Judith Vanistendael

Judith Irene Vanistendael is the daughter of the Flemish poet-journalist Geert van Istendael.[1] After her secondary studies, she attended an art school in Ghent,[2] and spent a year at the Academy of Fine Arts in Berlin.[3] Returning to Ghent, she resumed artistic studies for four years before continuing her studies in Seville, Spain.[2] She learned comics creation at the Institut des arts graphiques Sint-Lukas Bruxelles in 2000,[2] with teachers, Nix and Johan De Moor before publishing in journals such as Ink, Demo, Zone 53001, and Bruxxxel Noord.[2]

Vanistendael's career began with the illustration of Flemish tales written by her father, Vlaamse Sprookjes (1995), then Het Koeienboek by Bibi Dumon Tak (2000).[2] She also worked for a time as a children's book illustrator.[2]

She wrote and drew La Jeune fille et le nègre, an autobiographical story in two volumes about the love between a young Togolese and a young Belgian.[1] The narration depicts "the absurdity of the regularization procedures for undocumented migrants in Belgium", which multiply the obstacles facing this political refugee.[1] The book, which mixes drama, humor, love, and lightness, according to Le Soir, immediately won several cultural prizes and was part of the selection for the Essentiels d'Angoulême in 2009,[1] and for the Prix Tournesol.[4] The storyline echoes a novel by Geert van Istendael, Bericht uit de burcht (News from the citadel), which expresses his dismay at his daughter's relationship with an undocumented man.[1]

In 2012, Vanistendael published Toen David zijn stem verloor (David, women and death), whose hero is suffering from cancer and undertakes to change his life,[5] without succeeding in protecting the women who are close to him from the effects of his agony:—"The disease is the tragedy of the patient, but also of those around him."[6] The work, which is inspired by the death of Vanistendael's father-in-law, took two years to complete.[6] Her preference was using watercolor.[7] The work was one of the five finalists for the critics' grand prize.[8] She has been nominated for the Eisner Award on three occasions.[9]

Based on a screenplay by Mark Bellido, Vanistendael drew and colored Salto - L'Histoire du marchand de bonbons qui disparut sous la pluie (Salto - The Story of the Candy Merchant Who Disappeared in the Rain) (2016), which features a candy seller turned bodyguard in Spain of the 1990s.[10] The main character, Miquel, is a failed writer who sells candy to support his family and agrees to become a bodyguard for a politician threatened by ETA, which ends up destroying his life.[11][12] Vanistendael uses several processes and formats, in particular the colored pencil.[12]

Vanistendael joined forces with Michael De Cock for a children's series, Rosie et Moussa, which appears in Dutch and as a serial in Brussel Deze Week before being the subject of four volumes.[13] The story tells of the great friendship between two children from Brussels.[13] The series was translated into many languages and received several awards.[13] Director Dorothée Van Den Berghe was inspired by it to create the film Rosie et Moussa, released in theaters in October 2018.[14]

In 2019, inspired by the character of Penelope in the Odyssey, Vanistendael delivers Les Deux Vies de Pénélope, where a doctor mother engages in humanitarian work and distances herself from her family, especially her daughter. Vanistendael opted for a treatment with "watercolor stains".[15] Vanistendael long wanted to describe the life of a woman who, due to an intense job, cannot invest herself with her daughter.[16] Having read the work of Homer, Vanistendael was struck by the role of Penelope, who limits herself to keeping the hearth, while her husband has increasing adventures.[16] Nevertheless, Vanistendael retains that Odysseus left his family because a higher interest required it.[15] In Vanistendael's album, Penelope's husband is responsible for watching over the home, while Penelope, haunted by her missions in countries at war, "refuses to let herself be reduced to her dimension as a mother" and returns to her humanitarian activities.[15] During the production of the work, Vanistendael went to a refugee camp and drew a graphic report: Moria, the hell of Lesbos.[17][18] For this work, she received the "Bulles d'Humanité" prize, awarded by the newspaper, L'Humanité.[19]

In 2021, at the Prix Atomium, Vanistendael won the Prix Willy-Vandersteen with Zidrou for La Baleine-bibliothèque (Le Lombard).[20]

