Could be mentioned in comic topic, but since it's not "just" comic, but original artists, I'll prefer separate topic.
Just purchased, read and enjoyed Marc-Antoine Mathieu's "Dieu en personne" (suom: Jumala Itse). I'm quite sure english translation SHOULD exist, but not sure if it does yet? Finns been lucky to have most of his works translated immediately.
Comic book about god appearing among humans, and he gets sued for all the shit he brought to mankind. It is good, perhaps not great. It has decent build up, but "climax" is quite lame, although also up for speculation. Theme is interesting. He doesn't blaspheme, but also the kind of bite what would be possible in concept (for example pretty neat comedy film DOGMA), is not there. Still, it remains a book with plenty of nice remarks and moments where he shows he still has the skills to do good comics.
Over the years, his style of drawing has developed. Pre-view of this book:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0v1etd-C3-IBut perhaps he is much more famous for groundbreaking(?) early 90's L'Orgine (suom: alkuperä) and the followed related books. With first time ever seen (for me) hole-in-the-comic frame what works as time transition from page to another... Hard to explain, but surreal and suffocating stories. More info below.
Some cut & paste:
QuoteMathieu is a much-celebrated and award-winning writer-artist who has given speeches and presentations around the world, at diverse locations including comics festivals, galleries, and even CERN, the world's largest particle physics laboratory, located in Geneva, Switzerland. The complexity and the often elliptical structure of his work has led some to call him "The M.C. Escher of comics," and the author will be in Toronto as part of a larger cultural exchange and speaking tour sponsored by the French Consulate, with support from l'Alliance Français de Toronto.
While Marc-Antoine Mathieu's work available in English-language translation numbers just 2 graphic novels, they are influential and very well-regarded by those in the know... Mathieu's Dead Memory is an evocative treatise on modern life—the literal and metaphorical walls that we put up to define ourselves and society, told in a dizzying and claustrophobic style. Mathieu's most recent work in English is The Museum Vaults, a collaboration with the Louvre Museum (yes, that Louvre) that is no less a mediation on the nature of art and life itself. The Museum Vaults is a tour-de-force graphic novel, full of humour and wit, pointed observation and beautifully illustrated too. It's a work that has drawn rave reviews, with Publishers Weekly calling it "A Kafkaesque catalogue of paradoxes," and Booklist describing it as "Very droll, highly delightful."
"He's a brilliant comics creator and storyteller," enthuses Peter Birkemoe of The Beguiling, who will be hosting the event. "He's one of the strongest and most inventive comics formalists. Nearly every book pushes not only at the boundaries of the comics medium but also the form of the book itself. It's a true shame that more of his work is not available in English, but his ideas are so unique and thoroughly communicated in all of his work that I feel even his French-language graphic novels hold significant appeal for Anglophones." Birkemoe added, "This is an event not to be missed."
ABOUT MARC-ANTOINE MATHIEU
Marc-Antoine Mathieu was born close to Paris and raised in Angers. He made his comic denuut in 1987, when French-publisher Futuropolis published his first album, Paris-Macon, which he had created with his brother Jean-Luc. During the 1990s he created his most popular series of albums, all featureing the character 'Julius Corentin Acquefacques', notable for their Kafkaesque style. He has since published various graphic albums for both L'Association and Delcourt in France, and Dark Horse Comics and NBM Books in English.
