gulf badinage: Exclusive Preview | So Long, Silver Screen by Blutch

Wednesday, January 2, 2013

Exclusive Preview | So Long, Silver Screen by Blutch | Robot 6 ...

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So Long, Silver Screen

One of the highlights in Picturebox?s 2013 schedule is the release of So Long, Silver Screen, the first major release by the French artist Blutch, a.k.a. Christian Hincker, in North America. Although he?s one of the most important European cartoonists of the past 20 years or so (his work has greatly influenced such artists as Craig Thompson and Jessica Abel, just to name a few), Blutch?s work has strangely remained unreleased in the United States until now.

As the title suggests, So Long, Silver Screen is Blutch?s ode to the magic of the cinema. I?ll let the Picturebox press release take it from there:

What are the movies? What effect do they have on us? Why do we love them so?much? Blutch addresses all these questions in a series of interlocking short?comics that move between scholarly history, romantic theory and ribald vignettes,?featuring a motley cast of actors and topics including Burt Lancaster, Jean-Luc?Godard, Luchino Visconti, Claudia Cardinale, Tarzan, and Michel Piccoli. As much a?visual essay as it is graphic novel, a daydream and a fantastic meditation on the?other art of telling stories with images,?So Long, Silver Screen?is a new height for an?uncontested master of contemporary cartooning.

The highly influential and award-winning French cartoonist Blutch has published?over a dozen books since his 1988 comic debut in the legendary avant-garde magazine?Fluide Glacial. His titles include?Mitchum, Peplum,?and?Le Petit Christian.?His illustrations appear in?Lib?ration, The New Yorker?and?Les Inrockuptibles.?So?Long, Silver Screen?is his first full-length work to be published in English.

Translated by Edward Gauvin and sporting a cover design by David Mazzucchelli, the graphic novel will be available in stores in April. See a 10-page preview below.