Author: rogerklaassen

The swiss Château de Sint Maurice hosts an exposition (until 11 november 2018) about Petzi, a famous childrens book character. The first Petzi stories were created in 1951 by danish authors Carla Hansen and Vilhelm Hansen. Since 2016, a swiss publisher is publishing the stories again in their original form for the french speaking market.

Some 25 swiss artists, among them Cosey, made a hommage to the little bear.

More information on the website of the Château: click here.

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Thanks to Bernard Matthey-Doret

During the Easter weekend, a giant mosaic in Easter eggs were made by volunteers in Ouchy. People could buy an egg, and so money is collected for the ARFEC, ‘Association Romande des Familles d’Enfants atteints d’un Cancer’ (Association of Romandy Families of Children affected by Cancer).

The eggs were placed in packages of 30 eggs, in 34 columns and 39 lines… a stunning 39.780 eggs. Sold for 1 CHF each and add to this other income from visitors and sponsors and more than 50.000 CHF were raised for ARFEC.

One of the volunteers was Bernard Matthey-Doret, and he sent me this ‘work document’, showing the grid of eggs.

 

 

Wine bottles with special labels.

Cosey present during the works.

More information and interesting pictures of the work in progress: visit this Facebook-page.

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Thanks to Bernard Matthey-Doret

A few weeks ago I announced the publication of a black & white edition of ‘À la recherche de Peter Pan’ by Éditions Niffle. Unfortunately, the project is put on hold.

The original planning for the release of the album was the end of january, but now the book release is postponed to an unknown date. Publisher Éditions Niffle let me know that the design for the book is ready, but other factors determine the delay.

My guess is that there have been several novelties recently (Calypso in october, the Angoulême catalogue in january, the bi-colour edition of ‘Le Voyage en Italie’ also in january) and that the delay is decided for marketing reasons.  Hopefully the album will be published later.

 

Every year, the swiss ARFEC organisation organises an Easter fund raising. ARFEC is the ‘Association Romande des Familles d’Enfants atteints d’un Cancer’ (Association of Romandy Families of Children affected by Cancer).

The goal of the action is to make a giant mosaic of easter eggs, for which Cosey made the design this year. People can buy eggs and volunteers build up the mosaic. The money collected by the egg sales goes to the ARFEC organisation. The mosaic will be built between 29 March and 1 April in Ouchy. I am curious to see the result!

More information: click here.

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Thanks to Bernard Matthey-Doret

30 Years ago, the ‘Aire Libre’ collection of Dupuis was born. Jean van Hamme and Philippe Vandooren were the Dupuis directors who started the collection. First album in the collection: ‘le Voyage en Italie’ by Cosey. To celebrate its 30th anniversary, Dupuis published this catalogue… unfortunately only available to realtions of Dupuis. It contains 200 pages with all album covers of the entire collection.

You can see a web version of the catalogue on the website of Dupuis.

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Thanks to Luc Vinois

A drawing for the magazine Paris Match. It was found on the magazine’s website, I am not sure the picture was printed in the actual magazine.

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Thanks to Bernard Matthey-Doret

In Casemate 11 (february 2018), you can read a long interview with Cosey. The cover shows how bad graphic design can destroy the great Angoulême poster – it hurts to the eyes.

You can order the magazine via this website.

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Thanks to Dinu Logoz

Another special edition: ‘À la recherche de Peter Pan’, published by Niffle.

It is the complete story in black and white, on a large format (27 x 34 cm). Originally announced for 26 january (just in time for the FIBD in Angoulême), it has been delayed to 16 february.

This is the second black and white edition of ‘À la recherche de Peter Pan’, after the one published by Raspoutine. This is a more affordable edition, but it lacks the luxurious extras of that album, of course.

In Angoulême, I discovered a special edition of ‘Le Voyage en Italie’.

‘Les Éditions Black and White’ had published a luxurious anniversary edition of the album, celebrating its 30th birthday. This publisher, based in Strassbourg, is a specialist in special, luxurious editions, and they have done a great job.

It is an album on a large format (30 x 40 cm), with the story printed in bichromie (two colours), blue and orange. It is not just a transposition of the original album in these two colours, but an entirely reworked and revised edition. It took a full nine months of hard work, supervised by Cosey. The result is a fascinating new look. I especially like the night scenes.

The album is signed, numbered (there are only 225 copies) and it includes a silk screen print.

You can find the publisher on Facebook.

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Thanks to Bernard Matthey-Doret – Pictures are borrowed from the publisher’s Facebook-page

Just before the Festival in Angoulême, Le Lombard published the last volume of the Jonathan Intégrale, containing the last two Jonathan stories (‘Atsuko’ and ‘Celle qui fut’).

