AGATHE AND THE LITTLE THINGS
DOMITILLE COLLARDEY
DUSTIN HARBIN
HARK! A WAGRANT!
LES CHAUDS LAPINS
LISA HANAWALT
LITTLE LOVE MONSTER
MATTIAS ADOLFSSON
MUSEUM OF MISTAKES
ORNERYBOY
SARAH GLIDDEN
SATURDAY MORNING BREAKFAST CEREALS
Steve Holfhard
XKCDF.A.Q.
- Q : Who are you and what is this blog ?
- Q : The translation are sometime awkward, how do you work ?
- Q : Can we help you to make it sound better ?
- Q : I am french, but I fluently speak english, can I help anyway ?
- Q : I can’t translate, but is there anything else I can do to help ?
- Q : How did you make this layout ?
- Q : Can I use the same layout for my blog ?
- Q : Where can we buy your work ? Do you have a shop with posters, mugs or T-shirts ?
- Q : Can I use one of your comics to print a shirt / a poster / to put it on my blog / to illustrate my book / magazine ?
- Q : Can I buy you an original artwork ?
- Q : I’m very rich and I want to hire you / I want to publish your work
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Q : Who are you and what is this blog ?
I’m Boulet, a french cartoonist living in Paris. I’ve had about 20 books published, most of them for young readers. I also worked on two books of the “Dungeon” series with Lewis Trondheim and Joann Sfar (available in English, ask at your local comic shop).
This blog is an attempt to translate my french blog ” bouletcorp.com “. I started in 2004 and have drawn more than 1600 entries. I’m trying to catch up but it’s a huge undertaking! -
Q : The translation are sometime awkward, how do you work ?
The translation is a very delicate subject !
Most of the translations were performed by followers of my french blog, but very few of them are native anglophones, so the accuracy varies a lot.
I tried to find a professional translator but it turned out it was far too much expensive for me alone. So I offered to give an original artwork in exchange of amateur translations (like, for a month or so of comics to translate) but even then it was complicated because just the re-handwriting the texts and posting them alone took a lot of time, and having to do original artworks for it and posting them was a lot of work too. Anyway I can’t manage it like this either.
So for this new version, I’m going to give it a try and translate all by myself.
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Q : Can we help you to make it sound better ?
That would be the idea !
As you can see in this FAQ, I’m not so good in english ! So here’s what I have in mind: if you think you can make the translation sound better, just write your propositions in the comments, and I will gradually update the comics.
The more comments and remarks I’ll get, the more I’ll be happy !
Just be indulgent, I try my best, and translation is not my main job !
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Q : I am french, but I fluently speak english, can I help anyway ?
Yes you can, of course, but must tell I will pay more attention to native anglophone comments !
I had a lot of people trying to translate, and each time, english or american people told me it was still awkward. French people tend to be overconfident with their level in english or at least, with their ability to translate a comic. It’s not just about being accurate, it’s also about making it soud good, you have to feel it, and that’s almost impossible if you are not english or american.
The best help I could help would be from english or US cartoonists !
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Q : I can’t translate, but is there anything else I can do to help ?
Even if it’s written in english, it’s not easy to share this webcomic: in France I can rely on cartoonist friends or specialized reeferers to share, but it’s very difficult to make people discover my work in other countries !
So if you want to help, it’s very easy: you can share with your friends ! If you have friends who don’t speak french, tell them about this page, and use social networks to share the comics you liked !
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Q : How did you make this layout ?
First, this blog was programmed with flash.
But flash is a very heavy format, and very difficult to share. A few months ago, I decided to rebuild it whith a different platform. I discussed about this with Arnold on Twitter. He’s very good with WordPress, so I designed and he made this happen !
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Q : Can I use the same layout for my blog ?
WordPress is supposed to be a free-sharing platform, but we worked a lot on this, and we don’t specially want that anyone could use it without consulting us.
The layout programming is Arnold’s, so you can ask him and he will be the only judge ! If he likes your work, I think he will be happy to authorize you to use this !
