Lewis Trondheim and Joann Sfar Announce Departure From L’Association

This is kind of tricky, and not just because of my usual lousy French. If I'm reading this piece at ActuaBD.com correctly, Lewis Trondheim and Joann Sfar have announced their departure from L'Association in a magazine called L'Express. Trondheim is a co-founder of the small and massively influential publisher along with Jean-Christophe Menu, Stanislas, Killoffer, Matt Konture and David B. David B left the company in 2005. This is probably a slightly bigger news story than usual because not only is Trondheim popular, he's the current Angouleme Festival president, one that is seen as emblematic for a generation of gifted cartoonists, so his decision to leave the company he co-founded in 1990 could be argued to be of a symbolic nature.

Where it gets kind of strange is in that original article's analysis. It seems to imply that cartoonists like Trondheim and Sfar, who have enjoyed measurable levels of success at larger publishing houses, need or at least are compelled to publish at such houses, many of whom developed imprints in aesthetic response to L'Association's rise, in order to receive their just due in areas like promotion and getting their work overseas and that this was probably a reason for the artists leaving L'Association. This analysis seems drawn less from statements by the two cartoonists than by their own take on general situations facing the market, a take which I believe -- and here I'm wandering pretty darn far from my base of knowledge, so bear with me -- is the basis of a long-standing disagreement between some members of the French press and L'Association's Jean-Christophe Menu.

Stepping in to say these implied reasons are not true is Joann Sfar himself, who says that he left for a more fundamental reason: creative differences, in that the kind of comics he did at L'Association were more in line with Trondheim's conception of and presence within the company than with Menu's. Stressing his affection for those who remain, Sfar goes on to say that he always published through other publishers, so this isn't a case of someone being brought up solely by one publisher and then leaving them for another, and that there's nothing wrong as far as he can see with L'Association's set-up in terms of being promoted and fairly remunerated. This is followed by what seems like a classic of-course-you're- right/but-you-gotta-admit type response from the magazine.

Any way you slice it, this certainly is a huge change at a very significant comics publisher.
 
posted 11:21 pm PST | Permalink
 

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