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Oct. 29th, 2009 09:46 pmThis is the time of the Lucca (Italy) Comics Convention, one of the three greats along with Angouleme (France) and San Diego (USA). And it has been announced that Sergio Toppi, the greatest Italian cartoonist of all time, still active and still pushing boundaries at 77 years of age, will be given an official award by the Italian Government.
I don't know how I feel about it. On the one hand, the official celebrations in France for the fiftieth anniversary of Asterix, as well as the award for Toppi, are overwhelmingly well deserved, and at a time when the Nobel Prize Committees seem to have lost their way altogether (and I don't only mean the Peace people), it seems more than right to show that official gratitude and public celebration can be given to people who really have created great art and given happiness to millions. On the other, I am very, very keen on the unofficial, almost underground position of the comics artform. This has been the most creative and probably the most influential artform of the twentieth century from a base of near-clandestinity. We have done very well out of being underground and despised, and frankly I dread the results if we were to become, like "modern art" and opera, institutional.
I don't know how I feel about it. On the one hand, the official celebrations in France for the fiftieth anniversary of Asterix, as well as the award for Toppi, are overwhelmingly well deserved, and at a time when the Nobel Prize Committees seem to have lost their way altogether (and I don't only mean the Peace people), it seems more than right to show that official gratitude and public celebration can be given to people who really have created great art and given happiness to millions. On the other, I am very, very keen on the unofficial, almost underground position of the comics artform. This has been the most creative and probably the most influential artform of the twentieth century from a base of near-clandestinity. We have done very well out of being underground and despised, and frankly I dread the results if we were to become, like "modern art" and opera, institutional.