Vanistendael has a daughter.[15]

• La Jeune fille et le nègre (scriptwriter and designer), éd. Actes Sud - L'An 2

1. Papa et Sophie, April 2008 ISBN 978-2-7427-7330-5
2. Babette et Sophie, September 2009 ISBN 978-2-7427-7959-8

• David les femmes et la mort (scriptwriter, designer, and colorist), trans. Hélène Robbe, Le Lombard, January 2012 ISBN 978-2-8036-3024-0
• Salto - L'histoire du marchand de bonbons qui disparut sous la pluie (designer and colorist), scriptwriter by Mark Bellido, Le Lombard, June 2016 ISBN 978-2-8036-3384-5
• Rosie et Moussa, Bayard Jeunesse

1. La rencontre, January 2018
2. Une lettre de Papa, May 2018

• Les Deux Vies de Pénélope (scriptwriter), Le Lombard, September 2019 ISBN 978-2-8036-7225-7. Finalist, Prix de la critique, 2020[21]

• 2021, Prix Atomium, winner Prix Willy-Vandersteen with Zidrou, for La Baleine-bibliothèque (Le Lombard)
• 2015, nominated, Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis
• 2014, nominated, Eisner Award for Best Painter/Digital Artist
• 2014, nominated, Eisner Award for Best U.S. Edition of International Material
• 2013, nominated, Outstanding Graphic Novel, Ignatz Awards
• 2007, Best comic (Dutch language), Prix Saint-Michel: De Maagd en de Neger, papa en Sofie, Uitgeverij De Harmonie - Oog & Blik[22]

• "Judith Vanistendael", Le Soir, 29 January 2013.
• "Le crabe peut nous faire aimer la vie", Le Soir, 20 January 2012.
• "Repéré pour vous. Être humanitaire et maman", 24 heures, 11 September 2019.
• "Un choix que les autres n'acceptent pas", Metro, 4 September 2019.
• Beauvallet, Laurent, "Faire face au cancer", Ouest-France, 5 August 2012.
• Bessec, Alain, "Judith Vanistendael : La jeune fille et le nègre", Ouest-France, 8 June 2008.
• Blehache, Philippe, "Un jeu avec la mort", Sud Ouest, 19 June 2016.
• Boussin, O. "David les femmes et la mort", BD Gest' , 1 June 2012.
• Brunner, Vincent "BD : 'Les Deux Vies de Pénélope', mère et médecin humanitaire", Les Inrockuptibles, 13 September 2019.
• Couvreur, Daniel "La jeune fille et le nègre 2, Babette et Sophie", Le Soir, 25 September 2009.
• Couvreur, Daniel & Vanistendael, Judith (interview), "L’Odyssée, terriblement humaine", Le Soir, 14 September 2019.
• Dauphinais-Pelletier, Camille, "David, les femmes et la mort", La Nouvelle (Sherbrooke), 4 February 2015.
• Jarno, Stéphane, "Les Deux Vies de Pénélope, Judith Vanistendael", Télérama, 5 October 2019.
• Le Saux, Laurence, "BD : Judith Vanistendael tisse la toile d'une Pénélope moderne et aventureuse", Télérama, 10 September 2019.
• Le Saux, Laurence, "Salto" de Judith Vanistendael ou la double face d'un vendeur de bonbons", Télérama, 26 June 2016.
• Milette, J. "Salto", BD Gest' , 15 September 2016.
• O.V.V., "Les Deux Vies de Pénélope", Le Vif, 12 September 2019.
• P.V., "À bras-le-corps", Aujourd'hui en France, 30 June 2016.
• S.T., "Les deux vies de Pénélope", Moustique, 18 September 2019.
• Salin, S. "Les deux vies de Pénélope", BD Gest' , 5 September 2019.
• Servin, Lucie, "Les Deux Vies de Pénélope : Ulysse au foyer", Les Cahiers de la bande dessinée, no. 9, October–December 2019, p. 163.
• Van Vaerenbergh, Olivier "Derrière Pénélope: le journal de création de Judith Vanistendael", Le Vif, 17 September 2019.
• Van Vaerenbergh, Olivier, "Derrière Pénélope", Le Vif, 12 September 2019.