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Take a Valium Quebec's godfather of punk comix gets his by RUPERT BOTTENBERG
Translated from Valiumese, Vagorbine means "a device for vaporizing heads." Valium's strips will probably leave your noggin intact, but readers should be warned about the retinal damage the man's eye-scorching artwork might incur. He describes his style as "a mix of Jacovitti (Cocco Bill), Hergé (Tintin) and R. Crumb, thrown together in a truc à blender." Rather than detract from the Crumbian depravity of his strips, Valium's clear, European linework accents the sociological horror: disfigurement, moral collapse and sexual degradation are all threads in the complicated tapestry of disgust which Valium weaves. While his penwork is European and his themes very American, Valium's love/hate relationship with Quebec's official languages is pure belle province. "I have always translated my work into English," he explains. "Obviously, I massacre the English language. At one point, I did an original piece in English, then translated it into French, respecting the structure of my English. I realized that it was just as interesting to fuck up the French language. I think that both languages are un peu weird." But even though Valium's joual is nearly indecipherable to French-speaking Europeans, France, Belgium and Germany remain his most reliable market. Valium falls in quite comfortably with Europe's Regarde moderne movement, reviving the original sensibilities of the U.S. underground comix of the '60s. On that side of the pond, his work has appeared not only in numerous fanzines but also as several beautifully produced rare solo editions. So North America is finally paying attention. Regular contributions to the Fantagraphics anthology Zero Zero have led to a reprinting of Valium's 1993 self-published monstrosity, Primitive Cretin!, in both English and French. Now two continents can immerse themselves in Valium's vision of "Where's Waldo in Hell." "My work isn't that far from reality, you know," he ruminates. "When I visited New York City, I saw people on the sidewalk as horrifying as anything in my comics. There's no health-care system, so there are people on the street going without medical attention, trying to repair themselves. I wanted to ask them, 'What the fuck happened to you? How the hell did you get this way?'" Henriette Valium launches Primitive Cretin! and 1000 Rectums at Cheval Blanc (809 Ontario E.) to mark the final edition of Kouine Komix. Saturday, May 3, 3pm-8pm |
The one thing I don't want to ask Henriette Valium about is the jar of dead mice on his kitchen counter. I don't want to know about it, and you shouldn't either. What I would like to know, though, is why it's taken so long for Valium, Montreal's master manipulator of the comics medium, to achieve recognition in North America. After all, it's been 16 years since Valium's first self-published comic book, Vagorbine 14, rolled out of a Xerox machine.