Messages from the Swiss Alps…

I have been writing to Cosey about the Intégrales, some of the information I want to share with you.

Cosey is very happy with the Intégrale. He loves the paper for the cover as well as the interior of the book. He is also very satisfied by the work of the graphic designers (Eric Laurin and Rebekah Paulovich-Boucly): ‘I am very content with the lay-out and graphic design of the dossiers. I am very demanding, and often disappointed… but with this work I am truly delighted.’

About the colour corrections made by Nicolas Cardeilhac: ‘The digital ‘reouches’ of the colours have been executed on my indications. The colour corrections will end with ‘Neal and Sylvester’ – the colours done by Freymond do not require any correction. And, according to me, I think my colour work after that is acceptable.’

The colour correction have only been applied to improve the regularity of the colour tones: ‘The colour correction consisted of fading away brush strokes, irregularities, stains and correcting the colours that are out of borders or lines (…). I did not want to change the hues of the colours themselves – I could as well have done all colours anew.’

The Intégrales will collect the albums strictly per 3 albums: 1-2-3, 4-5-6, etc. In this way, the stories 12 (Celui qui mène…) and 13 (Songrong), that can be considered as two parts of one story, will be separated. The fifth Intégrale will contain only two albums: 13 and 14. ‘This Intégrale will be enriched with an important dossier (double the size of the others) with more sketches, pencil drawings, unknown aquarels. (…) When Jonathan 15 will appear – which I wish, but for which I have not yet any idea – it will appear as an individual album. And you will have to await the albums 16 and 17 before they will be combined in a new Intégrale.’

Of course I asked Cosey about new albums. All he wanted to tell me is that he is working on a new project, to appear at the beginning of 2011.

Jonathan Intégrale (again)

This ‘news’ message is just to inform you that I have made my webpage about the Jonathan Intégrale.

I bought the book last weekend, and I have to admit I can hardly put it down. It really is a jewel… this edition is so very good (colours, printing, paper) that these old Jonathan stories become new, fresh, crisp. You should all buy it – no excuses!

Click here!

Just for fun: Jonathan Intégrales

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You may be surprised, but the recent Jonathan Intégrale is not the first collection of Jonathan stories.

Below, you see two older collection albums. The World of Cosey – Antologia  The World of Cosey – Special deel 1   The first is a Spanish edition from 1981. It has two stories, ‘Pieds nus…’ and ‘Le berceau…’. These are the numbers 3 and 4 of the Jonathan series, so it is strange to see ‘Nos 1-2’ printed on the cover.

The second album is a dutch edition of 1991. The book collects three stories: ‘Le berceau…’, ‘Douniacha’ and ‘Greyshore Island’. These are the numbers 4, 6 and 11 of the series. The strangest thing is that ‘Greyshore Island’, volume two of Jonathans USA adventure, is printed without its volume one (‘Oncle Howard…’).

If you know more Jonathan Intégrales (French editions, perhaps?), please let me know!

Lombard video interview with Cosey

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Le Lombard has published a video interview with Cosey on its DailyMotion channel. The interview is about Jonathan in general; nothing specific about the new Intégral. Cosey talks about the first Jonathan, the music of the albums (on the back side of the albums), etc. The overview page of DailyMotion also has a link to the beautiful trailer for Jonathan 14.

Then, the first pages of the Jonathan Intégrale can be previewed on the Lomabrd website. For a direct link to the album, follow the second link below. You will see that the colours of the pages are ‘digitally enhanced’, resulting in brighter, more intense colours. I am curious to see how the colours will be in print!


Thanks to Fabien Rivenet (Le Lombard)

Cosey on DVD

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Arcades Video announces a series of DVD’s on comic strip artists: BD Story. This is the one about Cosey, together with Lax and Conrad. The DVD will be published on 22 september, but it can already be pre-ordered from various webshops.

At this moment, I cannot tell you anything about the contents of the DVD. Wait and see…

An interview with Cosey

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Sometimes, I wished I lived in Switzerland… many of Cosey’s works (apart from his comics, of course) are published in local/regional magazines, advertisings or posters. A few weeks ago, however, I found out that the flemish magazine ‘Stripgids’ had published an interview with Cosey – so here we have this rare dutch language publication! The magazine was published in February, but I only managed to get a copy two weeks ago (sometimes, Belgium seems so far…).

The interview is written by Toon Horsten, and it is a nice interview indeed, with very nice photos by Bart van der Moeren. For Cosey-watchers not so much news – mainly because Cosey is so very consistent in his interviews over the past years.

But in the interview Cosey teaches us, ‘close Cosey-readers’ a nice little lesson in modesty… Take your album of ‘ELLE’ and look at the title page: ‘What is this?’ Cosey asks the interviewer. The interviewer: ‘I don’t know’.

Cosey: ‘Damn! Ai. This is bizarre. I am afraid I have to face the truth: sometimes I overestimate my readers. (turns to the last page of the album). I will give you the answer. Look: here – in the fifth message Jonathan writes to Cosey – he talks about a little handiwork paper lantern. This is what is drawn on the title page. For your defence, I can tell you that the reader is not used to seeking answers to a certain question on a title page. Therefore, I like to put an image from Jonathan’s youth on the title page. It is outside the story, but still, it refers to the story. I hoped the reader would make the connection between the title page and the story, after reading the album and leafing through it another time’.

Well, did you?