Roland Topor - Dessins

It took me a long time, but eventually I bought a book of the French surrealistic author, illustrator, scenarist, poet, and painter Roland Topor (1938-1997).

He is mainly known as an illustrator and graphic artist and famous for combining surrealism with black humor. His unique world is full of absurd and impossible situations, rather than creepy and non-sense.

The book title is Dessins (which means drawings) and was published by Albin Michel in 1968. If you look on online auction sites, you'll notice that relatively high prices are asked for books of Topor.

"Humour noir" is not my favourite style but of course of value in a collection. His drawings are quite strange and at first sight uncomprehendible (even at second sight).

In the clip below you can discover more drawings...

Learn more:
More drawings on Kunst Kabinett

Le Petit Monde de Pat Mallet / Wie das Leben so spielt ... The world of Pat Mallet: traveling

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...

Learn more:
Pat Mallet on our blog

Tony Houbrechts Exhibition Catalogue

For the opening of the exhibition of cartoonist Tony Houbrechts (°1942, St-Truiden, Belgium)  I wore my "Old School" T-shirt.
Into my opinion the cartoons by Tony Houbrechts (aka Toni or Cartoni)  are old school. This in a very positive way of course.

This is the wikipedia definition of the noun:

"In slang, "old school" or "old skool" can refer to anything that is from an earlier era or anything that may be considered "old-fashioned". The term is commonly used to suggest a high regard for something that has been shown to have lasting value or quality.
It may refer to: music, film, literature and art, computers and gaming, others"

Remember "high regard and lasting value or quality". The cartoons aren't old fashioned at all, they are just timelessly funny and drawn in a traditional way, without all that Photoshop stuff.

Tony Houbrechts

Learn more:
bio of Tony Houbrechts on ECC website

Ivailo Tsvetkov

The new ECC exhibition shows colourful cartoons of the Bulgarian cartoonist Ivailo Tsvetkov.
Time also to present his brand new cartoon and caricature book (2016).

"Ivailo Tsvetkov was born in 27th March 1964 in Sofia, Bulgaria.

He graduated at the Art School in Sofia in 1983. He worked as an artist/cartoonist in newspapers "Monitor" and "Telegraph" and in magazine "Tema". Ivailo Tsvetkov presented his artworks at several individual exhibitions at home and abroad. He also participated at countless collective exhibitions in many countries of the world.

Ivailo Tsvetkov took part at a number of national and international cartoon competitions and his artworks were awarded numerous prestigious prizes and honorable mentions (we can mention at least some of them: 1st Prize Angler, France 1993, Prize of Ministry of Culture, Gabrovo, Bulgaria 1999, Diplom of Excellence, Haifa, Israel 2002, Honourable mention, Kruishoutem, Belgium 2005, 1st Prize, Pisek, Czech Republic 2006, Master Prize, Master Cup Cartoon Biennial, China, 2007, Googlm Cartoon Contest, China 2008, among many others). Ivailo Tsvetkov is the President of FECO Bulgaria. He is living and working in Sofia, Bulgaria." (source: Fenamizah.com)

Ivailo is not only a good cartoonist, he loves football and likes a good beer.

On YouTube I found this video with pics and work of the artist:

Learn more:
Ivailo at Cartoon Gallery
Interview on CWN - Cartoon World News

"The Eighties - A Decade of Extremes" and GAL Gerard Alsteens

"The Eighties - A Decade of Extremes"  is an exhibition that presents a nuanced picture of the eighties with all its contrasts, cheerful and playful, but also hard and radical.

"The exhibition also recalls social and political events through a variety of materials, ranging from drawings by 'political cartoonist' GAL, vinyl records, magazines and movie excerpts."

GAL (Gerard Alsteens, °1940)  is the éminence grise of the Belgian political cartoonists.
Knack Magazine (2016,nr 23) published a 5 pages long interview with GAL.
In his cartoons you evidently experience his social engagement and contesting against everything what's wrong in the world.

The cartoonist is right when he states about his political cartoons of more than 30 years ago:
"I could publish them again today. I only need to replace the heads."

I looked in my bookcase and found this little book: "AAA...!  75 politieke tekeningen van GAL. (75 political drawings, 1977).
In fact it is not a book, but an edition of "kreatief" , a literary and art magazine.

If you watch the cartoons below, drawn in the seventies, you understand why you easily can change them into contemporary political drawings...

everything is possible again...

"le defi schaarbeekois"

You can visit the expo in the M HKA Museum in Antwerp from June 17 until August 7.

More about GAL on our blog:
GAL

Maître-chanteur: Scherper magazine June 2016

These are some more cartoons illustrating my article in Scherper, June 2016:

cartoon by Chas Addams

cartoon by Kazanevsky

cartoon by Kurtu

portrait by Karl Meersman