Comic festival

My excuses for the people who went to the Stripdagen at Sunday to have a book signed by me;
I was already a bit ill on Saturday and it got worse, so I decided on Sunday to stay home.

But Saturday was a really busy day because, besides signing, there was:

The BNS Stripverwachting exhibition! This is at the start, and Roel Venderbosch is
still adjusting some panels.


...And then there was the BNS auction!

Kees de Boer did the presentation, a lot of people came to bid.

Here are all the things you could bid on, and the end result: More than €2000!
The money will be used to print a second edition of the BNS comic newspaper, that will
be distributed for free to promote comics in Holland.

Comic rant

Tomorrow I'll be do a signing at a comicfestival in Arnhem
so let's talk about comics!

Today I stumbled upon the comics of Lucy Knisley. She also draws autobiographical
comics and this panel came from a comic where she talks about how people look
at artistic jobs, hers in particular. The funny thing was that that little doodle looks
like how I draw my boyfriend! ;-)
You can read the whole comic here.
In the comic she tells how an old man pities her for wanting to become a cartoonist.
Although I can understand his opinion I like Knisley's positive look; You can focus on
how difficult it is to make money and how insecure creative jobs like ours are, but let's
not forget that it's also a lot of fun and very fulfilling.

And now a little rant because then I saw this on a blog;

In the US it's so normal to PAY comicartists for signing that it's specially announced
that they'll do it for FREE! And oh, they will not make drawings, only AUTOGRAPHS!

How different it is in Holland where all comicartists make drawings for free and only
if they're very lucky they get a trainticket and a meal. The organisation of the biggest
Dutch comicfestival, het Stripschap, even refuses to offer this to signing comicartists
because they feel it's the task of their publishers. And then there was this other
festival organizer that sent me an angry mail because I dared to cancel my signing
three weeks in advance... They sure know how to show their appreciation to all those
comicartists who offer their spare time and talent to their festivals for free.

So why am I attending this festival in Arnhem despite it all? For my readers of course,
but also because it's one of the few that still shows some respect to comicartists and
makes a festival fun.
Okay, end of rant and let's have fun tomorrow! :-)