The Cartoon International Meeting [RIDEP] January 18-20, 2008 (Carquefou, France)

Posted by the courtesy of press agent Caroline Violot. This looks to be a wide-ranging and important event; readers in France are encouraged to attend!

9èmes Rencontres Internationales du Dessin de Presse (RIDEP)
Carquefou (44) les 18-19-20 janvier 2008

THE CARTOON INTERNATIONAL MEETING will be held in Carquefou (France close to Nantes) from January 18-20. It will feature twenty-five cartoonists, including Chinese cartoonists from Peking and nineteen cartoonists from France. Plantu will appear with his "Cartooning for Peace" exhibit, which was shown in ONU.

The meeting will speak about freedom of press and human rights with guests from Amnesty International, Reporters sans frontières [Reporters without Borders] and of cartoons with the FECO....

Click here for more information.

en français...

La Chine et les dessinateurs chinois à Carquefou
Pour leur 9ème édition les RIDEP prennent les couleurs de la Chine pendant 3 jours sur le site de la Fleuriaye à Carquefou (métropole nantaise).

Une délégation de dessinateurs fera le voyage spécialement de Chine avec Xia Li Chuan, qui a réalisé l'affiche des RIDEP 2008, et ses confrères Fu Hong Ge, Xia Da Chuan, Xu Pengfei, Zhang Yaoning, Zheng Wei Hua...

A travers leurs dessins les plus grands noms du dessin de presse chinois et français (Ricord, Plantu, Mulatier Frap, Dominique Lemarié, Chaunu, Biz, Million, Alex, Alexis, Thieboly,...) permettront à tous de décrypter les médias mais aussi la culture et les codes d'un pays au coeur de l'actualité internationale.

Un pays, un dessin, un message...
Abritant un cinquième de l'humanité, la Chine connaît de profonds bouleversements et un développement économique sans précédent. Mais à quel prix ? Censure, répression, crise écologique, économie sans régulation... les Droits de l'Homme et la liberté d'expression ne s'accordent pas toujours avec les réalités de la Chine d'aujourd'hui. Avec les dessinateurs qui dessineront la Chine et les chinois en toute liberté et en collaboration avec des experts de la Chine et du dessin de presse, nous apporterons un éclairage sur ce pays aux multiples facettes.

En route vers la Chine !
3 jours de rencontres et d'échanges uniques sous le trait de crayon des dessinateurs !

Au programme :

• Animations : films, jeux chinois, cérémonie du thé, calligraphie


• des expositions de photos (revue Mad in China par les journalistes et photographes du collectif Tendance Floue, photos du prix Niepce 2007 Bertrand Meunier), l’Exposition Dessins pour la Paix de Plantu, et le tour du monde de l’actualité avec plus de 250 dessins de presse exposés
  
• des conférences-débats sur des thématiques actuelles : le métier de dessinateur de presse, les droits humains en Chine, la liberté de la presse et les Jeux Olympiques à Pékin, la Chine à deux vitesses, une Chine verte pour demain ?

En collaboration avec plus de 25 dessinateurs, des journalistes, des photographes, des sinologues, Amnesty International et Reporters Sans Frontières, la FECO (Fédération des Organisations de Dessinateurs), Marianne, la FNAC, le CLEMI...

Contact Presse: Caroline Violot Communication, 06 22 72 17 47, 02 51 800 873, cviolot @ orange.fr

Saturday: BTPBHITP Activism

As reported Thursday by Editor & Publisher, Saturday, April 1 sees a very special event: "We Come to Praise Bush, Not to Ridicule Him", a service of The Center for American Blogress.

A group of patriots calling themselves the "BTPBHITP Committee" - the acronym stands for "Back the President Because He Is the President" - are posting editorial cartoons in support of President George W. Bush, as a counter-measure to the bad press he usually receives from "old media." View the tributes here.

The event was mindermasted - er, masterminded - by cartoonist and hostess-with-the-mostest Elena Steier. America needs more patriots like you, Elena!

The GWB Icon above appears by the courtesy of Elena Steier, as well as, presumably, via its own divine will.

Black Ink Monday

The Association of American Editorial Cartoonists has declared today "Black Ink Monday":

Over the last 20 years, the number of cartoonists on the staff of daily newspapers nationwide has been cut in half. In the last month alone, the Tribune Company (owner of the Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times and a half-dozen other prominent papers), has forced out well-known and award-winning cartoonists at the LA Times and Baltimore Sun, eliminating their positions entirely. [...]
In an open letter to Tribune CEO Dennis FitzSimons, AAEC President Clay Bennett recently wrote: "There are few journalists in a newsroom who can define the tone and identity of a publication like an editorial cartoonist does. By discarding those who make a newspaper unique, you rob it of its character. By robbing a newspaper of its character, you steal its spirit."

You can view 100 editorial cartoon protests at this page of the AAEC website.

Why should you care about this? Some might put it this way: "It's the First Ammendment, Stupid." Others might note that this "downsizing" trend is happening throughout America; as corporations continue their absorptions, mergers and monoplies, lining their CEOs' pockets by demandinge more work from fewer workers for less cash, the next position to be eliminated could be your own. Still others might take an historical approach, noting that editorial cartooning played an important role in the founding of this very country:


That, of course, is Benjamin Franklin's famous "Join, or Die" cartoon from the May 9, 1754 edition of Franklin's newspaper, The Pennsylvania Gazette. It's considered the first editorial cartoon in what would eventually become the United States. By trampling on the editorial cartoon tradition, the Tribune Comany tramples on a fundamental piece of what makes America, America.

Here's a story about the recent acquisition of an original print of this cartoon by none other than Steve Geppi, President and Chief Executive Officer of Diamond Comic Distributors. Insert your own joke about monopolization here...

Update: Curiously, there's nary a mention of Black Ink Monday in today's Houston Chronicle; after all the complaints I've heard in Houston about how "liberal" the Chronicle is, I was hoping to see some coverage. They didn't forget to include the Editorial Page's daily "Bible Verse," though. (Curiously, the Bible Verse seems to be just about the only portion of the paper not reproduced on its website. Hmmmm...)

Update Nummer Zwei: For more background on the reasons for Black Ink Monday - and to learn that editorial cartoonist Paul Revere understood the power of revision - check out this animated editorial cartoon by past AAEC President Milt Priggee. It takes a few minutes to watch/read, but it's worth it to get a sort of panoramic view of the current situation. And be sure also to read the enlightening essay "In Defense of Editorial Cartooning" by Chris Lamb (entry for December 9 at Daryl Cagle's blog). Thanks to the Ever-Amazing Elena Steier for telling Milt Priggee about the Blog Machine!

Nieman Reports on Editorial Cartoons

Welcome to "Comics Research & Such" - I'll get to a proper introduction soon, but let's just jump right in for our first post...

While it might be old news to you, it's new to me - and that's enough to qualify listing it here. The Winter 2004 issue of Nieman Reports (vol 58, no. 4) focuses on editorial cartoons, featuring 18 essays by and about editorial cartoonists (as well as other journalism- related features). Download the entire 2.6MB PDF file of the whole issue here. [Get the free Adobe Acrobat reader here, natch.] Glad to see the USA's "first journalism review" - the official house organ of The Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University - focusing on this endangered (but still vital, damnit) branch of the Fourth Estate.