Posted in: Comics | Tagged: Angoulême, Bastien Vivès

Angoulême Festival Heavily Criticised Over Bastien Vivès Exhibition

Published Thu, 15 Dec 2022 05:57:09 -0600

Bastien Vivès is a French comic book artist who first achieved fame under the pseudonym Chanmax with the character Poungi la Racaille, before Casterman published his first comic book, Elle(s) and in 2009, at the young age of 25, Bastien Vivès received the Angoulême Festival Revelation Award for his album A Taste of Chlorine. Since then, he has worked on Les Autres Gens, Lastman – which was adapted into an animated series, and Une sœur has been adapted into the movie Falcon Lake.

However, plans for a retrospective on the work of Bastien Vivès at next year's Angoulême comic book festival has caused a storm amongst the French comic book community and media, as his 2018 series for Glenat, Petit Paul, has received increased scrutiny, given that it features a boy being repeatedly assualted by adults. While Les Melons de la Colère from 2011 and La Décharge Mentale from 2018 also depict sexual relations between minors and adults. Bastien Vivès was quoted by Madmoizelle magazine in 2017 as saying that "incest excites me to death" though Bastien now says it was an informal interview and that the meaning of his words was not portrayed by the "feminist journalist" who interviewed him. This also highlighted his history of using pseudonyms online to attack and insult feminist comic books and their creators online, which he subsequently apologised for.

One of those authors, Emma, has now denounced the Angoulême exhibition and has invited others to join her. And they have, including Marie Bardiaux-Vaïente, Jul Maroh and one of this year's Grand Prix d'Angoulême nominees, Pénélope Bagieu has stated that she will now not be going to the festival this year. A petition criticised the exhibition has attracted 80,000 signatures .

Bastien Vivès has in response, talked about being bullied online as a result of this attention, denying accusations against him, and asking people to read his work before coming to such a conclusion.

Some authors have come out in support of him, including Catel Muller who states (translated) "Bastien's work, in its originality and complexity, can neither be reduced nor destroyed by puritanical spirits" while his editor Benoît Mouchart has now asked "is it now impossible to represent taboos?" But with more French creators taking a stand, Angoulême Festival may well have to address this more directly.

But as the most prestigious comic book festival in the West, the Angoulême Festival has seen its fair share of controversy, as it has struggled to catch up with the world it is in now, rather than the one it was when first established. Including strikes, sponsorship by Sodastream, boycotts from voters over ignoring artists, ignoring women, with nominees withdrawing their names, before U-turning, dropping nominees altogether, and publishers demanding radical overhauls.

The Angoulême Comics Arts Festival will be held in Angoulême, from Thursday, the 26th to Sunday the 29th of January, 2o23.

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