Bullets and Billets

A few weeks ago I bought the autobiographical book Bullets and Billets (Bruce Bairnsfather, 1916) on the annual WWI and WWII military book fair in Passchendaele (Belgium). In this book Bairsfather tells about his experiences in the trenches around Plugstreet and Ypres (Belgium), places only about 15 miles away from where I live.

In 2014 there will be a WWI cartoon exhibition in the ECC: I will be prepared...

You can find out more about Bruce Bairsfather in previous posts on our blog.

Learn more:

Free online download and e-book (Gutenberg Project)

Fruitcartoons - 10 year Eurofruitcartoonale Sint-Truiden

Tasting a good piece of fruit makes me think at the catalogue that celebrates 10 years of Eurofruitcartoonale (Sint-Truiden, Belgium) published earlier this year.
It's a selection out of more than 3000 Eurofruitcartoonale cartoons.

With the Eurofruitcartoonale, the city of Sint-Truiden promotes the fruit region Haspengouw.

Haspengouw (Dutch), is a region spanning the south of the Belgian province of Limburg, the east of the Belgian provinces of Flemish Brabant and Walloon Brabant, and the northwestern part of the province of Liège. The Limburgish portion contains the cities of Tongeren, Sint-Truiden, Bilzen and Borgloon, the Flemish Brabantian portion includes Tienen, Landen and Zoutleeuw, the Walloon Brabantian portion includes Jodoigne and the Liège portion contains among others Hannut and Waremme.

The fertile ground of this region's rolling countryside is mainly used for agricultural purposes, and particularly for fruit growing. Haspengouw is by far the main fruit growing area of Belgium.

cartoon by Carlo Albrechts

Learn more:
cartoonhappening2012.be
Eurofruitcartoonale 2011

Michael for president...

Tomorrow morning, we'll know who's the next president of the USA. The last weeks we saw almost nothing else but speeches by both presidential candidates in the news on television. Michael Kountouris drew some great  cartoons about this political  topic and published them in the book "politicosaurus" (Kasseris Publications, ISBN 978-960-98517-3-2, 2010). These cartoons really tell a lot about politics...

Me and Michael Countouris (ECC 2012)

Learn more:
www.michaelkountouris.com
Cartoon Ark
United States Presidential Election 2012

World Evidences - The Drawings of Angel Boligan

When the Angel Boligan exhibition in the ECC started, the brand new cartoon book of Angel  was about to appear. I was very impressed  by the cartoons of the artist and today I bought his book online. I'm longing for the postman untill he brings me the book at my home...

On Bado's blog, you  find an article about the book and Angel.

Te book can be bought on the Cartoon Ark website:


144 pages full illustrated with drawings by Boligán.  ISBN 978-960-973-402-8 . Size 17x24

Prologue by Antonio Antunes, Cartoonist & Director of World Press Cartoon.

We could call Boligán a “versatile cartoonist”, since his work consists of excellent cartoon editorials, remarkable caricatures and small comic strips of great quality.

His talent, though, is mainly reflected in his humorous drawings. He is dealing with everyday issues –love and disappointment, ecology, religion, speculation, new technologies and corruption.

With his subtle humour and great capacity for synthesis and with his original and sophisticated work, Boligán is a brilliant artist. In any case, we prefer to call Boligán a rising cartoonist.

Some impressions of the exhibition in the ECC:

picture taking... from left to right: Pol Leurs, Norbert van Yperzeele, Nikola IOA Hendrickx,
Luc Vermeersch, Luc Vernimmen, Angel Boligan, Rudy Gheysens, Jan Dufour, Cost

Yes, I bought the book... in Greece:

Learn more:
Boligan.com
Cartoon Ark
Bodo's Blog
Mondevidences on the ECC Blog

Le XXème siècle en 2000 dessins de presse

600 pages, 4,5 Kg, 175 cartoonists :   a brand new French editioral cartoon anthology is available,  and with 12 Bosc cartoons in it. (includes cartoons by  Dubout, Sempé, Reiser ,Cabrol, Moisan ,Faizant, Bosc, Cabu, Serre, Pètillon, Wolinski,Tim, etc, etc. ....)
Thanks Alain for letting us know.

"L'Anthologie sans équivalent du Dessin de Presse publiée chez "Arènes Editions" le 18 octobre 2012." (69 euro)

Watch diaporama

Learn more:
Bosc in Le XXe Siècle  on Bosc site (French)
Review (French)
Review on Bado's blog

Halloween 2012

Halloween always makes my think of Chas Addams and his Addams Family. Here's another Addams book: My Crowd (Tom Stacey LTD, London, 1971, second and enlarged ed. Hardcover, cloth, dustwrapper.) This cartoon book contains 192 drawings. I found this short review (a review of the edition published in 1991): "My Crowd is back by popular demand, just in time for the 20th aniversary of its first publication.With the most popular cartoons from his first six books, this cadaverous collection contains a wonderful assortment of goblins, ghosts, and gremlins, along with Addams' own famous "family" of characters that have made his name a household word."

Lear more:

More Chas Addams on ECC Cartoonsbooks Club blog

Homo Sapiens Cartoons by Bosc

A few weeks ago I found this little book by the great French cartoonist Jean-Maurice BOSC (1924-1973), one of my favourite cartoonists.  The book was published probably in 1960, but the cartoons still are funny after more than 50 years.

There was not only a Dutch edition, but the book was published in Germany (1957), Italy (1957) , and Sweden (1960).

Learn more about BOSC:
Bosc official site
More Bosc on our blog

Karl Meersman and craftsmanship

Last week I attended a lecture by Karl Meersman in my home town Wevelgem. It was a very interesting evening  not only to meet with Karl, but also to listen to a passionate artist. Karl told about his work, his ideas, his style and his technique. Karl has much  respect for craftsman and craftsmanship.   A craftsman is an artist skilled in the techniques of an art or craft.
Karl learned his skills, e.g. his fine watercolor (aquarelle) technique,  from different old masters and academy teachers whom unfortunately all are dead now. You hardly can learn this techniques at present  because there are or no masters  left  who can teach these unique techniques.

Karl's art is made the old fashioned way, i.e. without using computers and Photoshop. All his drawings are unique pieces. As a real craftsman Karl is proud to present the public drawings of the highest quality. For that reason Karl wants to show only original drawings in his exhibitions. By doing so the public can enjoy the works the best way and discover the finest details. Colors and lines of original drawings are pure and not deformed as you can expect of prints or scans of the original.

I agree with the tendency that craftsmanship, pure products, honest products, products with character made with love,  are more and more appreciated in our modern computerized world.

Karl's work and humor fits perfect in this framework!

The most recent book with Karl's work is the exhibition catalogue Ave Eva (Roularta Books, ISBN 9789086794331):

Since this week you can watch these videos Karl Meersman put online on YouTube. Interesting!

About the Ave Eva exhibtion (Gent, 2012):

TV Interview: Karl Meersman on Belgian television (DeRedaktie.be - 5/2/2012)

Learn more:
www.karlmeersman.be
www.karlmeersman.be/video
Report of the lecture by Jeroen
Karl Meersman on our Blog
Videozone

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