the worst band in the world
The Portuguese post office has decided to use the comic writer ose Carlos Fernandes’ work “The Worst Band in the World” on its 0.72 Euro stamp. The members of the worst band in the world appear on the stamp: Sebastian Zorn (tenor sax), Idalio Alzheimer (piano), Iganecio Kagel (double bass) and Anatole Kopek (drums). Only a country which started a revolution thanks to a song played on the radio (Grandola vila morena) would offer a stamp to a group which has spend 30 years rehearsing together but which has never been able to play in public.
Our four heroes live in a city which does not exist but which mixes many cities together: Lisbon, New York, Buenos Aires, Havana, Prague, Le Havre... The streets, buildings and offices which the marks of time have left behind are the stories’ backdrop. However, those old backdrops do not give much of a clue about specific eras. Time and space become jazz. Jose Carlos Fernandes’ stories are full of characters with impossible jobs and strange pastimes. It has always been said that amongst the characters, who move between humour and longing, are traces of writers such as Borges, Kafka, Pessoa, Kundera and Calvino. We would like to add the writer who has written the preface to the Basque edition ( txalaparta): Harkaitz Cano. It isn’t at all difficult to imagine the music of the worst band in the world along with this Basque writer’s stories about jazz, blues and the twist.
Jose Carlos Fernandes started drawing The Worst Band in the World in 2002. He has brought out six books so far. In each book, the two page stories can be read separately. In that sense, each story is told with an ability which is extraordinary and which defies logic. With regards to The Worst Band in the World’s groupies, on the other hand, we do know that there are characters, situations, destinies and sounds from the stories and the books which are connected. In this jazz hieroglyphic, although there are different events and surprises, they do follow a closed, tight rhythm. In his drawing, Fernandes draws the cities’ places and streets, offices and cars in vague lines rather than precisely. He leaves them in the background and, to do so, uses used coffee and cracked, orange paper.He makes the characters’ gestures and way of dressing the main features in his drawings.
Our four heroes live in a city which does not exist but which mixes many cities together: Lisbon, New York, Buenos Aires, Havana, Prague, Le Havre... The streets, buildings and offices which the marks of time have left behind are the stories’ backdrop. However, those old backdrops do not give much of a clue about specific eras. Time and space become jazz. Jose Carlos Fernandes’ stories are full of characters with impossible jobs and strange pastimes. It has always been said that amongst the characters, who move between humour and longing, are traces of writers such as Borges, Kafka, Pessoa, Kundera and Calvino. We would like to add the writer who has written the preface to the Basque edition ( txalaparta): Harkaitz Cano. It isn’t at all difficult to imagine the music of the worst band in the world along with this Basque writer’s stories about jazz, blues and the twist.
Jose Carlos Fernandes started drawing The Worst Band in the World in 2002. He has brought out six books so far. In each book, the two page stories can be read separately. In that sense, each story is told with an ability which is extraordinary and which defies logic. With regards to The Worst Band in the World’s groupies, on the other hand, we do know that there are characters, situations, destinies and sounds from the stories and the books which are connected. In this jazz hieroglyphic, although there are different events and surprises, they do follow a closed, tight rhythm. In his drawing, Fernandes draws the cities’ places and streets, offices and cars in vague lines rather than precisely. He leaves them in the background and, to do so, uses used coffee and cracked, orange paper.He makes the characters’ gestures and way of dressing the main features in his drawings.
