Angoulême: Redux
The Festival de la Bande Dessinée d'Angoulême has come and gone and it was like nothing I could have ever imagined.
While I came into it with little to no expectations, nothing could have truly prepared me for what I was about to experience.
I love domestic comic conventions, and look forward to each and every one I go to. It is always a pleasure to see a massive gathering of fans and creators expressing their passion for comics. They are something special.
But Angoulême is a whole different world. This is what it’s like when a whole town embraces an art form; not relegated to a convention center far removed from the workaday happenings of the rest of society, but melded into the very infrastructure of a city. Angoulême practically radiates with a love for BD and comics and the people who make them.
I walked along side of the Marche Des Auteurs, which ambled its way along Rue Herge up to the city hall. After the tragedies surrounding Charlie Hebdo, the indominable spirit of the the culture of BD in France was a sight to behold. At the zenith of the march I broke off to observe, and stood utterly surrounded by a sea of people, the happiness of the town was palpable. It was impossible to stand there and not feel like I was someplace truly special.
I can only dream of a time when an American comics festival will feel so integrated into the identity of a town, where the two would be inseparable and you couldn’t call upon one without mentioning the other. Until that day I will always have Angoulême.
Au revoir.
Les Recontres
Some quick recap of the two panels we were involved with at comiXology.
First, our French friends will be pleased to know that our friend Ivan Brandon was in attendance to join Glenat Comics in announcing that the publisher will be putting out French versions of some of America’s most popular comics like Sex Criminals, Pretty Deadly, Drifter, and Letter 44.
In our second panel, comiXology VP of communications Chip Mosher was joined by Delcourt’s Thierry Mornet and The Walking Dead’s Charlie Adlard to discuss the success Delcourt has had bringing The Walking Dead to France as well as giving the audience an inside look into Adlard’s process.
Charlie is a great guy (we will have an interview we did with him up soon) who strives to wake up every day a better artist than he was the day before. During the panel he recounted a time when Robert Kirkman wrote “draw the best page ever” into a script. He took it as a challenge and the result was the favorite page he’s ever drawn.
We took shelter from the constant downpour of rain at Angoulême by spending some time in the Delcourt booth inside Le Monde Des Bulles - Hall 1. There we got a chance to sit down and have a conversation with The Walking Dead’s Charlie Adlard and hear about his experience at Angoulême and his insights into the world of comics and his work and future plans for bandes dessinées.
You can listen to the audio recording here or read the transcript below.
The Bill Watterson Exhibit
Each year the Grand Prix de la ville d'Angoulême is awarded to a living creator honoring his/her lifetime achievement, and the Grand Prix winner becomes president of the next year’s festival. Last year the winner was the legendary Bill Watterson, creator of Calvin & Hobbes.
That’s Ivan on the right, Master of PR & Events at comiXology.
A walk around the room gives an overview of Watterson’s influences, before breaking down Calvin & Hobbes into its basic elements, focusing on things like the importance of various seasons to the characters in the strip and the emphasis on C&H’s naive yet poignant philosophical discussions.
There was a glass case displaying some of Watterson’s tools, which at first glance looked kind of boring to someone who is not a creator themselves, but upon closer inspection each object had a description matching the wit that made Calvin & Hobbes so famous.
With so much of Angoulême being unfamiliar to me, it was comforting to see such a nice display of admiration for a work very close to my heart.
Angoulême: Come for the comics/BD, stay for the ridiculously pretty views.
A comiXologist Recommends:
Mike Isenberg recommends Wayward #1As frequent anime convention attendees in the late 1990s, my friends and I had a theory that the primary export of Japan was Crazy. With a mix of its own ancient folklore and a hodgepodge of external cultural and religious influences, the collective Japanese imagination seems to constantly produce work that could never have existed anywhere else, and that often seems wild and bizarre to foreign eyes.
Wayward #1’s protagonist, Rori Lane, has one such pair of foreign eyes. Half-Japanese by birth, she begins the story traveling to Japan for the first time, moving there as a young adult to live with her mother and get a fresh start after her parents’ rough divorce. What she experiences on her first night, however, goes well beyond culture shock and jet lag, and deep into the territory of the truly bizarre and supernatural.
Written by Jim Zub (jimzub) and drawn by Steve Cummings, Wayward is a supernatural action/adventure story steeped in Japanese folklore. Just beneath the shadows of Zub & Cummings’ Tokyo is a world of mythical yōkai, mysterious and mischievous monsters of Japanese legend.
The book’s art is a pleasure to view. Cummings’ line art is crisp and dynamic, and the colors (supplied by Zub and John Rauch) make each page really pop. The action sequences are fluid and exciting, and Cummings’ deft hand with facial expressions gives the characters a significant level of depth and relatability.
