.jpg)
Jerome Bihan
What have been your personal cartooning/comics highlights of 2012?
Most certainly going to the Angouleme festival. I had a stall at a side event (as in called the Festival Off) with pretty much all the local and international small press. Great time to meet people and check out the HUUUUGE independent scene going in Europe. I actually made a full comic out of it. Also went to some other small press expo such as ELCAF in London (organised by NoBrow) again another overwhelming event.
Who are some of the comics creators that you've discovered and enjoyed for the first time in 2012?
I could not really isolate one. Firstly there are people I have been in contact with and who I asked to contribute to Radio as Paper such as Ludmilla Bartscht, James Turek, Anna Hailfisch, Sharmila Banerjee, Martin Ernstern, Alexandre de Mote and many more.
There is a lot going on in Europe at the moment for independent comics.I don't think there has been as many indie publishers as there is now. There is a lot of books coming out in France every year (I think there is about 5 thousand titles a year) but I guess to name a few 'established artists' I could name Jc Menu, Mattt Konture, Jonathan Larabie, Max de Radiques who's latest comic called Moose is available through Oily . Also Joseph Lambert who I discovered though his website and oh, yeah, I think Simon Hanselmann is pretty rad.
What is something non-comics that you have enjoyed in 2012?
Short stories and essays I guess. 'A Dreary story' by Anton Chekhov, Inside the whale by Orwell, Barjavel. I have been watching Treme also by David Simon , the walking dead tv show is also on my list for 2012...what else, hum, Nite Jewel, Bill Callahan, Prinzhorn dance school.That's about it for music. And eating proper French bread again, I fucking missed it man!
Have you implemented any significant changes to your working methods this year?
Yeah, I am getting slow (haha). I've been trying to layer pages a different way, I try not to fill them too much. Embracing the greys. If there is a sentence to define my method in 2012 it would be that: embracing the greys.
What are you looking forward to in 2013?
Not been turned into a zombie or to ashes, been the end of the world and all. A lady tried to give me a magazine on the street this week end, the front of it said: 'are you scared about the end of the world?'. I later found out she was a Jehovah witness.Even them are cashing out on the Walking Dead. I guess I'll keep 2012 rolling into 2013.Meet more comic folks, make more comics, eat more bread, you know...live the life.
