Kolkata, 8 May 2022- Oxford Bookstore in association with The Embassy of France / The French Institute in India and the Alliance Française du Bengale hosted a candid conversation around graphic illustrations with French author and cartoonist Julien Berjeaut in conversation with award-winning graphic designer and illustrator, Pinaki De.
The literary and artistic evening commenced with the opening remarks by Mr. Nicolas Facino, Director of Alliance Française du Bengale, who spoke about the spectacular relationship that has nurtured between the iconic Oxford Bookstore and The Embassy of France / The French Institute in India and the Alliance Française du Bengale over the years through various cultural and literary associations.
Julien Berjeaut, popularly known as Jul is one of the most famous cartoonists in France. After years of teaching sinology, he turned to the media as an editorial cartoonist for major French newspapers and TV shows. His graphic-novel series “Silex and the City” and “50 Shades of Greeks” are best-selling books and have been adapted as a daily program in animation for the French-German TV channel Arte. Mixing philosophy and cartoons, his “Planète des Sages” has been translated into 12 languages around the world. Since 2013, he’s the official scenarist of the patrimonial comic book series “Lucky Luke”, created by René Goscinny. His work took place in various exhibitions, among which were the Louvre Museum in Paris, the Liberty Statue Museum in New York, and the Centre Belge de la Bande-dessinée in Brussels.
Jul was in a spontaneous and freewheeling conversation with award-winning graphic designer and illustrator, Pinaki De. De regularly works for renowned publishers and has designed almost 500 book covers to date. He is the winner of the ‘Publishing Next’ prize in 2017 and 2019 and his book cover design for “Kalkatta” by Kunal Basu won the prestigious Oxford Bookstore Book Cover Prize at Jaipur Literature Festival 2017. Pinaki is one of the editors of the prestigious annual magazine “Longform”.
At the iconic Oxford Bookstore, Pinaki De steered the conversation with Mr Berjeaut discussing various nuances of graphic designing that captivated the audience. The discussants spoke on editorial cartoons, importance of technology in cartoons and analysed the cultures and influence of cartoons and comics in India vis-a-vis France.
Speaking at the occasion Julien Berjeaut said, “After taking part in multiple conferences at various venues in Kolkata like the iconic Oxford Bookstore, Alliance française du Bengale, I feel extremely content to discover finally that despite the immense differences between India and France regarding the situation and popularity of graphic art, comics, there are a number of similarities as well. Of course, in France, comics as a form of literature is important. Most of the families have comics’ collection at their home irrespective of popular class, intellectuals and literature lovers. Not only the children, but also the people of all age admire reading comics there. Whereas in India what I notice that this particular form of literature is mainly available for children. However, I believe people in India is becoming more and more interested to discover this vast territory of comic literature not only through editorial cartoon published in newspaper, but also as a form creation. This industry has an enormous potential to grow in near future in India with proper promotional strategies and given the barrier between the children and the adults is removed concerning the readership.”