February 1, 2014
A Few Random Notes Concerning The Angouleme Festival: Festival Responds To SodaStream Letter
Here are few quick notes about things going on at the Angouleme Festival.
In addition to these quick-hit, bulleted updates, we're running intertwined on-the-ground perspectrive columns from Jen Vaughn (
1,
2) and Paul Karasik (
1,
2,
3), so please be sure to stay tuned. Both have updates today and then about 11 AM ET all the prizes and stuff should be named.
*
Chuck Forsman profile in Liberation. That's a really nice get. I haven't heard anything about the seemingly larger-than-ever presence of North Americans at the Festival, but I'm not really in a great position to hear about that. I can't imagine the Festival would be unhappy if it became something that North American
audiences started doing, or at least a chunk of them.
* Heidi MacDonald reports that book sales in the French-language market
has grown to 6000 titles published. I actually don't know that I believe those figures, nor do I think the best description of that market right now is seen in the claim in that piece that best-sellers have declined to 80,000 in sales. The growth of the French market in terms of books sold has been a story for years and years and years now, but
the best report I know of -- the same one that gets published every year in early January -- says that 2013 actually saw a shrinkage in that market to just under 5200 titles published. That is not only not 6000 books but was news because it was a decline from 2012. Also, there was a significant surge this year in those books selling over 50K, and a number continue to sell in the six figures -- it's not a generation ago sales-wise, but it doesn't seem a market unfriendly to big-sellers. If there are better figures to come that nail down the 6000 figure and analysis that shows over-publishing has hit blockbusters more than starved-for-exposure smaller selling titles as most I've people I've spoken to believe, that will be a really interesting story.
*
here's an English-languge article on the response from the Festival regarding a letter from multiple cartoonists asking for the Festival to not affiliate itself with the controversial company SodaStream. It takes the form of a strongly-worded refutation of the facts at issue and the appropriateness of this response were this the issue claimed -- not the usual soft response you get in a case like this.
* finally, I'm told that
Jacques Tardi, a major French-language comics figure and the festival's Grand Prix winner in 1985, has signed the petition. They should release an updated list at some point today.
posted 3:30 pm PST |
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