Category: BD

La guerre des rues et des maisons est maintenant disponible

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This post is in French because I’m talking about the Quebec edition of The War of Streets and Houses! Je m’excuse pour la mauvaise écriture.

Mon nouveau livre, La guerre des rues et des maisons, est maintenant disponible dans les librairies de Québec et la canada francophone! Si vous n’êtes pas au Canada, il est aussi possible de le commander sur le site web de Colosse.

Radio Canada a dit des choses bonnes sur le livre.

Ce weekend, le 29 novembre à 1er décembre je serai à Gatineau pour Les Rendez-vous de la BD de Gatineau. Vien me voir, je vais faire les dédicaces!

Dimanche le 8 décembre je serai chez Planète BD pour faire les dédicaces aussi, avec mes chums de la mauvaise tête.

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Les 24 heures de la bande dessinee d’Angouleme

This morning I finished the 24 hour comic challenge here in Angouleme, France. I participated at the Maison des Auteurs, grace a Julie Maroh. Read mine here!

I’m quite tired, so I’ll keep this short, but I wanted to also say that I’ll be in Angouleme for the festival this week, and then I go to Paris for a one month residency at the studio of Lisa Mandel and Ruppert et Mulot. Really exciting! Working on a project, and I’ll have more concrete news about that soon. Then I’ll be back in Angouleme for much of March and April.

Bisous!

L’agitateur étranger

(published in LA HAUSSE EN QUESTION and distributed in Montreal, March 27th, 2012. For info on the student strike in Montreal, see Bloquons la hausse or Stop the hike)


  
1. The “Outside Agitator”: a person who fights in a movement where they “don’t belong”; for example, a non-student fighting alongside a student movement.

2. Contrary to how we’ve been lead to feel, free education is as much the fight of the worker as the student, as the University is inextricably linked to all aspects of society, from work to prison.

3. In California, in the Fall  of 2009, under the pretense of economic meltdown and empty coffers, the public universities proposed tuition hikes that would be neither subtle nor gradual.

4. In the face of these hikes, students and allies at the University of California occupied their administrative buildings. A statement was penned by “Three Non-Matriculating Proletarians”:

5. “The assaults on police officers, the confrontations with the administration, the refusal of lectures, and the squatted buildings point the objective struggle in the direction of the complete and total negation of the university.

6. That is, brick by brick smashing the academic monolith into pieces and abolishing the college as a specialized institution restricted to a specific segment of society.


    

7. This will require the instillation of technique known as learning to be wholly subverted and recomposing education as a generalized and practical activity of the entire population: an undermining through which the student shall auto-destruct.”

8. While the movement officially refused to offer demands, it is clear that this is because they felt that the university could not give them that which they desired.

9. The protesters in California wished to explode the identity of “student,” to reintegrate practical working life and the act of learning, and to forge a space to host the creativity required to fix what ails society.

10. These goals are made impossible when we are instead forced into meaningless jobs by a cloud of debt and anxiety.

11. We should demand tuition freeze, and further: free education.

12. When the State will not give it to us, we (both ‘outsiders’ and ‘insiders’ of the University) must occupy, and take what is ours.

Solidarity with the students of Quebec!

IN SITU РOakland/Montr̩al Рnew book from Colosse

Tomorrow at EXPOZINE in Montreal I’m launching a new book through Colosse, a collection of my journal comics titled IN SITU. 40 pages, squarebound, hand numbered tiny edition of 100. Check out that beautiful cover above, designed with the invaluable Vincent Giard!

I’ll also have copies available at the Brooklyn Comics & Graphics Festival (Dec 3, New York City), and the East Bay Alternative Press Expo (Dec 9, Berkeley, CA).

Buy it online here.

L’Association Continuer

I’m following the strike at L’Association as closely as one can from Seattle.

My friend just posted, today, a letter from Jean-Cristophe Menu, director at L’Association. Nothing dire. Strikes are pretty common in France, but I do hope something can be worked out for the employees, especially in such a small company. My translation is below the original.

From: JCMENU <jcm@lassociation.fr>
Date: January 17, 2011 4:50:23 PM MST (CA)
To: J-C MENU <meder@wanadoo.fr>
Subject: Communiqué

Chers Auteurs et Amis,

Vous avez certainement pris connaissance des événements qui se
déroulent actuellement à l’Association, par le biais des
communications adressées massivement par ses salariés. Nous déplorons
que ce qui relève de la gestion interne de l’Association ait été
communiqué publiquement.

Dans le contexte que vous connaissez de la crise du Livre,
l’Association, qui n’y échappe pas, doit désormais avant tout
réfléchir aux façons de sauvegarder sa structure et son patrimoine.

Plus que jamais, nous restons attachés à la mission de
L’Association : éditer et faire vivre une bande dessinée d’auteurs
singulière et indépendante.

Une Assemblée Générale va avoir lieu très rapidement et nous allons
Nous donner les moyens de gérer cette crise interne.

Pour conclure, aujourd’hui : les projets de livres doivent tout simplement
continuer.

Nous restons à votre disposition.
Amicalement à tous,

Patricia Perdrizet, Présidente.
Jean-Christophe Menu, Editeur.

I’m trying to work on my French, so here’s a full translation:

Dear Friends and Authors,

You’ve certainly read of the events going on at L’Association, through the method of communications addressed massively through our employees. We deplore that this matter of internal affairs of L’Association has been publicly communicated.

In the context that we know as the “Book Crisis,” L’Association, which hasn’t escaped, must from now on above all reflect on how to safeguard its structure and heritage.

Now more than ever, we remain fastened to the mission of L’Association: to publish and bring to life comics from authors singular and independent.

A general assembly will be held shortly and we will give ourselves the means by which to manage this internal crisis.

To conclude, today: the book projects will simply continue.

We remain at your disposal. Amicably,

Patricia Perdrizet, Présidente.
Jean-Christophe Menu, Editeur.

More background about L’Association and the OuBaPo group is in this Wall Street Journal article, and the original posting of Menu’s email is here.