His contact is at the bottom of the site, on the main page.
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Q : Where can we buy your work ? Do you have a shop with posters, mugs or T-shirts ?
For now, there’s not such a thing. I try to keep this the less “commercial” I can. But maybe I will change my mind some day !
The only available work I have in english are the two books I drew for the serie “Dungeon” with Lewis Trondheim and Joann Sfar. Ask for it in any comic book shop ! The more you ask them to order it, the easiest will it get to obtain !
If you want to have a better translation of this webcomic, you just have to harass US and UK publishers, till one of them agrees to publish it in english
For my french work, I drew a lot of books, here’ the entire list:
Glénat Editions:
-Raghnarok
Tome 1 : Dragon Junior
Tome 2 : Fées et Gestes
Tome 3 : Terreurs de la nature
Tome 4 : Légendes urbaines
Tome 5 : Tempus Fugit
Tome 6 : Casus Belli
-La Rubrique Scientifique
Tome 1
Tome 2
Tome 3
-Le Miya (with Reno, Julien Néel and Libon)
-Womoks (only scenario, drawing by Reno)
Tome 1 : Mutant, suspends ton vol…
Tome 2 : Le croiseur s’amuse
Tome 3 : Albon, les brutes et les truands
La boîte à bulles Edition:
-Le vœu de…
Tome 1 : Le vœu de Marc (coscenarist with Nicolas Wild, drawing by Lucie Albon)
Tome 2 : Le vœu de Simon (coscenarist with Lucie Albon, drawing by Lucie Albon)
-Amour et Désir (Collectif, seven pages under the alias Ella Forbin)
-Delcourt Edition:
-Donjon (avec Lewis Trondheim et Joann Sfar au scénario, et Lucie Albon à la couleur)
Tome 5 : Un mariage à part
Tome 6 : Retour en fanfare
-Notes (these are the compilations of all the entries of the french blog)
Tome 1 : Born to be a larve
Tome 2 : Le petit théâtre de la rue
Tome 3 : La viande, c’est la force
Tome 4 : Songe est Mensonge
Tome 5 : Quelques Minutes avant la Fin du Monde
Tome 6 : Debout mes globules ! (à paraître, 23 novembre 2011)
-Chicou-Chicou (under the alias Ella Forbin, with Aude Picault, Domitille Collardey, Lisa Mandel and Erwann Surcouf)
-Boule de neige (collective compilation of works for the 24-hours comics of Angoulême )
-La Maison Close (collective book by Ruppert et Mulot)
-La Page Blanche (scenarist, drawing by Pénélope Bagieu. Release in january 2012)
-Bragelonne Edition:
-Tous malades ! (original title: Now we’re Sick) (illustrations for a collection of adult poems by Neil Gaiman and other authors, with Reno and Mélaka)
-Erik le Viking (illustrations of the french version of Terry Jones’s book)
-L’almanach illustré 2008. (texts by Laurent Genefort and Gudule)
Nekomix :
-Soupir (collectif)
Tome 1, 2008
Tome 2, 2009
-Nekomix 7 spécial cinéma (collectif)
-Barclay-Universal :
-Repenti (Illustrations for Renan Luce’s album, christmas edition)
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Q : Can I use one of your comics to print a shirt / a poster / to put it on my blog / to illustrate my book / magazine ?
No, you can’t !
All this comics ask a lot of time to draw, and I don’t want them to be taken out of this blog, especially if it’s for commercial use.
And most of this blog material is already printed by the french publisher Delcourt, so it would be highly illegal !
They are some exceptions, though:
-You can use one panel or two if you are making a citation (for example: if you write an article about my work or about webcomics in general, you can show a couple of pictures, without asking me. You just have to put the source under it: my name and the blog’s URL, clikable if your article is on internet. You don’t specially have to tell me, but it would be nice)
-If you want to share a story on internet, the way I like better is one panel, clikable, redirecting to my original blog.
