Home > Bart Beaty's Conversational Euro-Comics

Dateline: London
posted April 7, 2005
 



I found myself in London last week for six days, mostly holed up at the Society for Cinema and Media Studies conference, where I was giving a paper on Canadian television in my real-life role as a professor of media studies. The Society, which only recently changed its name to include Media as well as Cinema, had its boundaries pushed somewhat with a panel on comics. Not comics and film, just comics, which is a bold step for the world's oldest gathering of film snobs. MIT's Henry Jenkins chaired the panel and shared some new work that he's doing on genre and superheroes, along with papers on Stan Lee, Cerebus, and one by Scott Bukatman on Winsor McCay and chronophotography. It was one of the more interesting panels I attended over the four days of the conference, and one of the better attended, which gives me some hope that this might not wind up being a one-off for the Society.

One of the highlights of the trip was a trip to the Whitechapel Gallery in London's east end to catch the Robert Crumb show, which opened last Friday. The show occupies the second floor of the Whitechapel, with more than 100 pieces of original art. The show itself was very similar to Crumb's participation in the Carnegie International in Pittsburgh last year, and nowhere near as comprehensive as last year's retrospective at the Museum Ludwig in Cologne. Nonetheless, this show did feature an unusual number of complete stories, and is well worth going out of your way to see.

One of the other highlights of the trip was taking in the launch party for Alex Baladi's Frankenstein: Now and Forever at the Horse Hospital in Bloomsbury. Apparently I wrote this about Frankenstein: Encore and Toujours; "[Alex] Baladi takes more risks and strives to achieve more than many of his contemporaries, and that is what makes his work so exciting.... Here he demonstrates that he is one of the most challenging cartoonists on the scene today. A dark and disturbing work". I say, apparently, since that's what I'm quoted as saying (or, rather, The Comics Journal is quoted, as I have been tragically displaced by my institutional role. Alas! Woe is me!) on the back of the English translation.

Having now read the English translation, I'm convinced that, if anything, I might have undersold the book. Dark and disturbing certainly hits it on the head. Baladi's book is about two women in Ingolstadt, one depressed and the other insane. The story of their relationship is interwoven with the story of Frankenstein's monster, a being created in this same city. It is a fascinating use of a literary source, not a retelling of the story, but an amplification of the themes in the form of a reflection on the inspiration -- in this case, the city.

Baladi is a really powerful artist, with bold visual style that is wonderfully suited for a work such as this one. He conveys a sense of unease through his characterization with apparent effortlessness. This seems so at odds with the man himself, who has a reserved, easy-going attitude, very much on display at the opening. I asked Baladi if he was still in Geneva, and he remarked that he couldn't keep living there after writing a book like this one about the town. Probably true. Instead, he's decamped to Berlin where he's working on new projects.

Three days later I had lunch with Baladi's English publishers, Nadia and George of Typocrat Press, around the corner from the Tate Modern on a beautiful spring day. Their next project is the jaw-dropping 676 Apparitions of Killoffer, by Killoffer. This is one of the best comics of recent years, and an absolute visual stunner. The translation is almost finished, although proving a bit finicky owing to Killoffer's love of unusual phrasing. After that? Big plans, including more books, an anthology, trips to SPX and more.

Other than that, my comics reporting had few other outlets. A trip to Gosh netted a half dozen mini-comics from New Zealand (as yet unread in my bags) and not much else. Too quick a trip when one factors in the unrelenting pace of an academic conference, particularly one without lunch breaks!

Next stop: Geneva -- art openings, public lectures, paint fumes! Back in a day or two.