Beaucoup des BD

 
A welcome visit from French cartoonist Lisa Mandel, who is passing through Phnom Penh to discuss printing plans for a comics workshop at Battambang‘s Phare Art school. If you’re one of the tiny handful of people who read this blog regularly, you’ll remember Lisa was one of the artists from ‘Sept Mois au Cambodge‘ (Seven Months in Cambodia).

She and her friend Saneesh (hope I spelled that right) are thinking of a side trip to Kracheh. But first we’ve got to figure out the cost and sizing of the comic, and make a few much overdue Phnom Penh connections. I finally get to introduce her to the French Cultural Centre folks, they are a very suppportive crowd. She is full of plans and ideas. I’m happy to oblige with local comics and info about what’s happening locally.

Here’s Lisa uploading a story for her publisher in France. Lots of discussion about French comics, Khmer comics, Anglophone comics and the gaps between. It’s great to chat comics practice and theory with someone equally (if not more) enthused.

We do a bit of searching around – maps, translators, language books. It’s great that I can understand a little French, Lisa and Saneesh don’t feel obliged to speak English all the time. ( Lisa’s Khmer is starting to come back. Cool!) I’m still terrible at spoken French but one must continue, step by step. Lisa suggests I visit France for some proper practice. I’m game, I’ll just have to figure out a good excuse to visit. Strasbourg, Angouleme, Marseilles – oh yeah.

With luck we may be able to have her visit the Cambodia Book Federation‘s ‘Special Interest Group’ on comics, more to follow!

Ketai Comics

http://www.clickwheel.net/ has a nifty new application for portable digital comics on Ipods.
[courtesy Boing Boing]

IPods, fine; but when you have comics for mobile phones that’s when things will really take off. In the developing world ringtones and phones are king, and are rapidly becoming internet enabled. Hmm, I should think about that… I’ve always tried to be an ‘early adopter‘.
I think Kelvin of Forbidden Galaxy had originally attempted something like that…

Getting ready for the Nou Hach Journal meeting.

And also some plans on archiving of old style Khmer comics. Many of these old comics had glossy painted covers which are not given justice by the cheap printing techniques of today.

True Cambodia Tales

A package arrived this last week from Justin Hall of ‘True Travel Tales’ fame chronicling his trip through Southeast Asia, including his minicomic, ‘Tsunami’!
Thanks Justin! Here’s hoping you can do some teaching next trip!
See more of his work at ‘All Thumbs Press’.
http://www.allthumbspress.com

(BTW, on the theme of Tsunami, a gripping travel tale I heard recently from ‘Kampuchea Crossings':
http://kampucheacrossings.blogspot.com/2005/01/departure-bay-phuket.html)