If Bart Picked Angouleme’s Prizes…



By Bart Beaty
In the Blog as a Special Favor to the Site

I contemplated writing a short essay about the Angouleme Award nominees, taking into account recent trends in French comic book publishing. But then I realized that this year is very similar to last year -- the nominees are spread out widely among publishers (so that everyone gets something?), and it's hard to call it "the year of manga" (that was a few years ago) or "the year of the American breakthrough" (ditto) or the year of the small press (since it isn't) or the year of big publisher resurgence (they never went away). If there's a trend, it's not immediately apparent to me.

So, instead I thought that I'd pick the winners. I'm not handicapping (if no one's wagering, what's the point?), but telling you who I think should win. If I were the only voter, this is how it would break down:

Best Album

This is a tough one to call, as there are several very good books and a number of deserving nominees. I like the fact that Dave Cooper's Ripple is here, but I think that he will do better work. I have to eliminate the David Vandermeulen book because I haven't read it, though now I'm more interested. Several big names are competing here: Jacques Tardi, Chantal Montellier, Floc'h and Riviere, but none are offering their best work, nor work that radically departs from what they've done in the past. If they were the only nominees, I'd go with Montellier. They all do excellent work, and this is more of it. I'd love to vote for Gipi, who is just now becoming known in the States thanks to the Ignatz line. A win by him would be deserved, and an upset. But my pick is Hante by Philippe Dupuy. I reviewed this previously on this site, and I still love it a lot. Moreover, I think that it is a really interesting and significant departure from the M. Jean and Henriette material that he is best known for. This is a brave, confessional album of the type that doesn't come along every day. It deserves the prize.

Best Art

This one is ridiculously tough. The only one that I would immediately drop off would be Jean-Pierre Gibrat, and that's more because I'm not a fan of the style that he, admittedly, does very well. Thomas Ott and Chris Ware and Stephane Blanquet all deserve this award (and Blanquet needs to be much more widely published in English). I love the nomination for Taiyo Matsumoto in this category, and I've already praised Hugues Micol's art in Prestige de l'uniform here. But my pick for the winner is the same guy I'd pick year in and year out in this category: Blutch, for the collected Mitchum from Cornelius. Anyone who would pick against Blutch in an art competition should have their eyes taken away from them.

Best Story

Here I'm in trouble, as I've only read half the nominees. I like Guillaume Bouzard's The Autobiography of Me Too Two a lot, but wouldn't necessarily pick it as a prize winner. I haven't read the Mezzo and Pirus, the Cornette and Oiry, or the new Jason book (Hemingway). Of those, I will be picking up the Jason book, and possibly the Mezzo and Pirus. Still, I can't pick on the likelihood that a book might be great (and I have huge expectations for the Jason book in particular). That leaves me Etienne Davodeau's Les Mauvaises Gens and Kazuichi Hanawa's Dans la prison. That is a really insanely tough call. Both are true stories of personal struggle. Both are important, powerful books. There's really nothing to choose between them, and, indeed, I'm surprised in particular that the Davodeau isn't competing for best book, since it's better than several of the nominees. Nonetheless, I'm choosing Hanawa, whose anti-dramatic style makes his prison story that much more powerful.

Best First Album

Again, I've only read three of the nominees. One of those, Eric Powell's The Goon, I consider so slight that I can't even contemplate it seriously for this award. The other two are both interesting books. Cornigule, by Takashi Kurihara, is a very atypical manga published by Cornelius. If you play Katamari Damacy on your PS2, you'll love this off-the-wall book. Kinki et Cosy, by Nix, is Flemish humor strips that I've struggled to follow for years, so I'm pleased to have an edition in a language that I can actually read. These are very close for me, but I'll give it Nix -- it's just funnier.

The Heritage Prize

This is a category with nothing but good books. Look at the artists in this category and find a bad one: Jean-Claude Forest, Charles Schulz, Jaime Hernandez, E. C. Segar, Cliff Sterrett, Osamu Tezuka, Kazuo Umezu. Frankly, if you don't own all of these books, or their original language equivalents, why are you even reading this site? Go buy these books! Read those! Sorry. Anyway, my pick is the Polly and Her Pals reprint from L'An 02. Sterrett is a genius and these are beautifully produced books. Why is no one doing these in English?

Best Series

I have almost no interest in this category, which seems like a sop to an old way of doing comics. Both of the American books (Black Hole and Bone) are excellent, but I prefer two of the French ones. Lupus, Frederik Peeters' slacker sci-fi series is a wonderfully witty take on genre expectations, with fantastic art. It's a great series. But I just received Pascin, La Java Bleue by Joann Sfar, and all I can say is: My God! What a book. Pascin has always been the best of Sfar's work, and this hardcover, color album from L'Association kicks it up several notches. This is one of the best books of the year, and it's my pick in this category.

And that's it. If I picked the winners we would have a very well deserving group of artists crossing the stage. We'll find out if the committee sees my wisdom come January.
 
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