This morning at breakfast we took a look at Rekto:verso, a Flemish “magazine for culture & critics”, and read: “I think Jommeke [a very well known comics series in Flanders and the Netherlands, but rarely translated in other languages] is a succeeded cultural product for children. More than fifty million books in Flemish households! Of course the medium, the comic, is now completely outmoded, but children still find it interesting.”
Apart from the fact that the author of the quote is apparently judging something as a “succeeded cultural product” only because it’s a gigantic commercial success (and fifty million books of a comic series in Flanders is indeed gigantic), he thinks that comics, the “cultural products” that we at The Maier-Files are working on, are out of date. Antiquated, passed on, over, dead.
The author of the quote doesn’t explain why he thinks so, but we did find it somewhat amazing. Not only because personally we have other experiences, but also because the business world itself, of which the author of the quote is part, contradicts that. While Flemish sales of books in general dropped strongly in the second half of 2013, sales of comics in the same period of time arose with 10 percent.
But maybe there were not enough products of the company which the author of the quote represents as CEO in the top twenty of comics sales ? The author namely is Hans Bourlon and he is the big chief of … Studio 100, a company which is almost solely responsible for all TV programs for children in Flanders [it’s best known in the English speaking world for House of Anubis]. TV programs which have spin-offs in the form of, indeed, comics about Kabouter Plop, Piet Piraat, Samson en Gert, and Big en Betsy.
Anyway, what we read further in the same interview, put us at ease: Hans Bourlon seems to be talking nonsense frequently. Amongst other things he namely also said this: “Now we have at Flying Bark, our Australian cartoon studio, a series in the making about a koala, Blinky Bill, but a koala only lives in a number of European zoos and Australia. Compared to that Maya the Bee [which Studio 100 is also working on] has a gigantic advantage: there are bees all over the world, and nowhere with a religious connotation, which is rather exceptional for an animal.”
“Nowhere with a religious connotation”, mister Bourlon ? Already the Minoan goddess Potnia was said to be “the pure mother bee”, her priestesses were called “Melissa” (or “bee”), as were the priestesses of Artemis and Demeter and the oracles of Delphi. According to the San, a people living in the Kalahari desert, a bee was responsible for the birth of the first man, in Egyptian mythology bees were born from the tears of the god Ra, in Hinduism the cord of Kamadeva’s bow is composed of honey bees, and according to the Ugandan Baganda people Nambi disguised as a bee helped the first man Kintu. The ancient Greeks considered Aristaeus to be the god of the bees, the quran has a surah about bees, in the Jewish Midrash the Jewish people is compared to bees, and the fact that bees and the beehive are common symbols in Catholicism is generally known.
We’re not very religious ourselves, but we would dare suggesting to Hans Bourlon – in case he is – to contact Our Lady of the Bees and ask her for guidance …
Björn Roose
Apart from the fact that the author of the quote is apparently judging something as a “succeeded cultural product” only because it’s a gigantic commercial success (and fifty million books of a comic series in Flanders is indeed gigantic), he thinks that comics, the “cultural products” that we at The Maier-Files are working on, are out of date. Antiquated, passed on, over, dead.
The author of the quote doesn’t explain why he thinks so, but we did find it somewhat amazing. Not only because personally we have other experiences, but also because the business world itself, of which the author of the quote is part, contradicts that. While Flemish sales of books in general dropped strongly in the second half of 2013, sales of comics in the same period of time arose with 10 percent.
But maybe there were not enough products of the company which the author of the quote represents as CEO in the top twenty of comics sales ? The author namely is Hans Bourlon and he is the big chief of … Studio 100, a company which is almost solely responsible for all TV programs for children in Flanders [it’s best known in the English speaking world for House of Anubis]. TV programs which have spin-offs in the form of, indeed, comics about Kabouter Plop, Piet Piraat, Samson en Gert, and Big en Betsy.
Anyway, what we read further in the same interview, put us at ease: Hans Bourlon seems to be talking nonsense frequently. Amongst other things he namely also said this: “Now we have at Flying Bark, our Australian cartoon studio, a series in the making about a koala, Blinky Bill, but a koala only lives in a number of European zoos and Australia. Compared to that Maya the Bee [which Studio 100 is also working on] has a gigantic advantage: there are bees all over the world, and nowhere with a religious connotation, which is rather exceptional for an animal.”
“Nowhere with a religious connotation”, mister Bourlon ? Already the Minoan goddess Potnia was said to be “the pure mother bee”, her priestesses were called “Melissa” (or “bee”), as were the priestesses of Artemis and Demeter and the oracles of Delphi. According to the San, a people living in the Kalahari desert, a bee was responsible for the birth of the first man, in Egyptian mythology bees were born from the tears of the god Ra, in Hinduism the cord of Kamadeva’s bow is composed of honey bees, and according to the Ugandan Baganda people Nambi disguised as a bee helped the first man Kintu. The ancient Greeks considered Aristaeus to be the god of the bees, the quran has a surah about bees, in the Jewish Midrash the Jewish people is compared to bees, and the fact that bees and the beehive are common symbols in Catholicism is generally known.
We’re not very religious ourselves, but we would dare suggesting to Hans Bourlon – in case he is – to contact Our Lady of the Bees and ask her for guidance …
Björn Roose
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