Comic Authors Get Serious
On January 18 an artist friend of mine told me strictly off the record that the French Cultural Center (104 Gorky Street) will host an exhibit of two comic strip artists from Belgium, and that the authors are also expected.
Sure enough I went there and found myself at the end of an endless line reaching up the stairs. Someone was delivering an emotion-packed speech upstairs. He spoke French, and I could not hear the interpreter, nor could I elbow my way any closer. I waited and when the speech was over proceeded to storm the stairs.
Gradually the crowd dispersed as people got inside to explore the pictures. Champagne was served in plastic glasses which helped establish closer contact with the art on display. This was especially true of people from the capital’s bohemian quarters.
I was fascinated to watch a gentleman sporting a carding and posture strongly reminiscent of a question mark. And the way he bent almost sensuously over each tray of drinks, freezing like a student staring at the exam, licking his lips nervously. After deciding on a glass, he would pick it up, race to the wall with the pictures, sipping on his way, only to reappear quickly for another helping, a true connoisseur of the fine arts.
As for the pictures, they were anything but comic strips. There was no connection in subject matter, each with a cityscape, mainly skyscrapers pierced by sunlight, and a lot of fresh air, space, and altitude. It was a true Batman series.
In three pictures Icarus-minded characters were about to take a long jump from someplace high. They wore similar clothes and the only difference was the design of their wings.
Actually, the painter showed his Batmen lost in thought, To leap or not to leap? Of them one was especially captivating, standing on the windowsill with a pensive tomcat curled up nearby. Far below one could see a small square of space. The overall impression was that Batman would push off the tomcat first, to see how the poor devil would fly and then perhaps follow suit.
Having marveled at the pictures to my heart’s content, I decided I wanted to see the authors. Not only did I fail to spot any, I could not even find out their names. I asked around, approaching those that spoke the local patois. Four-fifths of those present had no idea of even what they had been exploring for the past hour. I couldn’t ask foreigners for want of knowledge of any foreign language.
Suddenly I noticed a man with a female interpreter posing for a TV camera. I managed to get hold of the interpreter. She explained that the authors of the pictures on display were a Belgian duet, artist Francois Skojten (a short one with a luxurious head of hair) and writer Benois Peters (a tall and bespectacled one). I further learned that the pictures were not comic strips but a series of works titled “Unknown Cities.” Apparently the two were bashful to display their comic strips.
The interpreter excused herself as the foreign celebrities were leaving. I stayed a while examining sunlit structures on the canvases and then tried to track down the champagne-consuming connoisseur to ask his impressions, but the champagne stores had run dry and the man had vanished into thin air.
Those interested less in champagne than in “Unknown Cities” can visit the French Cultural Center during the month. Entrance is free.
