Live: Memorial de la Shoah

Today was a very busy day and now, at "home" at my hotel room, I'm extremely tired but also very satisfied.



We (Jamil Mani and I) started the day with a meeting with Gaëtan Akyuz, our contact at the Festival International de la Bande Dessinee Angouleme, discussing the forthcoming exhibition on Swedish comics at Europe's biggest comics festival. A lot of work still remains to be done, but this is shaping up to be really interesting.



Then we moved on to Memorial de la Shoah, where the Swedish exhibition Mus/Mouse/Maus is currently on display.



26 Swedish cartoonists are exhibited with one page each, specifically made for this exhibition in various ways relating to the graphic novel Maus.







The curators and designers of the museum had done a great job, together with the original curator Jamil Mani, displaying these comics in this beautiful museum.



After the crowded opening ceremony there was a seminar with talks by Jamil Mani on the creation of the exhibition; by me on my forthcoming book Jewish Images in the Comics; and by comics expert Didier Pasamonik and historian Joel Kotek on the Shoah in comics. This was followed by a debate, which ranged high and low and actually got quite heated a couple of times.



After this we headed out for a well deserved beer and a meeting with Marie Riedelberg-Lemoine (who acted as interpretor at the seminar) and Alexis Jäderholm from the Swedish Institute in Paris, to talk about the showing of the Angoulême exhibition at the Swedish House in Paris next year. There is also still a lot to do with this, but it's all starting to come together.



Finally, when we were almost all worn out by all this talking, we took the Metro to another part of Paris for a late dinner with the always genial publisher Philippe Moren (PLG) to discuss the French edition of Swedish Comics History, which we will try to get published in time for the Angoulême festival 2012.

It's been awhile since I had such a heavy day of networking, lecturing, debating and trying to connect to so many new people. I'm beat, but after finishing this report there's today's four pages to write... Oh well, it's only two in the morning so I'll give it a shot. Tomorrow I think I am going to go for a comics free day...