, founder of Press Cartoon Belgian and Europe told us about the nominees of the 2014 contest, of which the cartoons are shown in the exhibition. His dream is to once have a Press Cartoon World.
All this may not let us forget that there was the prize winner's ceremony of the Golden Hat, the oldest cartoon contest in the world in which participated 651 cartoonists form 74 countries.
Conslusion:
The organizers succeeded to build a very attractive and interesting cartoon exhibition for young and old.
I hope that by entering the Superhero exhibition all those visitors won't forget to enter the other two parts of the exhibition. Let them discover the cartoons of all those other Superheroes armed with only pencil and paper and who aren't that famous: the cartoonists who publish their cartoons in the press (sometimes with risk for their own lives) and the other gag cartoonists, real Superheroes, that with their Super Powers make us smile. Humor is one of the greatest Super Powers of mankind.
PS: And do you know who's my Superhero, besides all those cartoonists? That's Bicycle Repair Man of course...