Wayward #1 also features some great back-matter from Japanese folklore scholar Zack Davisson, including an overview of yōkai mythology throughout Japanese history and a short essay profiling the legendary roots of one of the monsters featured in this issue. It certainly isn’t required reading if you’d rather just focus on the gorgeous action/adventure comic preceding it, but I found all of it really fascinating and informative.
Definitely recommended for fans of supernatural action/adventure stories like Buffy The Vampire Slayer, or just anyone who wants to see feral, cat-like Japanese girls tearing into legendary turtle demons. And really, who doesn’t? If the chief export of Japan really is Crazy, then lock me in the nut house because I love this stuff.
Mike Isenberg is an Associate Production Coordinator at comiXology, and the co-writer of FIRST LAW OF MAD SCIENCE. He lives in Harlem with his cats, TESLA AND EDISON
The first four issues of Wayward are on sale for 99¢ each during our Angouleme Sale!
Festival Off aka F OFF
If you walk down what essentially amounts to a service road behind Galarie Champ de Mars (the slightly unseemly mall in the middle of Angoulême, you may notice an unassuming set of doors off to the side. Outside of those doors French 20-somethings that look like they’d be at home walking the streets of Brooklyn are milling about drinking wine from disposable plastic cups and smoking hand rolled cigarettes.
Welcome to F OFF, Angoulême’s unaffiliated DIY & Indie Arts expo. The show is split between two adjacent buildings arranged over two floors. If you go through Door #1 you head straight up stairs to what feels like someones apartment. Each room containing either a handful of people tabling their work or, as was in some of the rooms, a surprisingly high-quality art exhibit that could easily fit in at any modern art museum. In one room zines were wired from the walls like a flock of birds struggling to get free. Honestly, I felt like I was getting the evil eye when I went to take pictures, so unfortunately none of the bird-book-room.
Head back downstairs and outside to go through Door #2. This setup was a bit larger and felt more like artist alley at the hippest con you’ve ever seen. Artists from all over Europe (although mostly France) were showing off their books and prints, while another group of people serve up 2€ beer and homemade, organic, meat-free chili from a tupperware (I decided to pass on that, tyvm).
This was the first place I decided to spend some cash and pick up a couple comics. Some were in English and others were comics without any words - the universal language!
Highlight of the event was when for no apparent reason the power went out and everyone just sat very still for a moment. After walking all day (7 miles just this afternoon!) it was nice to be motionless, surrounded by passionate people and the art they made.
Werewolves of Montpellier by Jason
Named to NPR, Las Vegas Weekly, Graphic Novel Reporter, The Casual Optimist, Comic Book Resources, Attentiondeficitdisorderly, Hypergeek, and Robot 6’s Best of 2010 lists. Sven, a semi-aimless Scandinavian artist who has ended up in Montpellier, France on a futile romantic pursuit, enjoys nocturnal raids into other people’s homes, disguised as a werewolf. The way he figures it, the disguise will give him an extra few moments’ advantage vis-à-vis any startled home owner if things get ugly… but he hasn’t taken into account the existence of a society of real Montpellier-based werewolves who do not take kindly to this new pretender. So while Sven spends his days playing chess and poker with his friends, sketching his way through his picturesque chosen hometown, and coping with romantic dilemmas — both his and those of his best friend, the Breakfast-at-Tiffany’s-obsessed Audrey, who has girl troubles of her own — little does he realize that a genuine threat to his life, and for that matter his humanity, is closing in on him. Werewolves of Montpellier is a lycanthropic thriller, a romantic comedy, and an existential drama — beware the full moon!
The Werewolves of Montpelier and five other Jason graphic novels from fantagraphics are discounted as part of our Angouleme Sale!
A comiXologist Recommends:
Harris Smith recommends Arsene SchrauwenOllie Schrauwen’s new graphic novel Arsene Schrauwen, from fantagraphics, is rich and fantastical, yet at the same time resolutely physical and sensual. It is a comic that provides much more than a story; reading it is an experience. Arsene Schrauwen follows its titular hero, the author’s grandfather, as he travels from Belgium to a lush tropical landscape identified only as the Colony. There, he teams with his cousin, Roger, to turn the Colony into an ultramodern utopia based on Roger’s sprawling, impractical yet wondrous design. Along the way, Arsene falls for Roger’s wife, Marieke, and gradually loses touch with reality, or perhaps encounters an entirely new form of reality.
Schrauwen, the author, keeps the level of realism we should expect from his story somewhat mysterious from the very beginning, creating at first a dreamlike, gauzy feel but becoming, as Arsene’s sense of his surroundings becomes more bizarre and unnerving, more feverish and haunting. There is an element of old world fable, distinctly European, to Arsene Schrauwen, as well as the kind of modernist journeys portrayed in books like Kafka’s Amerika, with their emphasis on the conflict between an individual’s internal struggles and the absurdity of their surroundings, both subtle and sublime.
