IGI events
EP Jacobs Talk and Exhibition
March 10 2005There will be a talk on the late, great Belgian Graphic Novelist EP Jacobs on Wednesday 16 March 2005 at 8pm given by Viviane Quittelier (grand-daugther of EP Jacobs) on his life and work (the talk will be given in French but should easy enough to follow, especially for those whose profession is illustrator).
The talk will open an exhibition of approximately 20 original drawings from the series Blake & Mortimer that runs from 16 March until 5 April 2005, in Alliance Francaise, 1 Kildare St, Dublin 2.
One of the founding fathers of the European comic movement was Edgar Pierre Jacobs, creator of the legendary Blake & Mortimer series. Jacobs had an early fascination for both drawing and music and theatre. In 1940 he left the theatre scene and joined Bravo! Magazine. In 1942 he drew episodes of Alex Raymond’s Flash Gordon series, because the American pages couldn’t reach Belgium during the War. German censorship forbad the strip after only a couple of weeks.
Edgar P. Jacobs then began a science-fiction comic of his own in 1943, titled Le Rayon U. He was hired by Hergé to help at the restyling of his Tintin albums. Jacobs worked on the backgrounds and colours on most of the early restyled Tintin comics. Jacobs art was already present in the early days of Tintin magazine, with Le Secret de l’Espadon, the first episode of the Blake & Mortimer series. He got the inspiration for this series while doing Flash Gordon in Bravo!, and wanted to make a realistic detective science-fiction comic of his own. Because of its painstaking realism, Blake and Mortimer was a worthy equivalent to the Tintin series from its start. That is why Jacobs stopped his cooperation with Hergé in 1947 to give his full attention to his own series. Jacobs produced eight big adventures of Blake & Mortimer until 1972, which have all become classics. In 1973 he restyled his own ‘Rayon U’ comic and wrote his memoires. He then wrote the scenario for the second episode of Les Trois Formules du Professeur Sato, but the artwork remained unfinished. It was Bod de Moor who finished the album after Jacob’s death.
Enquiries to the Alliance Francaise: 01 676 7116
more info on EP Jacobs : http://www.lambiek.net/jacobs.htm