-You can use a comic or more for pedagogic use if it’s a non-commercial use: if you’re a teacher and you need a printing from the blog for your class, if you’re a student and need an illustration for an essay or your thesis, I’m totally ok if you respect these two conditions: you have to ask me FIRST (because I wouldn’t like to illustrate something I totally disagree with), and the use must be completely NON-COMMERCIAL (you CAN’T sell it, no matter the format), NON-POLITIC (especially if you are a kind of nationalist NRA douchebag) and NON-RELIGIOUS (I’m an atheist, and I work for no church or cult) -
Q : Can I buy you an original artwork ?
I don’t really need mone for now, so I don’t sell my original works… So no !
And I have a lot of work waiting to be done, so I don’t have time to make special drawings for birthdays, christmas presents or stuff like that ! -
Q : I’m very rich and I want to hire you / I want to publish your work
Ok, send me an email and we’ll see !
I’m not specially looking for work now, but if you have something nice to propose, maybe we can find an arrangement !
If you want to publish material from this blog, my publisher shares the copyrights with me, so you have to contact him ! look for “editions Delcourt” on the web !
For what it's worth, I assure you that I'll never forget you : )
I love your comics Gill , hope you never stop publishing in english :D
Touchant de relire cette note après la mort de Jean Giraud
Ringo is right. But you won't be easily forgotten because books aren't part of 'Junk Culture' because books aren't products in themselves, like shoes or iPods. Books are ideas, life! Every single book, every piece of art is a conduit for transplanting one person's ideas into another's brain. The only junk books are junk because their ideas and art aren't sufficient for transmitting ideas. Think of the difference between a scribble on a napkin and *ahem* Boulet's First Collected Works in English (for example). Both are ART. You could show the napkin and the book to one person and it's guaranteed that they will be more likely to remember 'Fuck Peter Pan' and 'The Dark Roommate' of 24 hour comic fame, than the pen scrawl next to the mustard.
I think I remember reading a statistic like 90% of book sales are comprised of 10% of books... There is certainly an entire undercurrent of books of all kinds that go unnoticed by the masses. I love used bookstores though, so you can rest assured that I'm going to pick up some of those "forgottens" at least. How about the old Elric comics?
Hum, Moebius and Blueberry are not forgotten yet... Media exposure of his work is far lower than the work and the talent put in it, but be assured it's still known and appreciated. In my familly, we look at our Blueberry collection as a treasure to be kept and transmitted to the our descendant-to-be :)
Sure, I will transmit my collection of "Notes" to my children. But they are 3. I should buy other copies for each! You are the Moebius of twenty-first century.
And, of course, i will buy Notes 7 for helping a poor french kid who drew it ^^
I think a lot of things that end up in Junk Stores aren't sold by the same person that bought them. Example: I die and my mother take a look at all those books and think: "Well, what am I gonna do with these now?". And they end up somewhere, for nothing.
Technically, it was Blueberry by Gir :D :_(
Marmakoide: that was the joke, actually. I had all these thoughts during the travel, and after that I realized the book was more famous than my whole work will probably ever be.
I have a friend whom once, over a pint of cider in the local pub, I asked him what his greatest fear in life was. His reply was to be forgotten, for all his efforts in life to be null and void. As an emerging cartoonist, I can fully sympathise and share in this fear. Recently in England, the comic "Dandy" is just about to fold and be sent online. it's one of the oldest in the world and features the record breaking character "Desperate Dan". Children are mainly unaffected, but adults like myself, my mother and my grandmother are quite upset as we all remember the three generations this comic spanned through. It sold 8000 copies last year, compared to the 2 million a week it once sold. Would something as important as this become what you coin Junk Culture? If so... is nothing safe? Or is Junk Culture paving the way for new ideas...
