Pipeline and Sundry: Cyril Pedrosa Goes Web First, Schuiten’s Town Exposition, The Old Geezers Ascendant
These Three Items Have Not Much In Common
- Cyril Pedrosa’s next graphic novel (with Roxanne Moreil), “The Age of Gold,” is being serialized on-line first, ahead of its print publication in September. The webpage is carrying the book in French, English, Italian, and Spanish all at the same time. This is kind of a big deal.
- Until October, the town of Semur-En-Auxois, France (not too far from Paris) is hosting an exhibition of Francois Schuiten’s work. It’s taking over the town, with original art showing at the museum, and reprints of his work hung large throughout the town. The library is dedicating a room to trains, since Schuiten likes those so much, too. If I visited, you wouldn’t be able to rip the camera out of my hands, I’m afraid.
- The new Conan graphic novel drawn by Pierre Alary is now available on Izneo.com. I’m not sure if they’re region-restricting it or not. It probably should be. But it is beautiful looking. It’s still in French, so you won’t be able to read much, but you can see the games Alary plays with the panel borders and page designs along the way. It is a terrible shame that nobody is translating Alary’s work to English yet. Not a single page. No, it’s worse than that. It’s a travesty.
Orbital, Orbital, Orbital
- Since this is Orbital week around these parts — soon to stretch into Orbital Weekend — I did a search on YouTube for Orbital’s artist, Serge Pelle. All I could find was this interview with him. It’s all talking heads. Don’t go looking for over-the-shoulder shots of him painting anything. While I can pick out French phrases here and there, it’s way too fast for me to keep up with. Even better, the YouTube-generated French captions that then are auto-translated into English are laughable. Sometimes, you can make out where the translation errors are and figure out what he’s talking about, but not that much.
- I will be reviewing the last two volumes (so far) of “Orbital” in the next couple days. Stay tuned! In the meantime, keep yourself busy with reviews of Book 1, Book 2, Book 3, Book 4, and Book 5.
The Old Geezers Corner
They have a movie coming out, you might remember from the last Pipeline and Sundry installment. Now, Dargaud released a seven minute behind the scenes video on set with the creative team of the comic as well as the actors, director, etc.
They also announced this week that the fifth book in the series is coming in November, and they have a cover to go along with it.
You can see that cover along with this video and much more on the official website of the movie/comic that they just opened up.
I just read the fourth installment in the series. I’m not sure I’ll be doing a full scale review of it or not yet, but it is another fun installment of the series, as we learn a little more about Sophie’s background.
The thing that always impresses me about the book is how it’s an ensemble cast of four characters. Their stories intertwine where they will, but it feels like the stories ebb and flow around each other. It’s not necessarily a tightly wrapped package where everything comes together in the third act. That’s usually what we’d demand in the name of “tight scripting,” but it’s also fun to watch the characters be themselves and act in the moments of the stories.
They’re just such fun characters to follow…
I have reviews of the first two books you can read here, in the meantime:
I’m not that familiar with Cyril Pedrosa’s work, but if you’re recommending it I might give it a shot. Although, last time I tried something “modern” based on your input I was a bit disappointed (it was the crazy woman with the magic baby), so we’ll see. I try to keep an open mind but I’m a grumpy old man too 🙂
Pedrosa has something of a name in North America for his more literary works that have been translated here, so it’s always good to mention him. 😉 Also, he’s serializing his book for free on the web here in the weeks ahead of its publication, so I find that experiment to be interesting. Personally, I have mixed feelings on his stuff. It can be too literary sometimes, but the good parts can be REALLY good. It’s always worth watching what he’s doing.
Perhaps I’m biased, because I edited the translations of two of Pedrosa’s graphic novels, but I thoroughly enjoyed both Portugal and The Golden Age part 1. Aside from the artwork being BEAUTIFUL (seriously, check out the making of L’age D’or on YouTube), I also find the writing full of heart and wit.
Funny you should mention Pedrosa videos — I just this morning discovered one he made for the making of “Portugal.” I included it in my Portugal review because I think it helps set the scene for how and why Pedrosa did the book. Also, it’s fun to see the real world locations he used for inspiration for scenes in the book. I recognized them instantly, and I haven’t read the book in months.
I’m still split on Portugal, but I’m considering giving it another chance and doing a re-read someday.
And don’t worry — we WELCOME bias around here. I thrive on it. Thanks for checking in! =)
FYI, THE OLD GEEZERS found a U.S. publisher: Ablaze Publishing. And First Second picked up THE GOLDEN AGE, but yo probably knew that already.
Interesting. That’s the company that’s publishing Charlie Adlard’s “Vampire State Building,” also. I guess I better start taking them seriously. Fingers crossed that they do right by Old Geezers. The series deserves it! (And I think I have one more volume left of that to read and review. Thanks for the reminder to add that to my list. =)
Yep, fingers crossed, such a fun series, I really had a blast with it!