Contre La Bande Dessinée

"Jochen Gerner: Contre La Bande Dessinée is not so much a comic as a collection of words and images. I think he’s interesting. His language is beautifully pared down, and it seems there’s nothing he can’t draw in this lovely, simple style he has. Jochen Gerner is French and my French is terrible, but basically what it is is a joke study of comics, a satire of a very academic view of comics and graphic novels. It’s a series of strange visual essays about the various aspects of comics and they’re very playful and silly. I like the simplicity, the beautiful graphics, and the absurd systematic quality he brings to things, like a page in which he lists all sound effects available to a writer of comics. Three pages in fact and they’re French sound effects, which are different to ours. It’s just funny. In a way he’s taken it seriously. He’s given them numbers and that just makes it funnier. I’m very proud I appear in one of his lists."