A changing world
French, Atrabile, 2024
Patou, Rictus and Nour, three teenagers united by their love of drawing and their desire to practise it, meet in the back of a comic-book store. There, Nabil, the bookseller, lets the three young people set up their little studio (in the form of a table in the courtyard) and encourages them, sometimes giving them exercises, like an impromptu teacher. Nabil is a bookseller with an unusual background: he became manager of the bookshop only by chance, but he has some very firm ideas and principles about comics, which includes not selling Tintin… The setting is an anonymous small town in the summer of 1994, when a more sophisticated movement was slowly but surely taking hold in the world of comic books. As for the teenagers, one who dreams of becoming a professional, one who’s an enlightened dilettante and one who’s a gifted artist, we can already guess from their discussions, ambitions and confessions that their destinies are likely to be quite different. Un monde en pleine mutation is a subtle but sincere declaration of love for comics, and more specifically for DIY and the world of fanzines. But it’s also a (graphic) novel of learning, in which content and form merge in playful and delightful ways. Few authors can boast a body of work as varied and extensive as Baladi’s. After a career spanning no less than 30 years, the author still manages to surprise and touch us, once again.
- Title
- Un monde en pleine mutation
- Publisher
- Atrabile
- Translation rights
- Sarah Lapalu, sarah@eddy-agency.com
- Publication date
- 2024
- Pages
- 232
- ISBN
- 978-2-88923-138-6
Author
Alex Baladi
Born in 1969, Alex Baladi studied art history at the University of Geneva in 1989 and cinema at the ESEC in Paris from 1990 to 1992. He has taken part in numerous exhibitions and has written over fifty books, published by L’Association, Atrabile, La Cafetière and The Hoochie Coochie among others. He is a founding member of the Fabrique de Fanzines, a performance workshop that has been touring since 2003. He has been a member of Oubapo (Workshop of Potential Comic Book Art) since 2005 and was a member of its editorial committee from 2011 to 2012. He has made two animated films with the filmmaker Isabelle Nouzha. As an artist, he has chosen to express himself in comics because of the freedom and versatility they offer. Along with Frederik Peeters, Tom Tirabosco and Pierre Wazem, Alex Baladi is one of the pillars of the Geneva comic book scene, and is undoubtedly one of its most prolific and experimental members. Since the early 1990s, in addition to publishing his own books, he has produced and distributed dozens of fanzines and designed numerous posters, record covers and murals, making him one of the most visible players in Geneva’s alternative scene. In 2013, he was one of the recipients of a cultural grant from the Leenaards Foundation, and in September 2019, an exhibition dedicated to his work will take place at the BDFIL festival in Lausanne, where he will be the guest of honour.
Photo: © BDFIL