All of this is rendered in a loose, yet fine lined and playful style, with Schrauwen, the author, cleverly utilizing elements of the medium to emphasize tonal or narrative threads. On some pages, text drifts out of narration boxes to show disorientation. On others, the author encourages readers to take a week or two off between chapters (and graciously thanks us for doing so). Schrauwen also uses his coloring expressionistically, shifting between monochromatic blue and orange, occasionally mixing the two and expanding his palette towards the end. All of this, combined with the skill of the artwork and the charm and wit of the writing, serves to give Arsene Schrauwen the feeling of providing, upon conclusion, a complete, satisfying experience. You’ll want to thank Ollie Schruawen for creating such a masterful work, and thank for yourself for taking the time to read it.
[Read Arsene Schrauwen on comiXology]
Harris Smith is a Brooklyn-based comics and media professional. In addition to his role as a Senior Production Coordinator at comiXology, he edits several comics anthologies, including Jeans and Felony Comics, under the banner of Negative Pleasure Publications. He’s also the host of the weekly radio show Negative Pleasure on Newtown Radio.
Le Nouveau Monde
Take a walk up Rue Herge, named after the legendary creator of Tintin (a lot of the streets here are named after famous cartoonists) past the fortress like Circuit des Remparts, and you will come upon a tent dubbed Le Nouveau Monde or The New World.
Go through your thousandth security check of the day and step inside. Let the softly backlit pink walls of the tent calm you, weary traveler. You’re in a good place now. You’re in Le Nouveau Monde, where the future lies.
If I had to compare Le Nouveau Monde to anything in America, it would be The Small Press Expo in Bethesda, MD. This is were niche and alternative comics thrive. Walking down the hall I was able to spy a number of comics in french that we have available in the US through places like Fantagraphics and Abrams. Angoulême is like US conventions in reverse, where the superhero stuff seemed to get only a passing interest, the booths here were mobbed by fans of all demographics.
A few familiar faces were to be seen in this pink tent of awesomeness, like author of My Friend Dahmer, Derf Backderf, and the delightfully charming Ulli Lust. Both were busy signing and sketching.
That is another thing that is almost unbelievably cool about Angoulême: Signings here are much more casual, and it is not out of the ordinary for creators to draw fully colored or inked sketches when they sign your book for no extra cost.
I swear that the engineers who put these tents together for this festival must be Gallifreyan, because while it felt like I could walk around the exterior in just a minute, I was in awe of the the labyrinthian sprawl that was on the inside. It seemed that Le Nouveau Monde consisted of three magical halls, each a subtly different shade of reddish pink. It’s a must see for any one visiting the festival, but a vital necessity if you are a fan of indie comics, which if the name of this hall rings true is the future of comics to come.
I spent so much time in this hall it was dark when I came out, which was kind of nice. It’s really an incredible little town.
The comiXology Chateau
In an earlier post I mentioned that we are staying in a chateau. Now, I wasn’t originally planning on writing about this, because it’s not part of the typical Angoulême experience, but I can’t resist. The way I pitched writing about Angoulême in the first place was to give a first-person perspective of someone’s first experience at the festival, and after spending time in this building, it has definitely become a big part of what I will remember about this trip.
So… when I first heard about the chateau I thought it was an inter-office joke that I wasn’t in on. To be honest I was expecting a motel in Angoulême that ironically picked up the title, but I was wayyyy wrong. When we first pulled up to where we were staying I was blown away. This is a legitimate 12th-century… well essentially it’s a castle. And its big. Real big.
So big in fact, that this morning I got very lost trying to find the dining room where everyone was eating breakfast. By the time I got there everyone had moved on to getting ready to head back over to the festival. Which was fine with me since, I pretty much got to pretend I was a duke at a feast just for me.
Also this place is definitely 100% haunted. Probably by the spirits of these guys…
And when the spirits of my new animal friends deem it necessary to keep my at the chateau for all eternity, it will be fine because…seriously look at these views:
Three minutes of Angoulême in 15 seconds.
Le Monde Des Bulles - Hall 1
After an almost heartbreakingly scenic drive back to the festival from the “chateau” we are staying at (more on that later), my first stop was Hall 1 in Le Monde Des Bulles. This hall has the most similar feel to American conventions than anything else at Angoulême.
The hall is made up of a large tent lined with publishers selling both original Franco-Belgian BDs as well as licensed and translated American comics. One thing I thought was best was the amazing quality of the printing of the American stuff. Not a trade paperback to be seen, everything is hardcover and beautifully bound.
Another stark difference between this festival and those in the states is the complete lack of anything movie or videogame related, aside from that set of Avengers statues in the Panini booth that went mainly overlooked by the passers-by. Everything here is entirely dedicated to comics and BD.
There really is an incredible wealth of French comics completely unfamiliar to me, and they all look so cool it makes me wish I could read more than the paltry amount of French that I know. Hopefully in time more and more of this content will get translated into English and made available on comiXology.com (a lot of it is already available there in French if you speak the language).