Comics: Dupuy & Berberian

 

There is nothing uncommon about long time collaborating duo’s in comics but the way Philippe Dupuy and Charles Berberian work together keeps surprising people. You would expect one of them to be the artist and the other the writer but they do things differently: both of them work as artist and as writer, on the same comic, in such a way that you cannot tell by looking at the end result who did what. Their styles have merged into one. Some people even thought “Dupuy-Berberian” to be the fancy hyphenated surname of a single person.

When this Mr. Dupuy-Berberian is being interviewed, because by now he/they are considered to be prime  examples of the new French comics-scene, they invariably get asked the same questions about their peculiar way of collaborating, over and over again. In response, they started to display little automatons at exhibitions of their work and even made this short mockumentary which you can watch right here and now:

 

Bicephale (Dupuy & Berberian) (english subtitles)
door ozeb14

If you are new to the work of Dupuy and Berberian, maybe you can best start by reading the lovely “Monsieur Jean” books (available in English as published by Drawn & Quarterly in their magazine and as a collection of three early stories in “Get a life”) or check out their diverse illustration work in "The Complete Universe of Dupuy & Berberian" published by the Dutch Oog & Blik. After those do check out "Maybe Later" (also published by D & Q, translated from “Journal d’un album”) in which both of them work separately and comment on their collaboration. Advanced reading: "Haunted", solo work by Philippe Dupuy and advanced viewing: the travel-sketchbooks published by Cornelius (lovely site!)

 

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