Big hat tip to Mike Lynch for this Bill Watterson poster for le festival international de la bande dessinée d’Angoulême 2014, which is a major international cartooning festival, though perhaps we oughtn't to make too much of it, given, y'know, what happened to San Diego. And Mardi Gras. And Grateful Dead Concerts.
In any case, Watterson did the poster and then sat down for an interview, which you can find en francais ici or Google-translated into English here.
I'm impressed with his quiet and measured re-emergence into the public eye, which has involved donating art to raise funds for Team Cul de Sac with no more hoopla than necessary to jack up the bidding, and now includes doing the poster for the Angoulême festival -- for which he is the Grand Prix honoree -- but declining to actually attend and go through all that is involved in that.
This is fully within the nature of his decision not to sell Calvin and Hobbes "by-products" and his decision to walk away from the strip not in a snit but simply because he was done doing that.
And while that's easily described, it's not often realized. We don't see a lot of retirements that don't either result in some kind of bitter seclusion (and I respect Salinger for his choice) or its opposite, the "Wait! Look what else I can do!" refusal to either play the game you were truly good at or simply go away (feel free to make your own nominees).
Classy guy with a talent for le beau geste.
En parlant de quoi ...
Speaking of French cartooning, that is, not classy retirements. Or at least I hope not, because part of my current drive to refresh my resources has been adding Boulet to my diet, which comes both en francais and in English. Well, also in Korean, though I don't get a lot of hits from there. Presumably he does.
This is another of those strips that is extensive enough that fair use demands I provide a snippet and then send you back to his site to read the entire piece, and you would be very sorry to miss his discussion of what he would do if he were to get that letter inviting him to enroll at Hogwarts.
Oh, except that the first two sections of the English version appear to have vanished since yesterday, so here's the entire French version for them as can traduice for themselves, and below are the missing panels wherein I reveal how much of my French is limited to the discussion of major, significant issues such as "Où est le pissoir?"
C'est a dire que you may want to check back and see if Boulet has restored them before you read my cobbled together version. (Update: He has.)
No nit-picking, please: I'm not auditioning for a job at the United Nations.
"And so now we come to the end of our ceremony. You have all been sorted and given a place in one of our four houses ... We shall now ... Um, yes? You have a question?"
"Yes, first of all, I'd like to thank you for letting me be here, and I'd even be happy to be a Hufflepuff ... which I say because while the Sorting Hat should have realized I'm not the Hufflepuff type, I suppose it's all fair in the end."
"My question is more general, and I realize I'm new here, so this may be a stupid question ... but why all the medieval trappings with the robes and the candles? ... um ..."
"I don't know, I suppose it's tradition. You have something against that?"
"No, no, not at all. I don't find anything wrong with it. It just seems strange, that's all."
"I mean, the magic ... well, it's magical! With this wand, it's possible to do all sorts of things ... you can generate wind, fire, water, electricity ... I mean, it's a source that's clean, renewable and free, and yet what have we got? These fucking floating candles! ... I mean, hello?"
"We're living as if it were the Middle Ages, before anyone found oil or discovered electricity. ... It's as if they decided living in houses without central heating is 'cool.'"
"Well, fine. What would you have suggested?"
"Okay, I don't want to look a gift horse in the mouth, but ... my concept would be two things: Quality of Life and Research and Development"
"We've mastered gravity, the Holy Grail of modern physics! And the limits of our magic? We use it to make flowers appear! ... Can you imagine what it would be possible to do in terms of the environment?"
(We now return you to the originally translated version, already in progress.)
I should add that, while I read and enjoyed the entire Potter series, I did feel that, the further into it I went, the more I got the sense that Rowling was having too much fun with magical candy descriptions at the expense of the actual storyline.
I don't know if she was simply losing focus or if the editors were backing off from criticizing their major income source, but the massive page-count of the latter books seemed self-indulgent and a bit bloated.
I should also add this epilogue that Boulet posted on his Facebook page:
Incidentally, he and Zach "SMBC" Weiner are very close to releasing a children's book that looks absolutely awesome. (If you go to that Kickstarter, you'll see that they did manage to reach their goal. Even went a bit over. I like that their stretch goals included donations to libraries.)
I like even more than I'm a backer, because I really want a copy!
Et maintenant, votre moment de zen pour les enfants:
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