Pierre Feuille Ciseaux 4

In October of 2011 I was part of this really wonderful and unique comics residency in France called Pierre Feuille Ciseaux (Rock Paper Scissors). That was the third incarnation of the event, and it went into a hiatus in 2012. But Zak Sally, Julien Misserey and Barbara Schultz have brought it back. It's being held next August here in Minneapolis, in the week leading up to the Autoptic Festival and will be hosted by the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. The list of participants is... um, amazing. And international. I'm going to be helping organize an exhibition of some of the artists work, and helping facilitate the festivities a bit (oh, and I got to draw the little graphic, too). Can't wait.

In the Process

Monica Choy sent a bunch of artists little hand made accordion books to draw in a couple months ago. Here's a little snippet of what I did in mine.

(There's a little bit more of it on the banner thing on my  facebook page.) They're all in a show that just opened at Hellion Gallery in Portland. Go see.

"Tyranny is always better organized than Freedom."

Below is an illustration I did this week for a really nice multi-faceted piece by Philip Roth, in the Sunday Review section of the New York Times. It's a remembrance of a former teacher and friend who'd been a casualty of anti-communist witch hunts in the fifties, among other things. A few alternate versions follow the accepted one below.  

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A few last sketchbook spreads from Luzern, including the view from my room at the Hochschule, and a drawing of Stefano Ricci waiting for an enchilada.

Une Histoire Drole

If you feel like hearing what I sound like dubbed into French, this just went online. It's from an interview I did about Big Questions at Angouleme. The only parts I could understand were "histoire drole" and "metaphysique" and "minimaliste". Which just about sums it up, I guess. Especially with the revving motorcycle at the end. I'm going to close all my interviews like that from now on.

Fumetto part 3

Here's a last dispatch from Fumetto. The hub of the festival was in a giant old swimming pool with this big glowing waterslide looming over the festivities.

This giant mural was painted by folks from Ampel Magazin.

One night the diving platform was used as a sort of stage. The shadows were cool.

Across the room, on the windows of the same space Anke Feuchtenberger and Stefano Ricci painted this giant black and white (the white is actually buttermilk: easy to wash off afterward) mural sponsored by Medecins Sans Frontieres. It looked best at night, but I wasn't smart enough to get my pictures then (except in the background in the last one below). Anke and Stefano are hugely influential as teachers, small press publishers and artists. And also really sweet people. Apparently Blank Slate Books in the UK is finally planning to publish Anke's work in English. Which is long overdue. Hopefully their editions make it to the States.

Above is part of the very enthusiastic audience at the drawing battle held Thursday night. I made it to the final round but was beaten by Olivier Schrauwen's assistant, Siemen. Here, from the first round, is my one-minute rendition from prompts interpreted to me as "straight ahead" and "Earwax".

Below are a few photos from Olivier Schrauwen's exhibition. Hilarious, beautiful, weird and inventive.

Finally, a picture from the small press exhibit. There was a ton of gorgeous stuff here, but I was most delighted to see that Icinori had a table. These guys rule. Might try to show some of their stuff at Lula sometime.

That's all. I was sorry not to get any photos of Ward Zwart's exhibition. It was awesome as well. Thanks to everyone that made the show happen. It was great.

Fumetto 2013

The Fumetto festival in Luzern, Switzerland closes tomorrow night. Here are photos from a few of the exhibitions of which I was able to sneak photos. First is Marijpol.

In the same space as my own exhibit was work by Paula Bulling. Beautiful combinations of ink wash and pencil (and other media) telling a story about African refugee/immigrant workers in Germany as well as a series of watercolors recording conversations with Occupy activists in the U.S.

Here are some images from my exhibition in a tunnel under the train station. Originals from Big Questions are along the right as you come in. Prints from the forthcoming Rage of Poseidon are along the left.

The tunnel was cold. These guys were dedicated

Along with the smoke drawings on the ceiling there were some other curiosities in the tunnel if you went looking.