Swiss Review 2/2019

Swiss Review / March 2019 / No.2 11 novels. He defines the genre as “a ma- jor art form that has come of age”. “Comic artists now tackle all kinds of themes and are often far removed from the traditional French-Belgian publications, like Spirou or Lucky Luke,” he insists. “It is the only artis- tic medium ever to have been in- vented in Switzerland,” adds Dominique Radrizzani, director of the Lausanne festival, BDFIL. The dis- cipline has been honoured in Geneva, where an Ibis Styles hotel is dedicated to Töpffer and his local successors (see box on next page). Authors from the different parts of Switzerland nowexport theirwork internationally. Most come from French-speaking Switzerland, nota- bly Derib, Cosey, Buche, Bertschy, Ti- rabosco, Peeters andWazem. The Ger- man-speaking population also boasts its share of major authors, such as Thomas Ott and Anna Sommer, who follow in the footsteps of the German artistWilhelmBusch, theman behind “Max andMoritz”. So, what then of the reticencementioned by Zep? “Graphic novels are often considered as enter- tainment art, or an industry,” explains Philippe Duvanel, who runs the Delémont’BD festival. Duvanel partic- ipated in a previous visit to Bern four years ago, accompanied by colleagues from the Jura region, in support of a Swiss prize for graphic novels. Accord- ing to Duvanel, Federal Councillor Alain Berset who oversees the FOC is in fact somewhat receptive to comic art. Nevertheless, “there is an undeni- able problemregarding the legitimacy of attributing public funding to graphic novels. This is not the case for other art forms, like theatre, for exam- ple,” he laments. Comic art requires few resources but considerable time Although the materials needed for drawing might seem simple enough, “creating comic art is extremely time consuming”, explains Zep. In a world where a rising quantity of work is countered by increasingly limited printing opportunities, for this illus- trator the profession of comic artist is becoming uncertain. He is in favour of a system that would provide support for comic creation, like that of the “The comic has come of age,” says Tom Tirabosco, co-founder of the first Swiss school of comic art and illustra- tion founded in Geneva in 2017. Photo: Jérémy Lavave (DR) Excerpt from “Das Unbekannte” by Anna Sommer, published in 2018 by Edition Moderne. Alex Baladi’s “Robinson suisse” will soon be published by Atrabile. The artist drew inspiration from a book by Isabelle de Montolieu and a novel by Johann David Wyss.