Igort and the Ignatz line

[arecomicsevengood]

Anyone here like the cartoonist Igort? I think his last book, Japanese Notebooks, would be of interest to Bubbles readers. I don't have a copy, just checked it out from the library, but I recall it being about him going to Japan and the manga industry, the country's visual culture. His book 5 Is The Perfect Number might be the most interesting demonstration of that classic alt-comics two-color printing style, of black and a secondary color, but don't hold me to that.

Anyway, thought there could be a thread about his work as a cartoonist that could also talk about the Ignatz line he edited, from a decade-plus ago. Igort was the head of the Italian publisher Coconino, which was co-publisher of the line of comics from international cartoonists that would be published in French, Italian, and English simultaneously by separate publishers. The English language versions were handled by Fantagraphics, and at the time I mostly paid attention to the American cartoonists they published, Kevin Huizenga doing Ganges and Anders Nilsen doing The End. Now there's stuff I want to track down that's pretty difficult.

Gonna run down (what I think is) the full checklist:
Baobab, Igort (3 issues, story left unfinished)
Reflections, Marco Corona (3 issues, uncollected)
Insomnia, Matt Broersma (3 issues, uncollected)
Wish You Were Here, Gipi (2 issues, uncollected)
Ganges, Kevin Huizenga (4 issues from Ignatz, 2 self-published, collected as The River At Night)
The End, Anders Nilsen (1 issue, re-released with additional material as a hardcover book)
Chimera, Lorenzo Mattotti (1 issue)
Calvario Hills, Marti (1 issue)
New Tales Of Old Palomar, Gilbert Hernandez (3 issues, collected as Children Of Palomar)
Delphine, Richard Sala (4 issues, collected, but the collection is OOP/expensive now too)
Interiorae, Gabriella Giandelli (4 issues in duotone, collected in color)
Grotesque, Sergio Ponchione (4 issues, uncollected)
Sammy The Mouse, Zak Sally (3 issues collected in a self-published edition, with a sequel published by Uncivilized)
Niger, Leila Marzocchi (3 issues from Fantagraphics, plus 3 more from Coconino, collected as Nymph)
Babel, David B (A book collects 3 issues worth of material but IDK if there was a third issue printed in English)

In 2009 Coconino was bought by an Italian producer and in 2019 Igort directed a movie adaptation of 5 Is The Perfect Number, I don't know how it is though.

Also can't forget to mention that in the early nineties Catalan did an Igort book called Dulled Feelings where the cover is Batman with a hard-on. Also Igort illustrated a Fats Waller bio-comic written by Carlos Sampayo which you would think would've been translated into English but hasn't been. If anybody has any thoughts about any of this stuff I'd like to hear it. I recently was like "I should track down Baobab" but haven't found the first issue, I don't have the first issue of the Gipi series either. I ordered issues of Reflections off Ebay but am waiting for the guy I ordered issue 2 off of to dig his copy up. Issue 1 seems cool. A few of the Ignatz cartoonists totally leave me cold but I'm not going to say which ones because it will seem like hot take contrarianism. (Not Kevin H though, he rules - just gonna try to avoid talking about his work in this thread so as to not put him on the spot as a poster and if he has any memories of working with Igort or the translation process I want to read them.)

[dominocorp]

Even cartoonists not up my alley were amazing in that format.

Zak Sally is one of my favorite cartoonists in any format, but nothing beats the Ignatz Sammy The Mouse issues.

[grubcubman]

Thanks for this thread -- and especially thanks for the additional history on everything you discussed. I was late to comics, having started reading them in college, and the Ignatz series was pretty formative, particularly Ganges and Grotesque. Stellar but accessible production; I think the uniform production specs made them feel more collectible (in the sense of being possible to collect and put together into a set, as opposed to being rare, although some issues seem to be). When Box Brown started Retrofit, he said he wanted to be able to go into a comic shop and get something good to read for five or ten bucks, and I think this series totally served that role. Great stuff throughout, I've always thought.

Was there any word on why the series ended? Was it the '09 acquisition?

