Home > Bart Beaty's Conversational Euro-Comics

Report from Fumetto 2006
posted April 10, 2006
 



Snow in Angouleme but sun, sun, sun in Luzern. Fumetto wrapped up its ten-day run on Sunday with some rain, but the previous three days gave visitors some wonderful weather in this picturesque lakeside Swiss town. As always, the festival was so much better than similar events that you really don't know where to start.

How about this for your quick description? The unannounced American cartoonists who just happened to show up simply to check things out were Paul Karasik, Richard McGuire, and Peter Blegvad. I mean, those are the guys that you just sort of crash into when you're talking to Anke Feuchtenberger, Yvan Alagbe, Thomas Ott or Stefano Ricci. So, you know, the place is well beyond cool. (Oh, and since I know Karasik blogs these things, let's all write to him and ask for the details of his Saturday night dinner at the Finnish squat with Blegvad. I keep hearing these strange, strange stories. C'mon, Paul, the world wants to know).

Because Fumetto places almost zero focus on selling comics, it's a festival that is all about the art. This year there were twenty-four (24!!!) comics art exhibitions around the town. Some highlights:

* Mike van Audenhove had an exhibition of original art in the lobby of the beautiful Hotel Schweizerhof, one of the festival's main sponsors, and the nicest hotel in the city. Van Audenhove is the author of the weekly "Zurich by Mike" strip, which runs in a Zurich magazine. Every single person in Zurich thinks that this is the greatest strip ever, and the collections sell really well. Every one else says "Um, I don't get it". They're that specific in their humor. Oh well, he also did some original pages about the hotel, which went up throughout the event.

* The other artist that a lot of the foreigners have trouble with is Bernd Pfarr, who passed away a couple of years ago while only in his forties. He's a great gag cartoonist who is well known throughout the German-speaking world, but not elsewhere. An exhibition of his Sondermann material was very nicely displayed, even when my German skills often failed me at the moment of the punchline.

* Anke Feuchtenberger's Hero and Leander story was displayed in the Kunstmuseum, which is right down on the water. This is an incredibly lovely building overlooking the lake, where the ceiling mirrors the water. Given that the story is all about diving, it was perfectly displayed on the top floor, offering a long drop to the lake below.

* Jonathon Rozen's exhibition got a lot of justified attention for its big graphics and disturbing images. His paintings and drawings are were fascinating to behold.

* Actus, from Tel Aviv, was back -- this time with their students. An exhibition of original Israeli comic art was coupled with a site-specific exhibition of drawings by Actus based on the Hebrew alphabet.

* Pierre Wazem, the Genevan who splits his cartooning between post-Pratt adventure work and autobiography, had a lovely exhibition of the autobiographical and travel comics that he's produced, including finished pages and drafts.

* Another artist who provided a lot of his working material was Andreas Gefe, whose photo references and rough sketches were so thorough that I got an entirely new appreciation for his work. Is there a word for the sadness that one feels upon seeing an Andreas Gefe painting that one would like to buy, and then noticing that it already has the little red sold dot on it? I'm sure the Germans have such a word

* It just goes on and on. Helge Reumann and Gunnar Lundkvist are doing a book together, and they showed original art and paintings from what will be the subtlest humor comic ever.

* Have I mentioned Springroll? The former Cockroach team of avant-gardists from Hong Kong were at Fumetto and installed original art and an entire history of their homeland. Plus toys! This may have been the most interestingly curated of all the shows

* Or maybe that award goes to the Geneva seriegraph students, who not only let you do your own silkscreening on site but installed their entire space with a large mural silk-screened in three dimensions (you had to borrow the glasses and then try to remember to not actually walk into the walls!). This was a must-see, and included a short three dimensional film as well.

* Then there was Karlien de Villiers' wonderful exhibition of work about her mother, Leo's expressionist work in the basement of the old prison, and Andrea Bruno's masterful, beautiful, wonderful black and white images at the Picasso Museum.

And that, as they say, was only the tip of the iceberg.

Once again, Fumetto outdistanced the pack. So much to see, so much to do, a well organized and, more importantly, thoughtful gathering of work. It's the type of festival that makes one think that comics are a significant art form after all. I left Luzern exhausted but also reinvigorated.

From Anke Feuchtenberger's Hero and Leander