Oubapo

The OuBaPo , Acronym of Or to vroir of Ba nde-drawn Po tentielle, was founded in November 1992 within the Or-X-Po and through the publisher Association. This committee creates cartoons under Contrainte artistic volunteer with the manner of the Oulipo, Ouvroir of Potential Literature, initiated by Raymond Queneau. Four oupus were published traversing various research, to which individual works of its members and sympathizers are added.

OuBaPo held its first working session in the buildings of the workshop Nawak, beginning 1993.

Actors of OuBaPo

Currently, its principal members are 9: François Ayroles, Anne Baraou, Gilles Cement, Jochen Gerner, Thierry Groensteen, Etienne Lécroart, Patrice Killoffer, Jean-Christophe Menu and Lewis Trondheim.

Other collaborators: Stanislas Barthelemy, Denis Bourdaud, Philippe Coudray, Emmanuel Guibert, Matt Konture, Axel Renal, Vincent Sardon, Joann Sfar, Tanitoc, Thiriet…

One also finds some authors oubapiens Swiss such Ibn Al Rabin, Alex Baladi, Andréas Kündig… or Iberian like Sergio Garcia. Moreover one American sewing room exists also controlled by Matt Madden.

Constraints as a cartoon

One can a little better define which are the formal constraints than are essential the authors in the realization of an album on OuBaPien character. The first classification of the constraints was made and published in the first Oupus by Thierry Groensteen in 1997 and a first bouquet of constraints is entitled. The constraints can be distinguished in generating constraints and transformer .

Generators

  • Ambigramme : often based on the principle of the upside-down, exploits the ambiguity of a drawing or a situation (which is reversed at the same time as the direction of reading is reversed)
  • Itération : various types, the iconic iteration for example consists in only telling a history with the same box (or a definite number) by changing the dialogs.
  • Palindrome : creation of a history of cartoon who is read in the 2 directions (normal direction first in last page, direction last in first page). One obtains 2 stories with different semantics then. It is a constraint derived from the pluri-lecturability.
  • Folding : folding of a page which reveals a new direction, a new history
  • Pluri-lecturabilité : reading of a board under several directions (left, right, in diagonal…)
  • Restriction : graphic restriction consists with the limitation or the elimination of a graphic element of the history (the face of a character for example, or concept of character itself, as in the Cage of Martin Vaughn-James). The plastic restriction consists in being limited to certain written forms or colors etc
  • Réversibilité / Upside-Down : reading of the page with several orientations. The upside-down was invented in 1903 by Gustave Verbeck with The Upside-Downs Little Lady Lovekins and Old Man Muffaroo , it acts of a history which is read in a direction, then one turns the board to 180° to read the continuation. The texts are written in each direction, place and towards.

Transformer

  • Expansion : enrichment of a history by one (or several) author who inserts boxes in an existing history to form a news of it.
  • Hybridization : creation of a history per crossing of boxes borrowed from other cartoons (of the same author or not).
  • Reduction : contrary to the expansion, it is a question of removing boxes of an existing history. Gilles Ciment carried it out on the cigars of the Pharaon of Tintin by reducing it to 6 boxes.
  • graphic Reinterpretation : to borrow the style of drawing of an author or his characters for his own history.
  • S+7 or N+7 : to replace a name in a dialog by the 7th name the following in the dictionary. This constraint is not specific to the oubapo, it acts of a constraint oulipienne proposed by Jean Lescure.
  • Substitution : to replace a drawing by another, or to take the boards of another author to integrate it in his account with another text

Conclusion

Other constraints exist as the gunner with the line whose example was made by Etienne Lécroart and J-C Menu. Mixing generating and transformer constraints like the expansion, this principle consists in intercalating by generally 2 authors of the continuations of boxes. At the stage has, the first author builds 2 boxes (A-A), at the stage B the second intercalates 3 boxes what makes a history of 5 boxes (B-A-B-A-B) and the history in this manner is continued.

An additional constraint of the challenge is to make begin the dialog of a series has by the letter has, of a series B by a B etc

A work oubapienne can not be limited to a precise constraint but in this spirit to mix several types of different constraints.

One realizes that these constraints, whatever they are, are very difficult to set up and require much imagination on behalf of the authors, this in order to create a cartoon not only " with contraintes" strong on a technical plan but telling a true story. The list proposed is of course not exhaustive because potentially unlimited as long as the aforementioned imagination of the authors is not dried up.

OuBaPienne production

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