[whitecomics]

I think the series ended just because it was financially unsustainable -- if I'm remembering right, some of the later issues were only published by Fanta as opposed to the Fanta/l'Asso/Coconino triumvirate that printed at least the first batch of issues in three languages.

To that point, wasn't part of the original conceit that all text would be on the black (or darker) layer, so that all three publishers could use the same printing of the second color? If that was ever true, it fell away pretty quickly. Ha, what a gloriously ambitious project. Beautiful books.

Five is the Perfect Number is, I think, the only solo Igort work I've read. For me it's very much in the great art, boring story category alongside many of the l'Asso artists. There's a piece by Matthais Wivel that articulates this well, would love a link if anyone else remembers this and can find it.

[manoopuesta]

Aug 11, 2022 2:58:00 GMT dominocorp said:

Even cartoonists not up my alley were amazing in that format.

Zak Sally is one of my favorite cartoonists in any format, but nothing beats the Ignatz Sammy The Mouse issues.

I read those too and definitely it is Zak Sally as its best.

I read from that series too Insomnia. Especially the first issue is really strong, but if I recall correctly issue 3 is not the last part of the story, it should have continued. Too bad because it is a really nice comic.

And also, Interiorae by Gabriella Giandelli. I liked it but was long time ago that I don't recall too much of the story. And I am biased too to like these books since their format is so nice.

[manoopuesta]

Aug 10, 2022 23:32:53 GMT arecomicsevengood said:

Anyone here like the cartoonist Igort? I think his last book, Japanese Notebooks, would be of interest to Bubbles readers. I don't have a copy, just checked it out from the library, but I recall it being about him going to Japan and the manga industry, the country's visual culture. His book 5 Is The Perfect Number might be the most interesting demonstration of that classic alt-comics two-color printing style, of black and a secondary color, but don't hold me to that.

I read Japanese Notebooks, and I enjoyed it quite a bit (and I think we discussed about that book in one thread of the forum, but don't recall which one right now). I was planning to read more of his comics but I haven't done so yet. I've been at least interested on reading Japanese Notebooks 2 and his Ukranian and Russian Notebooks.

[maxhuffman]

Dulled Feelings is fairly incomprehensible but damn if it doesn't go hard.

I didn't know there was an English edition of 5 Is The Perfect Number until I came across it at Bizarro Wuxtry earlier this year. It's a really nice book, good size, good paper– feel like one of those things might have suffered were it published today, if it were published at all. IIRC the translation gives it the "dat's da ting boss" spelling-out-dialect treatment which I'm never big on. I'd have thought the book had broader appeal (bravura drawing, much-loved genre) than its non-existence in the consciousness seems to indicate. Maybe it's huge in Italy, I don't know...looking it up now it looks like there was a 2019 film adaptation that Igort directed himself???

[arecomicsevengood]

Aug 11, 2022 18:59:45 GMT maxhuffman said:

I didn't know there was an English edition of 5 Is The Perfect Number until I came across it at Bizarro Wuxtry earlier this year. It's a really nice book, good size, good paper– feel like one of those things might have suffered were it published today, if it were published at all. IIRC the translation gives it the "dat's da ting boss" spelling-out-dialect treatment which I'm never big on.

I didn't even think about it on my recent reading but it is very funny that it gives all the characters Italian-American accents in the English translation when the book takes place in Italy. Like "this is how mob guys talk," a Sopranos influence on the translation.

[arecomicsevengood]

Sorta tangential but I realize I need to get a good box for storing magazine-sized stuff. Comic stores are like "yeah you'd have to special order that online." This shortage is of course why old issues of Love And Rockets and other Fantagraphics titles are all hard to find. It really is nice reading a comic at these dimensions but the question of "how do you store it?" is likely a big part of why comics people are hostile to the format.

[arecomicsevengood]

Didn't realize Marco Corona had a book come out with Hollow Press a few years ago. Art looks pretty good: floatingworldcomics.com/shop/comic-books/satanas-merits-by-domenico-vaiti-and-marco-corona

[arecomicsevengood]

Wait is the Josh Simmons "Batman with an erect penis" cover to Dream Of The Bat ripping off Igort's Dulled Feelings cover??