Archive for the 'Documentary Comic' Category

Comic Books Go War

27/01/2010 / in Documentary Comic, Photography & Illustration and Shortcut. 0 Comments

There was a very interesting feature on ARTE TV, called La BDs’en va-t-en guerre (“Comic Books Go War”, Italia, 2008, 64min by Mark Daniels).

The documentary shows how the “documentary comic” is being used to describe events that are usually covered by journalists/photojournalists. It tries to explain why this is important and relevant and that it appears to be easier to communicate and share views on human tragedies in this way, even considering the amount of time and engagement that is necessary to prepare a comic book.

The documentary introduces the most important artists of this genre like Keiji Nakazawa’s Gen d’Hiroshima, where the author shares his memories about how he witnessed and survived the fall of the atomic bomb when he was 7 years old, Art Spiegelman’s unforgettable Maus, and younger artists such as Joe Sacco (Palestine, une nation occupée, Gorazde), Marjane Satrapi (Persépolis), Ted Rall (Passage afghan), Emmanuel Guibert (Le Photographe) and Joe Kubert (Fax de Sarajevo), who convey testimonies through stunning visual stories, which are often just as brutal but nonetheless “easier” to look at than pictures from journalists.

This is certainly a very interesting topic which one could talk at length about, especially regarding the arguments claiming that we are getting “numb” towards a certain type of crisis documentation. For some stories – witness stories for example, where not enough photographic material exist or where the personal aspect is to be stressed – the documentary comic could be a way to go.

I wrote about The Photographer: Into War-torn Afghanistan with Doctors Without Borders here … and it was interesting for me to see an interview with Emmanuel Guibert on this documentary, telling about the work on the books and about his friendship with Didier Lefèvre.

“Comics go to war” will be reaired Jan. 31st on ARTE, if anybody is interested.


Photography & Illustration: The Photographer

15/01/2010 / in Documentary Comic, Photography & Illustration and Shortcut. 0 Comments

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On my search for examples of work that uses photography alongside illustration, I recently acquired a book by Guibert, Lefèvre and Lemercier, called The Photographer: Into war-torn Afghanistan with Doctores Without Borders.

On the jacket I found this short description of the project:
“At the end of July 1986, Didier Lefèvre left Paris for Afghanistan. He barely returned to tell the tale. It was his first major assignment as a photojournalist, documenting a Doctors without Borders mission. Camera in hand, Lefèvre traveled with a band of doctors and nurses into the heart of Northern Afghanistan, where the war between the Soviet Union and the Afghan Mujahideen was raging.
The mission affected Lefèvre as profoundly as the war affected contemporary history. His photographs, paired with the art of Emmanuel Guibert, tell the story of an arduous journey undertaken by men and women intent on mending what others destroy.”

The book starts with an historical overview and introduction by Alexis Siegel, who is also responsible for the translation. The story itself is made out of a combination of the available contact sheets from Didier Lefèvre and – where there was no photographical material – illustrations from Emmanuel Guibert. Knowing how difficult it is, to successfully combine both photography and illustration, I was impressed to see how well they were married in The Photographer . Emmanuel Guibert did a good job contrasting the the richly detailed black and white photography with very simple looking (!) artwork with thick blotted lines, that go extremely well with the darks in the photos without competing. To set the illustrations further apart, they are held in subdued colors, filled in by Frédéric Lemercier, who was also the designer of the book.

The Photographer: Into war-torn Afghanistan with Doctores Without Borders was originally published in three volumes in France.

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