Paying homage to Christophe Badoux

7. 11. 2016

 

With sadness I have learnt, Christophe Badoux has left us on 28. October 2016, unexpectedly. Christophe was a gifted illustrator working at the only Swiss comic magazine Strapazin. The more known illustrations are Stan the Hooligan, Per Fahrrad durch die Galaxis, or Klee a biography about Paul Klee. Some of his works are less known. One being my first animation.

Un regard ouvert

2011, I was in my first months of being an independent filmmaker when I got the opportunity to make an informative animation about a SECO development project in Albania. I decided to do a hand animation video. My only connection to comic book artists was Anindya Roy whom I have known from my time in New Delhi and who has worked with comic artists from Switzerland - thank you ProHelvetia! And so my Delhi connection led me to present my idea to Christophe. Christophe accepted. His open-mindedness surprised and elevated me. After all, I had nothing to show in my portfolio. Obviously this man looked beyond the apparent.

To me working with Christophe was reassuring. When we met for the first time at Strapazin to work out the storyboard with its graphical elements, he introduced me to all the people. We then sat down and Christophe asked, "So, how do we start?" I must have stuttered. At that time I didn't have an established way of creating the storyboard. Christophe took my voice-over text and read the first two sentences: "I think this video needs some pipes, water pipes." He drew a rectangle for the video frame, and into this window he drew some pipes. From then on, we both dived into the frames and into the story with its water leaks, water users, mayors, taxes. Sentence by sentence, element by element. We only stopped to have lunch at the magazine with all the other artists present. I felt like home.

After this experience, I worked with Christophe on another hand video animation, explaining the concept of public private partnerships.

Goodbye

Dear Christophe, thank you for this moment of my life. I wish you all the best for your journey. I will miss you...