This time , the dossier is a long and interesting interview with Cosey, by Isabelle Dillmann, with the title: ‘Cosey, ou l’idéogramme intérieur’. Illustrated with a lot of photos and drawings, of course.

Last Saturday my wife and I visited the FIBD in Angoulême. I had the opportunity to meet Bernard Cosey himself, for the first time. He had a day packed with presidential obligations, but he took some time before his duties began. We walked from his hotel to his exposition, talking about the Festival, his books, my site, etcetera etcetera. A very nice meeting!

During my visit to the exposition, I met another Bernard I had also never met before, Bernard Matthey-Doret. He is probably the greatest collectionneur of Cosey works, and certainly the greatest expert when it comes to special editions and all kinds of publications. Since I started my site in 2002, there has been regular mail traffic between us: he sends me scans of new publications and I send him questions regarding images I find on the internet (in all cases he had the answer). In the afternoon, we met again, talking about Cosey’s work until a restaurant employee asked us to leave the place.

Two special meetings, beautiful expositions and a few bags with nice acquisitions to my collection: it was a very good day in Angoulême.

Another palm was added to Cosey’s list of prizes and awards. In Angoulême, the 25th january, France’s Minister of Culture, Françoise Nyssen, pronounced Cosey ‘Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres’ (‘Knight of the Arts and Letters’).

The title had been granted to Cosey on 21 april 2017 already, but the actual medal was given to him in Angoulême this year.

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Thanks to Bernard Matthey-Doret

Cosey drove his own bus to the Festival in Angoulême.

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Thanks to Bernard Matthey-Doret

On the poster for the FIBD 2018 in Angoulême, Cosey summarises his life in comics. These are the references I found, in chronological order:

• 1975 – Jonathan 1: Souviens-toi, Jonathan… The earring of Saïcha. The first Jonathan, an obvious choice to include in the poster.
• 1978 – Jonathan 5: L’espace bleu entre les nuages Clouds and blue sky refer to the painting that gives its name to the album. In many interviews, Cosey has said this is one of his favourite Jonathan albums.
• 1980 – Jonathan 7: Kate A break-through album, winning the prize for ‘Best album’ in Angoulême (in 1982).
• 1984 – À la recherche de Peter Pan His first one-shot album with its iconic cover.
• 1988 – Le Voyage en Italie His second one-shot album, starting the famous Aire Libre collection of Dupuis. The album with an ending that hurts.
• 1997 – Jonathan 12: Celui qui mène les fleuves à la mer After a break of eleven years, Cosey continues his Jonathan series.
• 2005 – Le Bouddha d’Azur Cosey’s farewell to Tibet.
• 2016 – Mickey: Une mystérieuse mélodie A childhood dream comes true when Cosey makes a Mickey Mouse album.
• 2017 – Calypso Cosey’s first black-and-white album.

And finally – Jonathan or Cosey, the eternal question. From the very start of the Jonathan series there has been confusion: is Jonathan Cosey? Cosey’s answer: Jonathan is an imporved version of himself, the most notable difference is that Jonathan ages much more slowly than his creator.

Open for investigation: the pattern bottom left, I couldn’t find it in the albums. The mountain at the right (between Mickey and Voyage en Italie): I am not sure if this is a specific mountain from one of the albums. Determining mountains in albums of Cosey is a task that requires many winter evenings…

What do we miss in the poster? First of all I think of ‘Hanoi-Saigon’, winner of the ‘Best scenario’ prize in Angoulême in 1993. Second, the latest Jonathan (Celle qui fut) could have been included because it closes the Jonathan series. And finally, maybe a tiny reference to Derib, who took young Bernard Cosey in as an apprentice in 1969, would have been nice. But maybe it is in the poster, and I simply didn’t notice…

 

Two days to go and the ‘Festival International de la Bande Dessinée’ will start. As you know, Cosey is the honorary president this year. The Festival invites us all to put some colours to Cosey’s drawings of Bouddhist symbols and statues. You can download it on the website of the Festival.

Another thing is the catalogue of the exposition ‘Une quête de l’épure’ (I would translate it as ‘A quest for purity’, although I understood that ‘épure’ doesn’t exist as a french word in this sense). The catalogue can be ordered in the Festival shop.

Something strange seems to be going on wth the book cover: a few weeks ago I showed the cover with a green rectangle behind the text, yesterday this rectangle had the warm yellow colour we know so well from Cosey, today I found that it is orange. It seems the covers are following colours of the rainbow – I am curious to know if the actual book will be available in different colours too.