The object book, “something that looks like nothing else”

Responsible for the exhibition devoted to the book-object at the Belgian Center for Comes, Greg Shaw will release his own “concept book” at the start of the school year. Therefore, A rare practice, which transforms comics into plastic art. In addition,

The first comic-object that Greg Shaw remembers having had in hand. Moreover, “it must be The originby Marc-Antoine Mathieu, in the 1980s. Consequently, It is very minimalist in the world of object book: This is only a box cut in a “normal” album. Nevertheless, but this cutting changed everything. Consequently, It marked me a lot. Moreover, Otherwise. Furthermore, the oldest holder of the book-object, in comics, that I was able to find in the reserves of the center, it is a Leporello made in 1965 and in very small number by Warja Lavater, a very inventive object book, “something looks like Swiss author who had made small square books herself that unfold in accordion, around Grimm. Furthermore, We exhibit his Red ridehimself very conceptual, based on legendary images and color codes … Additionally, Furthermore, Even if like everyone else. Moreover, I discovered comics with Tintin, Lucky Luke or AsterixI have always been fascinated, I do not know very well why, by the materiality and “formality” of comics and its albums, and by all the conceptual possibilities it contains. In addition, “

The proof by the exhibition devoted to the object book. Moreover, visible all summer, of which he is the commissioner, and which shows (but rarely to touch) more than 50 pounds of comics holding the object: Leporellos, pop-up, various folds, cut object book, “something looks like albums, torn, inclined, in relief, in 3D, or even as a unique piecesuch Manchot bandit of Hélène Meyssirel, who gives to read a different strip with each draw. Moreover, The proof. Furthermore, Moreover, also, by the own work of Greg Shaw, a rare Belgian author but himself very conceptual: while his first comic book album was pure abstraction (Pictorial courseAtrabile, 2005), his neighbor, and first for more than ten years, will hold this time: Guilty was fully drawn … Furthermore, at the cutter.

Object book. Meanwhile, "something looks like – Object book, "something looks like

Get rid of the drawing

“I have long been trying to free myself from my own drawing which has never satisfied me, comments this Brussels resident born in Ghent, very active in the Belgian Center for Comic Strip, which he manages among others the Bedéthèque and the quarterly publication, The Dessable. I was looking for a drawing. a way of drawing object book, “something looks like in which I could really feel comfortable, and I took a few years to find and refine this system, among other things after research on Frans Masereel and its wood engravings, considered the first graphic novels. I like this “sharp”, more expressionist drawing, that we get with a blade rather than with China ink. I adapted this principle to the comic strip on paper: the masses. the lines of my boards are holes in the sheet. Rather than tracing in ink, even if I do a pencil, I cut. A cut. but no collage: I just slide a black sheet behind my board before scanning it, to reveal the drawing and the composition with the cutter cuts. ”

A work (beggars. which will have asked him for years) which is object book, “something looks like reminiscent of the wood engraving but also the drawings with the punch or the cutting of the Belgian Florian Huet, such as The absent eye is not an empty lookcomposed of 18 cut leaves of which only wafflers remain. But do not tell Greg Shaw that his BD at the cutter holds from the book-object: “Not at all!” The result possibly depends on the concept book or a graphic novel in the particular style. The object book is a book that is manipulated. in which there is something other than pages linked together and which form a story. Books whose shape must be different from a square or a rectangle. At least it is my definition. Like a more global sub-category of the concept book, in which I express myself. ”

These books, concepts or objects, remain difficult to sell and distribute, given their singularity and their object book, “something looks like not at all capital. “”Of course I had to count my hours, it is obviously not profitable! I have not managed to find an editor to GuiltyI had to set up my own structure. I believe that small publishers today can no longer afford it. and that the older ones no longer take the risk of publishing something that looks like nothing else. I did not even have an Instagram account when I went to see them, it is probably unacceptable! ”

Greg Shaw will publish Guilty“A book [qu’il] would have liked to read ”. at the end of the summer: The very conceptual story of a film script that is rewritten throughout the reading of this comic strip not drawn with ax, but almost.

Guiltyfrom Greg Shaw, Leaf Stripping Books, 126 p. Available at the end of August at https://leaf-stripping.sumupstore.com

The book-object in comics, Until September 7, 2026 at the Belgian object book, “something looks like Center for Comic Strip.