IFOA: Falling in Love with Two French Men

20061021_BerberianDupuy.jpgI am not a graphic novel expert by any stretch. Yes, I have heard of Seth (of course, he is Canadian after all), as well as the famous Herge of Tin-Tin...but Charles Berberian and Philippe Dupuy? Non. I lack a certain, je ne sais quoi, knowledge, of this new media.

Both are here for the first of two sessions on graphic novels. A growing popularity for the festival...hurrah for that!

Conversing with Seth, Berbarian and Dupuy bashfully spoke in their ever-so-charming accents of their work, French comics, the industry as a whole, as well as being seen as a contemporary cartoonists.

It was at the young age of 12 that both knew they wanted to get involved in cartooning. Dupuy realized at this period that he could actually make a living doing this. Berberian, on the other hand, just wanted the free books.

They walked the audience through their influences - Paris in the 20's which Berberian explained as a place where "everything can happen," the south of France, New York, Lisbon and Tangiers - all places their main character, Monsieur Jean would visit.

They spoke about the struggles of explaining their obscure work and the annoyance of people around them telling them to get into political characters or the confusion of their profession with pornographic comic strips. Ah, mon dieu!

The hour was not enough. The audience wanted more, I certainly wanted more. Off to the bookstore I shall go!

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Hi Michelle... Dunno if it's because of the board problems but my comment from yesterday got deleted. Anyway, I took a couple of shots of the interview with D&B - they're in the blogTO flickrstream or you can check them out on my photoblog!

Posted by: Hamish Grant at October 24, 2006 8:27 AM

Cool! I will definitely check it out. What did you tag it with?

Posted by: Michelle at October 25, 2006 10:32 AM

Cool! I will definitely check it out. What did you tag it with?

PS. Yes, we were switching servers so things were a little unsteady for awhile there. My apologies. Everythign should be good now. Thanks for your patience.

Posted by: Michelle at October 25, 2006 10:39 AM

Hey... they're tagged with IFOA, Seth, Berberian, Dupuy... there aren't too many images on Flickr of any of them (a pity!) so they should come up quickly.

Cheers!
Hamish

Posted by: Hamish Grant at October 26, 2006 9:30 AM

Wow, yours are way better than mine. I should swap them. It is quite sad that there are no pictures tagged IFOA. Actually, it is quite sad that the turnout overall is not high considering the high level authors. :(

Posted by: Michelle at October 26, 2006 10:45 AM

Feel free to swap them if you like...

As to the no photos thing I dunno if you saw it but outside the studio theatre [and presumably the other venues] there was a big card that stated in no uncertain terms that photography and videotaping was prohibited... not that it stopped me or one other guy I saw, or you... :-) but none of us were using flash, of course. If think the main reason not to have people taking photos must have been to avoid distractions and also to preserve the integrity of the videotapes IFOAS were making of the event themselves. Either way, I agree it's a shame there hasn't been more attention paid to the festival.

Posted by: Hamish Grant at October 27, 2006 9:34 AM

I didn't see it. Whoops. Well, if you want some press or want to spread the love...visuals always help. You are right though, I think it should be done if no flash is used. That way, people are not distracted.

Have you check out anything else? Or are you a fan of graphic novels?

Posted by: Michelle at October 27, 2006 1:38 PM

I didn't see it. Whoops. Well, if you want some press or want to spread the love...visuals always help. You are right though, I think it should be done if no flash is used. That way, people are not distracted.

Have you check out anything else? Or are you a fan of graphic novels?

Posted by: Michelle at October 27, 2006 1:41 PM

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