Conversational Euro-Comics: Bart Beaty In Angouleme 01

By Bart Beaty

Dateline: Angouleme

For the 39th time, the last Thursday in January brings the world of comics to a city on a hill in western France. This year, more than any in a decade, it is an American festival, with Art Spiegelman occupying the post of honorary president and a wave of American cartoonists (Chris Ware, Joe Sacco, Josh Neufeld, Charles Burns... ) in attendance. FIBD hasn't had an American "president" since R. Crumb in 2000, so it is hard to imagine how the show might be different.

One of the highlights of each year's FIBD are the exhibitions. Two potential blockbusters this year are the Spiegelman and RAW shows. The Spiegelman retrospective is a once in his lifetime event, as he says he doesn't want to go through this effort again: it will travel to Paris, Germany and the US (at least) later. The other big show is a retrospective of Fred, whose Philemon books have recently received a beautiful reprinting in three volumes. The sheer number of shows seems down this year, an effect perhaps of declining budgets.

Having passed the previous few days in Paris, it seems clear to me that the book-selling crisis will continue to dominate conversations. The comics shops of Rue Dante seemed to offer fewer innovations than in recent years, so I am hoping that exciting wares will be on offer at the show itself. French comics seem to be in a bit of a lull, with many of the highest profile works on sale being translations (Sacco occupying a lot of retail space) or stalwarts of the 1990s generation (notably Christophe Blain).

The schedule is roughly this: Today the show opens and the crowd will be busy, but manageable. People will be friendly. Tomorrow every school child in the region arrives on a field trip and they move in packs. Crowd is crazy and nerves are jangled by the presence of young people. Saturday tout le monde is in Angoumerde and the lines make it like Disney World on the Fourth of July. Hell on earth. Sunday the prizes are awarded, but I will have split the scene -- like all sane people, I will already be on a plane over the Atlantic by the time the winners are announced.

A final word on the prizes: over the past decade Angouleme has renamed and reframed their prizes about eight times, settling this year on a system that makes absolutely no sense at all in which about eighty books are nominated. In my mind, and the minds of many people I know, they have ruined them, making the prize totally meaningless. As a jury prize, they were never very predictable, but this year is a crapshoot. Best guess? Something American will win. It's America's year, after all.

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To learn more about Dr. Beaty, or to contact him, try here.

Those interested in buying comics talked about in Bart Beaty's articles might try here.

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