Elsi: Evolution, baby :D You have to make room for new stuff. Old comics are great where they are: in the past. That's why it doesn't bother me to be forgotten after my death. Most of my work won't make any sense in 50 years. It's great to remember things, it's great to be interested in old works and you can learn a lot about it. But even if I grew up with comics like "Gaston Lagaffe" or the Smurfs, I'm glad when I see kids reading Naruto or One Piece. And 20 years from now they will say their kids "when I was your age we had 'Naruto', it was so great and blah blah blah..." The worst thing is when people try to maintain in life these old references. In France, Gaston Lagaffe was adapted as a TVShow (Even if the author, Franquin, had once said: 'Me alive, it will never happen'. Producers must have thought 'well... Now is dead, isn't he ?') It was ugly. And depressing. You can't force your kids to like the stuff you did. You can just hope they will be curious and will take a look.
The good thing when you are forgotten is : you will be rediscovered after a while. Think about Feydeau, the playwright, he's "rediscovered" once every 10 years. And haven't you see "Hugo Cabret" of Scorsese ? It's about the latter life of Melies, how he was rediscovered after sinking into oblivion.
...And then we'll have The International Boulet Fest every year :)
Anonymous: Aye, 'tis true. Things do have to end and move on, hence why Watterson ended Calvin and Hobbes on a high and things like The Simpsons and Family Guy should count their losses and die a *fairly* dignified death. But it's nothing to do with forcing children to like what you do, but things should be kept alive to a certain degree. If so, cultures would end in a generation or two, it's nice to teach and carry something on. It's like my grandmother teaching me knitting as a child, and me recently sitting down with my godchild and teaching him how. It's a nice thing, but always remember the new world.
Elsie, I think you answered your own question. Art needs to have relevance to survive. You mention a few series that you think have lived "too long" and you think should die gracefully (Simpsons, Family Guy). How are those any different than Dandy? If it is ending, then it does not have any relevance left in the modern world or it would still live on. It is a great anomaly for specific art to be lucky enough to survive for even a hundred years - by that point we put it on a pedestal as a snapshot of a culture at that point in time, and that usually by virtue of it not accidentally being burned in a fire. I believe the essential point Anonymous was getting at is that there's no point in trying to make the next generation understand your own generation's art - it wasn't made for them. It was made for you. There is no way to "force" art to stay around or make people remember (in fact many would resent you picking out what you think should be relevant to them...). Just like humans die, art dies with them.
Indeed, 'tis true. I wasn't making a legitimate question, it was debatable in it's own right. Of course art dies with the artist, and so it should. It's a constantly evolving action, which in itself makes it "art". I hope you don't think I was acting dickish, I just love a good debate about this stuff! Thank you for talking about it with me :)
May I suggest an alternate way of looking at it? To begin with, we must accept that everything dies. Everything that everyone creates will eventually be destroyed, lost, forgotten. The planet itself will be destroyed in some far distant ending. This is a fact and a very sad and depressing fact at that. So why create? Why pour one's heart into making art or engineering or children? It's the act of creation, not the act of consumption of that creation that is key. Every act of creation is us, as a species, yelling out into the darkness that we will create beauty because we can. The ultimate hopelessness of our creation does not define us. It's our ability and desire to create beautiful things even when ultimately it doesn't matter. As you point out millions of books/songs/comics/buildings/stories are created and forgotten every year. One could look on their "loss" and feel bad, or look on the fact that the relentless human creative spirit is constantly striving to make beautiful things - regardless of the fact that it's all doomed regardless. In short - it's like a hero in a story where he knows he's going to die. Even in death, if he fights the good fight, it's can still be a happy story.
Anonymous, you make me feel hope for this world yet :)
All you need is a great story with inspired and beautiful art. That creation will find those who need to believe they are not alone in the universe.
The latest science that I read in today's news is that "junk DNA" is probably more important than was previously thought, and calling it "junk" just shows how ignorant we are about the way the biology works. There's probably an apt analogy about "junk culture".
First of all: Totally addicted to your comic! And second, thank you for showing me Moevius.
Je me demande si on ne dirait pas plutôt un "46-pager", avec ou sans trait du gnon, je ne sais plus...
This is the perfect way to break down this inintmarfoo.