After a couple of years off, I’m back in Angoulême. It’s raining and the ghost of Charlie Hebdo is everywhere. Follow my updates at The Comics Journal.
Tag Archive for 'Angoulême'
Illustration by Trondheim of the Angoulême mascot (designed by him) and Bill Watterson's Calvin
We’re getting to that time of year when us Northern European comics fans head south to sample the first taste of spring in comics at the Angoulême festival. As in previous years, I will be covering the event for The Comics Journal, so peep their site for updates come Thursday and through the weekend.
I’ve been covering the festival off and on since 2001 for different media, and much of this coverage is online. Unfortunately, most of it remains consigned to more or less inoperative domains, such as my old mag Rackham and the “Classic” TCJ site that fell through the cracks when the new, much improved version went operative. I’ve therefore decided to assemble links to our (mine and Thomas Thorhauge’s) complete online coverage here, and — as you may have noticed from glancing at the flow of the blog today — even to import to the Bunker all of my TCJ coverage, just to have it accessible closer to home.
Here’s the timeline:
2001-2006 (Rackham):
The Complete Rackham coverage (in Danish)
2007 (The Metabunker):
The Metabunker coverage
2008 (The Metabunker):
On the Bunker’s non-presence at Angoulême 2008
The French “Comics Mafia” and other Follies
Shaun Tan Wins Book of the Year at Angoulême
Dupuy & Berberian — Grand Prix d’Angoulême
A Cornucopia of Cliché – review of Shaun Tan’s Book of the Year Winner The Arrival
2009 (The Metabunker):
The Metabunker coverage
Take Two: An Interview with Ruppert/Mulot
2010 (crossposted between TCJ.com and The Metabunker):
Angoulême
Angoulême 2010: Friday
Angoulême 2010: Saturday
Angoulême 2010: Aftermath
Angoulême 2010: The Flix!
“Everything I do, I do at an increasing risk” — An interview with Fabrice Neaud
2011 (TCJ.com, with additions at The Metabunker):
Angoulême 2011 at The Comics Journal.
Angoulême 2011: Friday
Angoulême 2011: Saturday
Angoulême 2011: Art Spiegelman Grand Prix
Angoulême 2011: Aftermath
Angoulême 2011: Flix!
Time Machine Go.
Autoroute detail by Baru
This year’s Angoulême festival was a solid if somewhat unremarkable one, plagued more than usual by the cultural myopia that has always characterized it to an extent. Its organizers described it as a success, but below the surface, it turns out, lurk conflicts of financing and responsibility. Continue reading ‘Angoulême 2011: Aftermath’
From the Frémok/Cinquième couche show
As usual Saturday brought the crowds to Angoulême. It is difficult to get around, but it brings to the festival a heady atmosphere of art and commerce. Even the Association staff decided today partly to suspend their ongoing strike in order to support their artists who had turned up to sign their books. Killoffer, Gerner, Baudoin, Sury, Ruppert & Mulot, and several more were drawing up a storm for the throngs passing through the doors to the Nouveau monde. There is talk of upcoming negotiations between direction and staff, but for the moment the situation remains strained.
The programming has also been popular. This morning, I tried in vain to get into the CIBDI lecture hall to hear the talk by Ikeda Ryoki, the creator of the still-to-be-translated-into-English classic Rose of Versailles. I did manage to get a seat for the similarly mobbed on-stage interview with Moebius last night, even if it turned out I needn’t have bothered. Arriving late to a sweaty, overheated lecture theater, the aging maestro was given very little to work with by the interviewer, who simply let him go on and on about the trivialities of how his current retrospective at the Fondation Cartier in Paris came to be, and how he has recently returned to his classic creation Arzak. Very little effort was made to discuss the intricacies and themes of this or other works, or his thoughts on why this was a good moment to return to a character who had his day in the late 70s, or the fact that the book in question is amongst the sloppiest-looking he has turned out in a long time. Continue reading ‘Angoulême 2011: Saturday’
The L'Asso stand
Arrived in Angoulême fairly late the afternoon yesterday, so last night was spent mostly catching up. As mentioned in several places already, the big story here is the ongoing strike at L’Association (I’ve been writing about it here and here). Their booth, which is placed at the head of the big so-called Noveau monde tent (which houses all the small press publishers, fanzine emporia, etc) has a massive sign up saying “Employees on Strike,” with pamphlets out explaining the situation, and no books for sale. One speculates whether, as bad as this surely is for the publisher (in terms of sales in addition to everything else), it might also be something of a perverse, unintended PR scoop. At any rate, this particular Angoulême will surely be remembered by many as the one with l’Asso on strike. Continue reading ‘Angoulême 2011: Friday’
From Sol Carrelus
The cartooning duo Florent Ruppert and Jérôme Mulot are amongst the most remarkable emerging talents on the Francophone comics scene. A two-headed cartoon beast, theirs is an organic collaboration, melding writing and drawing. Their comics are possessed of a strong experimental formalism — elaborate analytical constructions, in which characters move and interact for our entertainment, as if in a petri dish. Continue reading ‘Take Two — An Interview with Ruppert/Mulot’
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Angoulême 2015 at the Comics Journal
As mentioned a few weeks back, I was once again covering the Angoulême comics festival for The Comics Journal this year. It as a strange, beautiful and slightly oppressive experience being there, three weeks after the Paris killings. This dominates my reports, I’m afraid, but tune in also for views on artists as diverse as Bill Watterson, Alex Barbier, and Taniguchi Jiro, and for thoughts on French comics right now, the state of the Angoulême festival, and the award winners. Onsite reportage parts one and two plus the usual more in-depth aftermath analysis.