Clever Students And News of Dessinatrices
This may be my professional bias talking, or my innate sense that engineering is the most fun you can have in the physical and mental worlds simultaneously, but there may be nobody taking comics into more exciting directions than Lucas Landherr¹ of Surviving The World. As has been mentioned on this page more than once, Landherr has been making comics (with a variety of artists) to explain the trickier concepts in his discipline (that would be Chemical Engineering²), and of late he’s been inspiring his students to do the same.
As a class project last semester, his students produced new ways of explaining key bits o’ esoteric knowledge, ranging from their own comics (on convection, or heat transfer, or heat exchangers) to video (on heat transfer, or on heat transfer but with a Queen song³). It’s cool stuff, and I get the feeling in that last video that I’ve seen some of the tics that Professor Landherr exhibits in class, and I definitely fear — nearly 30 years distant from my own graduation — to ever take a class with Professor Satvat, judging by how often he shows up in these projects.
From Fleen Senior French Correspondent Pierre Lebeaupin:
These ladies had messages to express with their comics in 2017, and you can bet they will persist in 2018.
- Emma (French version) has made a name for herself with her comics about everyday feminism, and in particular for spreading the concept of mental load. That one went viral including in the English web, which resulted in an interview on the BBC, among other coverage.
- Sarah Gully completed in 2017 the story of [Her] Little Abortion (English version, unfortunately incomplete; note that comics have been reposted in reverse chronological order so the first appears on top) so as to dedramatize the event for the other women who have to go through this experience. Don’t forget to check out her regular blog. Hat tip to Le Monde for these two creators.
- In 2017, Camille Gautier, better known as Karensac, went full time as a freelance illustrator after working as an architect; I particularly enjoyed her piece on panic attacks (French-only). She has barely started translating some of her comics in English; expect more of them to come.
- And also in 2017, Raphaëlle Marx started an art residency in South Korea in order to study and create webtoons4, to be published in French by Delitoon later this year, and hopefully in English at some point. In the meantime, she is posting her accomplishments, photos, and whatnot on Instagram for you to follow.
Our thanks, as always, to FSFCPL for keeping us up on Gallic comics happenings.
Spam of the day:
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¹ Alter-ego of mild-mannered chalkboard enthusiast Dante Shepherd.
² Which, as a proud Electrical Engineer, I might concede almost involves more difficulty and scholarship than my own chosen field.
³ Very cool thing I noticed — judging from the clock on the wall in the lecture portion of the video, the Landherr-spoofing scene was done with few (if any) reshoots.
4 If you need a refresher, these are comics specifically designed to be read by scrolling on a smartphone screen; they are a big deal (not to mention big business (French-only)) in Japan and South Korea.
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