EDWARD GAUVIN

Ever since The Chimera Brigade, I seem to be translating a lot of French SF star Serge Lehman. For instance, this trilogy, Season of the Snake, set in a nexus of interplanetary transport linked to distant star systems by spacetime “chutes.” Sentient hive minds, ambulatory arbors, heroes armored and pregnant… plus a clever use of color bleeding into early two-tone (you can tell from the progression of the covers).  Meticulous art by Jean-Marie Michaud.

Coming to you soon from the good folks at Titan Comics!

With Book 2, Stormbringer, I jump aboard The Ship Which Sails Over Land and Sea the smash French adaptation of Michael Moorcock’s immortal Elric series by Julien Blondel, Jean-Luc Cano, Robin Recht, Didier Poli, and Julien Telo.

Coming to you soon from the good folks at Titan Comics!

Now out in English, the second volume of Swiss creator Frederik Peeter’s full-color far-future space saga of autism, technology, and artificial intelligence: Aama, The Invisible Throng!

If the cover doesn’t do it for you, maybe the wonders inside will:

Award-winning graphic novelists MARJANE SATRAPI and CHRIS WARE are two artists whose difficult, beautiful storytelling combines visual pleasure with subject matter of the highest seriousness. Satrapi’s internationally best-selling graphic memoir Persepolis recounts her youth in Iran amid the Islamic Revolution and the Iran-Iraq War. Chris Ware uses stunningly lyrical drawings and spare text to create haunting, beautiful and unshakable books, including Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth. Join us for a rare opportunity to see these two critically acclaimed artists—and longtime mutual admirers—in conversation about their own and each other’s work. The discussion will be moderated by USC professors DANA JOHNSON and JEFF SOLOMON, hosting the event in conjunction with Professor ALICE GAMBRELL. RSVP now!

Hans Rollman, a contributing editor at PopMatters, has penned the first review of The Art of Empathy, the NEA’s collection of essays on translation published last August. He spares a kind mention for yours truly:

Edward Gauvin draws an analogy with photographers (and other new media workers), who were once seen as merely technicians who clicked a button: now they’re seen as creative producers in their own right. “The translator is… a literature worker, and as such deserves respect, guarantees of safer working conditions, and certain basic rights for the formerly invisible and illicit.”

I was at Lannan last fall with Maya, and she is the shiznit. Go see an important lady talk about an important thing: PRISON REFORM. Then buy her book!

From over the summer, a comics tetralogy about Picasso’s early days based largely on the memoirs of his legendary mistress Fernande. The hit series by writer Julie Birmant and artist Clement Oubrerie even got an exhibit at the Musée de Montmartre.

Coming to you soon from the folks at SelfMadeHero!

The second volume of Best of Enemies, Jean-Pierre Filiu and David B.’s graphic novel history of U.S.-Middle East relations is now available in the U.S. from SelfMadeHero!

But on to a subject that may be very important for you and your loved ones!

As you are no doubt aware, the Daylight “Savings” deadline passed just this weekend, yet another clever misnomer in the continuing federal scheme to defraud us.  We’re taxed on what we earn, taxed on what we own, taxed on what we spend, and now taxed on how we schedule the very business of living.

Early on the morning of April 4th an hour was stolen from American citizens (certain residents of Indiana and northern Arizona excepted).

Such semantic glosses as the insidious mnemonic “Spring Forward” only highlight the government’s desperate need to slap an optimistic face on what must be termed Daylight Robbery.

Those of historical bent may attempt to legitimate Daylight “Savings” by tracing the idea to founding father Ben Franklin, but wasn’t this the same purveyor of thrift and industry who in his libertine Parisian dalliances practiced nothing Poor Richard preached?

His acclaimed Almanac, as D.H. Lawrence has deconstructed to show, is nothing but a federalist manual aiming to make of an American an automaton and of a democrat a drone.

Have you, then, remembered to file your Federal Daylight Savings Return?

These generally take quite a few months to process and you probably won’t get your hour refunded until mid to late autumn, by which time you can be sure it will have depreciated from a daylight into an evening or nighttime hour, which we know to be inferior in terms of average mental and physical fatigue, what with the day’s collected pollutants malingering in the air.

Available this year are Schedules IRT, Transit Authority, Unannounced Changes to Service, & BMD, Reporting Form for Loss of Time Due to Bureaucracy, Incompetence, or Mechanical Malfunction.  All deductions must be itemized, generally under the sections Post Office, Local Branch; Division of Motor Vehicles, Municipal Office; and Subway Doors That Don’t Open After The Train Has Clearly Stopped.

Perhaps those stray minutes erroneously squandered in anger, frustration, or simple idling, will in cumulative restitution complete your missing hour, or even restore to your life that crucial surplus which seems to have come from nowhere, yet enables you, one fine and hectic morning, to be the last aboard that departing train before its doors separate you from the envious and disappointed on the platform.

Join us on November 9th for an afternoon with French and American comics artists at NerdMelt Showroom, inside the Meltdown Comics & Collectiblesbookstore.

Come meet the creators of the best of today’s graphic novels from LA and France for discussions on their art and the vitality of the international comics scene.
The authors’ books will be available for purchase from Stuart Ng Books, the largest importer of bande dessinée in the U.S.

Free event, RSVP here.

TOPICS DISCUSSED WILL INCLUDE

– Comics in Hollywood: French-American exchanges today
– Looking for new contents: comics on the big and the small screens
– Adaptation and translation: the challenges of transcultural adaptations
– Books in motion: graphic novels in animation.

AUTHORS

Trevor Alixopulos: The Hot Breath Of War

Arthur de Pins: Zombillenium

Edward Gauvin: Translator, Words Without Borders

Jul: Silex and the City

Abel Lanzac: Weapons of Mass Diplomacy

Dan Panosian: John Tiffany

John Pham: Sublife

Fabien Vehlmann: Beautiful Darkness