Cartoonists share artistic creations: Comics festival
spotlights complex visions
By Molly Gilmore | For the Olympian
• Published June 05, 2008
Michel Gagne will be one of the featured guests at the seventh annual Olympia
Comics Festival this weekend. But Gagne, the creator of two ongoing comics,
wouldn't describe himself as a comics artist.
Olympia Comics Festival
What: The seventh annual festival
spotlights work by alternative and small-press cartoonists from the Northwest
and beyond.
When: The Cartoonists Expo is from noon to 5 p.m. Saturday
and the stage show is 6 to 8 p.m. Saturday.
Where: The expo is at The
Vault, 425 Franklin St. S.E., Olympia, and the show is at the Capitol Theater,
206 Fifth Ave. S.E., Olympia.
Tickets: The expo is free; $1 donation is
suggested for the show.
More information: 360-705-3050 or
www.olympiacomicsfestival.org
Perhaps that's not surprising.
Gagne of Bellingham has done ani mation for movies from "An American Tail" to
"Ratatouille," self-pub lished books, created trading cards and is developing a
video game.
How would he categorize himself?
"I'm an artist," he said.
Gagne, along with Jeffrey Brown, who is known for his candid autobiographical
accounts of failed relationships, and Jim Woodring, who draws comics about a
strange creature in a stranger world, will be featured at Saturday's
gathering.
Last year's event drew about 1,000 people, said festival director Chelsea
Baker of Danger Room Comics.
The Saturday evening stage show will include interviews with special guest
artists, slide shows and a look at some comics that are "so terrible you can't
help laughing," Baker said.
"We'll also have a Break Up with Jeffrey Brown contest," she said. "He draws
comics about how he dates these girls and they break his heart. We'll have
volunteers from the audience come up on stage and find some humorous or
humiliating way to break up with him. It's going to be really funny, I
think."
Visitors also can enjoy an exhibit of comics art in Capitol Theater's
mezzanine. The expo in the afternoon includes interviews, tables of comics and
zines, a panel discussion on the history of zines in Olympia and another on
silent comics.
Silent comics? They simply are comics without the word balloons, said Gagne,
who will speak on that panel along with Woodring.
Gagne's "The Saga of Rex" is a se rial published annually in Random House's
"Flight" anthology.
Silent comics are an additional challenge when it comes to relating complex
concepts, the artist said.
"It leaves more to the reader's imagination," he said. "I'm dealing with some
v ery complex ideas with my 'Saga of Rex' comics, and sometimes I wish I could
use words to make my point.
"You have to do everything through pantomime, so your acting has to be a
little stronger."
Acting?
Animators use the term to refer to how their characters behave, he said. "I
call it acting for comics as well, but I'm not sure if that's the proper
term."
Gagne often does special-effects animation for films, which also involves
conveying concepts without words. For "Ratatouille," about a rat who loves to
cook, he was the "taste visualization designer."
"In the movie, there are two sequences where the characters visualize
tastes," he said. "Remy tastes the strawberry, and these fireworks come off
it."
The sequences can be seen on Gagne's Web site, www.gagneint.com, as can a lot
of his other work.
The site's drawings, from "Insanely Twisted Rabbits" to fanciful aliens,
could take a long time to explore.
"There are almost 6,000 pages on the Web site," Gagne said. "I have been
working on it for almost seven years now."