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hurrengoa
jean françois sauré: a singular publisher txo!?   I  j. f. sauré A new flame roared to life on the Basque comic book scene about a year ago. Napartheid and a few other magazines had carried on from Habekomik, published by the Basque Government yonks ago. Nowadays, comic books are destined to pass through the hands of Jean François Sauré on the road to publication. We arranged to meet at a café in Gasteiz because that’s where their office is. We introduced ourselves and before I asked any questions Jean François Sauré fired his aims and objectives at us. Sauré certainly knows what he’s looking for:
“You could say that the publishing company was founded upon four basics. The first one is transmission. Transmitting and receiving, give and take if you know what I mean. The comic comes after the message; I really like poetry recitals – you realise soon enough that there’s a poetic side to comics, it’s as plain as the nose on your face – it’s really important to be on the same wavelength, in the same place together. That’s why we’re organising exhibitions. In October we’re setting up an exhibition in Gasteiz on comic books and the sea. The first School Comic Book Competition is up and running in Bilbo and the Barakaldo Town Hall and ourselves organised a really successful second edition of the International Graphic Humour Competition last year. At the end of the day, what we do doesn’t really leave a mark, we need to communicate with each other and I personally think that the questions we ask are more important than the answers.”

Jean François Sauré doesn’t stray far from home when asked what comic-book character he’d like to be:
“The fox from Kapa eta Letaginak... or the wolf... or both. They’re animals from fables and there’s always something to learn from fables. They’re the ones who bring the story to life. And it’s like... a gift. They live the things they care about with a great passion and generosity”.

And after the transmission
“Secondly, we, as publishers, base our transmissions on two things: on realism and on humour and this is all aimed at a broad age group. We’re working on comics for youngsters at the moment, we’ll try to publish other stuff later on. We tried something in black & white but the market wants colour. If your work is very personal, you reduce your audience to comic book fans and if you do that you might as well forget about it. In the Basque Country, you have to publish for the general public or you can call it a day. At least that’s where you have to start. When you make a name for yourself, you might be able to do stuff that’s more personal. You might even shift a few units as well!
People of all ages came to the stand at Durango this year. Unlike other years, grown men would stay at the stall and read some of the comics. Fathers will be able to read what their sons are reading and vice versa. Kapa eta Letaginak has been very successful in that sense.
“Aritz Pilotaria” will follow the same lead when it’s published in November. It has to be Basque and Aritz will be very much a local lad, the Basque hero, so that people will be able to take to the character. That way he’ll creep into their hearts.
He’ll have loads of adventures here, there and everywhere and, if possible, he’ll last as long as the artist lives. We stuck a few pages of Aritz in the January issue of Habe’s magazine. We ourselves don’t have a magazine, and magazines are a great way of seeing what makes the average reader tick. Publishers can see how a character goes down with the public before you release the comic. That’s why we spoke to the people at Habe. That way, by the time the comic book comes out in November, the public will be familiar with the character.”

Jean François Sauré continues on – there’s no stopping the man – and he hits on basic number three:
“The third aim is to help new initiatives, coming up with new stuff is the most important thing here; exhibitions, competitions, movement. We’re getting an exhibition on Aritz Pilotaria together at the moment. But instead of sticking pages of the comics on big boards , we set the scene for Aritz’s first adventure. Aritz heads off to Mexico to the Guitzol people, the ones who use peyote. So, we’ve gathered together information on this ethnic group rather than just concentrating on the story in the comic. As well as the competitions. We also organise exhibitions of various artists.
All the same, the press conferences haven’t been going all that well, and at the end of the day, you have to get to people. That’s when you have to come up with other means. You have to reach people, show them what you’re at. I work hard at that and that’s why I go around schools and organise exhibitions.”

And finally, he speaks about reason number 4:
“We’re behind Basque creativity, local projects with a definite geographical reference. Comic books we’ve published like “Hendaiako itsasaldea ezagutzen” and “Hondarribiako Historia” are an example of this. Setting stories in different villages is something we’re going to keep on doing. You know, so people can see their home town in a comic book. It’s the identification element I was talking about before. It’s something we want to get behind, let people feel proud of where they’re from.
I’m in the Basque Country and the reading public, the young ones, read in Basque, so I publish in Basque.
When we published the Hermann’s Jeremiah in Basque, people asked me to issue it in Spanish. I always try to publish stuff in Basque that hasn’t been released in Spanish, you know, so there’s something for everybody. I’d like to publish six comic books a year in Basque, and once I do that I might have a go at publishing stuff in other languages... but only once I’ve issued six in Basque.”

When we ask him about the Basque language and Basque comic book culture...
“There’s no comic book culture here, well, not in the Ghetto sense that exists in the Spanish State and the USA anyway, but the comic book definitely exists as a part of the whole Basque language culture scene. If the comic book in Basque stepped outside that circle, then maybe the problems would begin.
When everything is all lumped together, it gives off a sense of variety which keeps the readership alive, and that includes comics. People see comics in Basque at their local shops and they say to themselves: “Sure, I may as well buy one.” All the same, we have an agreement with the Kultura Saila and they buy X amount of copies from us. If they didn’t, it’d be an awful lot harder to keep our heads above water.”

Jean François Sauré told us a lot more things, but, unfortunately we’ve run out of space. Not to worry though, there’s no doubt we’ll be hearing from the man again;, he’s always up to something.