I met the kindhearted cartoonist and caricaturist Saman Torabi at the opening of the Euro-Kartoonale 2017 in Kruishoutem.
He was awarded an honorable mention for his cartoon with the ghost under the shower. A funny cartoon indeed. When I asked Saman to sign for me in my catalogue I learned he is an architect. Drawing cartoons is a hobby for him and it makes him happy making people laugh with his cartoons.
He does not earn money with his cartoons, he told me, but he draws with love for the cartoon art. His art is digitally made with the help of Photoshop techniques. He has no own cartoon book, but he was so kind to offer me a nice set of his cartoons and caricatures beautifully printed on hard paper.
I like his cartoons. Hope you too...
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.
Summer means traveling, holidays, relaxing...
Browsing through some books of the great French cartoonist Pat Mallet (1941 - 2012 ) , I present you some nice cartoons to get in the mood of vacation...
Two cartoons were published in "Le Petit Monde de Pat Mallet" (Dargaud, France 1975), the other you can find in "Wie das Leben so spielt" (Cartoons Krüger, Austria, 1983).
Traveling with Pat Mallet:
And to end: this multi panel cartoons is hilarious (into my humble opinion)
Don't try this when you are in London...
Last week I enjoyed myself looking in the 2001 catalogue of the Euro-Kartoenale.
It reminded me at one of the basic principles of cartoons, cartoons as funny drawings. Most of the cartoons in this catalogue are very witty. After a day of work, looking in such a catalogue is really relaxing... People with symptoms of stress shouldn't practise some kind of "mindfulness", I'd rather advice to watch cartoon books. It really helps.
Reading gag cartoons books is a no-nonsense approach to fighting stress... That's my humble opinion.
Maybe yo can try this nice catalogue of the Euro-Kartoonale 2001 (Kruishoutem). This catalogue is still available in the ECC.
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...
