Tuesday, May 09, 2006
Laurent Melikian
Many thanks are due to Laurent, one of France's premier writers on BD, for his superb article on AK Comics (and other lesser Middle Eastern brands!) in this month's 'L'Echo des Savanes'. This is France's best review magazine for comic books and animanga. It also has a pretty neat line in political satire too - George Bush is not a big favourite of the editors! The magazine - which has origins in the days of post-68 cool - scampers happily along a line of 'cold humour and hot love'.
Yes, some of the scripts are a little risque for the Anglo-Saxon market perhaps - but, hey, this is France, right?
Laurent's article is absolutely first-class and the page layout is exactly what you would expect from editors with 30 years experience in the field of graphic design. I'm going to cut it out and stick it on my wall!
You can order 'L'Echo des Savanes' here:
http://www.viapresse.com/via2005/pages-new/catalogue_detail.asp?context=abo&titre=1209
France is lucky of course to have one of the world's biggest comic book industries - they usually sell as softback albums and the market is huge. Japanese manga is also very popular.
You can find out more about Bande Desinee (BD) here:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/global/main.jhtml?xml=/global/2004/08/16/expatliv.xml
Many thanks are due to Laurent, one of France's premier writers on BD, for his superb article on AK Comics (and other lesser Middle Eastern brands!) in this month's 'L'Echo des Savanes'. This is France's best review magazine for comic books and animanga. It also has a pretty neat line in political satire too - George Bush is not a big favourite of the editors! The magazine - which has origins in the days of post-68 cool - scampers happily along a line of 'cold humour and hot love'.
Yes, some of the scripts are a little risque for the Anglo-Saxon market perhaps - but, hey, this is France, right?
Laurent's article is absolutely first-class and the page layout is exactly what you would expect from editors with 30 years experience in the field of graphic design. I'm going to cut it out and stick it on my wall!
You can order 'L'Echo des Savanes' here:
http://www.viapresse.com/via2005/pages-new/catalogue_detail.asp?context=abo&titre=1209
France is lucky of course to have one of the world's biggest comic book industries - they usually sell as softback albums and the market is huge. Japanese manga is also very popular.
You can find out more about Bande Desinee (BD) here:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/global/main.jhtml?xml=/global/2004/08/16/expatliv.xml
