BD Bonanza: Angoulême special
Yesterday saw the start of the 43rd Angoulême International Comics Festival. Wait, what is Angoulême? It's just a small city in the southwest of France, mainly known for, well, the festival. So what about the festival? It's the third biggest comics festival in the world (just after the Japanese Comiket and the Italian Lucca Comics & Games). So let's just say that it's the place to be if you are bandes dessinées enthusiasts!
The festival is the occasion to attend conferences and visit exhibitions, gather the best in cartooning, queue (for hours) to be able to get sketches made on corners of tables, call it “dédicaces”, from your favourite authors (and sell them on ebay). But the most anticipated event is the awarding of prestigious prizes. It's like the Oscars, with all the rage about the question of diversity in the nomination process (Melissa already told you about it in a previous post), but at the end you get cute small wildcats, and a gold one for the 'Best Album'.
By checking the lists of nominees, you can be pretty sure to find treasures of cartoons. As I love to travel but don’t have the money to go abroad every weekend (I should save money on drinks but the need to keep warm is tremendous right now, even with moderation), I read a lot of graphic novels about foreign countries. And I can tell that some authors are particularly gifted to share sensations.
I should start with Guy Delisle, a cousin from French speaking (with melodic accent) part of North American (yes Quebec!), who tells the stories of his different business trips (he’s also animator for TV cartoons) in North Korea, China (you can have a look at Shenzhen on Culturethèque), Burma and Jerusalem. It’s funny, clever and it gives you access to some unknown parts of the world (and they are all translated in English, so you don’t any excuses).
If you dream to visit Japan, there are plenty of French cartoons on the subject. French people, well it’s more the case for my generation who’d grown up watching Japanimation and reading mangas, are quite fascinated by the Land of the Rising Sun (we even write books about it). In Japanese, you can translate the famous French “Cocorico” by “Kokekokkô”. That’s also the title of a graphic novel which gathers 16 cartoonists and bloggers sharing their experiences of Japan.
Among them, you’ll find my number one favourite: Florent Chavouet! He has made only 3 books for now but everyone is a must-have! First, you’ve got “Tokyo Sanpo” (“Tokyo on Foot” for the English version) which brings you into the labyrinth of Tokyo streets. If you’re more into the wilderness, “Manabe Shima” with Florent describing his summer holidays on a small island, south of Japan. The description of the everyday life of this fishing village is priceless. This second book is not yet translated but the quality of drawing is enough to spend time to look at every single detail. And last but not least, you have the winner of last year's Crime Graphic Novel at Angoulême : “Petites coupures à Shioguni”.
Talking about prizes, I can’t wait to know the winners of this year’s festival. I’ll definitely give you a review about it. And if you’re passing by London, feel free to show up at the library and have a look at all the books I’ve mentioned. See you in February!
Comments