Krent Able Entretien de Rat Devil

With one foot in comics and the other in contemporary art, Aidan Koch is definitely a polymorphic artist who draws, sculpts, works on fabric, publishes littles books and makes installations. In every one of her projects, she works with fragile things, connects fragments, suggests impressions — building with every stroke a narrative that is both elegant and cristalline.

The recent canonization of Yoshihiro Tatsumi and the reception of his comics in the Anglophone world is intimately linked to Adrian Tomine. Since the early 2000s, the cartoonist and illustrator has edited, in collaboration with Drawn and Quarterly, the English translations of Tatsumi’s works, from his early graphic novels to his short stories from the 60s and 70s to his latest productions. If Tomine is above all known for his own comics, he tried to avoid putting himself at the forefront of these editions. Looking back on this experience, he shares some of the choices and decisions that guided his editorial and design work on Tatsumi’s comics.

Most of us discovered Mochizuki Minetarô with Dragonhead, a story as desperate as it was claustrophobic, where the end of the world had rarely been so bleak. He’s back now with Chiisakobe, with a narrative both luminous and delicate — and deeply Japanese. From darkness to light, the story of a metamorphosis.

Since 2005, Sunday Press has committed itself to reprinting early-twentieth-century comic strips at the scale of the original color Sunday supplement. Just as the graphic novel was demonstrating the aesthetic and narrative importance of format, Peter Maresca was putting forward the same argument for his archival reprints. And so, Sunday Press demonstrated how pioneers of the comic strip approached the huge space of the newspaper page, and how readers would be confronted with it.

Around a hundred years ago, Sunday newspapers were home to the likes of Brainy Bowers, Simon Simple, Hugo Hercules, and Billy Bounce — hardly pillars in the pantheon of comic art. These and dozens of other characters were part of an era that has essentially been passed over by the numerous comics retrospectives of the […]

As the second millenium was coming to an end, New Zealand brought us Hicksville, a touching declaration of love for comics. But after three promising issues of Atlas, nothing — Dylan Horrocks had vanished, facing what turned out to be a long crisis of faith… until the (almost) surprise release of Sam Zabel and the Magic Pen. Or how he stopped worrying and learned to love comics — again.

With his strong imagery where profound unease meets platic perfection, Charles Burns is definitely an artist one recognizes at first sight. Often compared to David Lynch, he took a decade to complete Black Hole, and just brought to conclusion (with Sugar Skull) the trilogy that began with X’d out. From Burroughs to Tintin, portrait of a creator haunted by his obsessions.

I first encountered Dorénavant through the cartoonist Derik Badman. I asked him for a piece of writing or criticism in French that I could translate, and he mentioned Barthélémy Schwartz’s 73 Notes on Comics. I read it, and then I read it again. I was taken with it right away. First, I’d like to note […]