The Secreter Robot Spy Factory: Bandes Dessinees

Saturday, March 28, 2009

Bandes Dessinees

Back in Singaporeland after a 2 and half week trip to France and Belgium to promote the new french edition of Malinky Robot published by Bao.

Our first stop was the BD Fugue comics store/cafe in Annecy...

Met up with fellow Flight artist Nicolas Bannister there (he happens to live in Annecy), and BD Fugue itself was a really cool store which kinda gave a sense of how differently the comics medium is treated in France. Here in Singapore big stores like Kinokuniya aside you just don't see comic stores like this, with a good balance of all sorts of comics - mostly they're just stocked full of mainstream superhero stuff, and the only one that kinda bucked the trend (Atomix Comix at Orchard MRT ) shut down bout a year ago.

Anyhow it was exciting to see that Matt Groening and Gilbert Shelton has been there too! :p

My dad was with me on the trip, partly to see Geneva, but mostly to make sure I didn't fall over too much given my dodgy achilles tendon. The cold weather and Too Much Comics seemed to take a toll though, with increasing frazzledness as the week went on, but it was good to see him chipper again when he headed home after a week :)

Before that though we went to Albertville to see lots of mountains and snow. In the pics above there's Bao editor Jean-Paul Moulin, plus two very excellent artists also on the book promo shindig, Chaiko from Shanghai and Tony Sandoval from Mexico...

I lugged back home lots of comics (wait 'bandes dessinees' i mean) i couldn't read back home, and i think my favourite French creators remain Nicolas DeCrecy and Manu Larcenet, whose "Ordinary Victories" was very good indeed...

Other places we did signings at was the Apoklyps in Paris, the Brusels Libairie Galerie in Brussels and the Salon De Livre, where i ran into Obelix and Dogmatix! :p

The above photo is from scannaruto.com, thats Chinese artist Ji Di on the left.

All that book signing left everyone kinda tired by the end of the Salon de Livre, but one highlight of the trip was a chance to go visit Borges' grave in Geneva...