Posted in: Comics, Current News | Tagged: Angoulême, Art Spiegelman

Chris Ware, Art Spiegelman & Emil Ferris All Support Angoulême Boycott

Chris Ware, Art Spiegelman, Julie Doucet, Dan Clowes, Posy Simmonds, Lewis Trondheim and Emil Ferris all support Angoulême 2026 boycott

Over a thousand comic book creators have signed a petition to boycott next year's Angoulême festival, the second biggest comics art festival in the world, and the biggest in the Western World. Earlier this year, the board of directors of the Angoulême International Comics Festival Association (FIBD) were to decide whether or not to terminate its contract with 9eArt+, the festival's organizer since 2007. We still don't know their decision, but it came as  9eArt+ was planning to create a joint venture with FIBD, making the association more permanent and without other competitive bids for the contract going forward. The letter read;

"We want to firmly remind the FIBD Association that if, in more than fifty years of existence, the Angoulême festival has become an essential event for comics, it is thanks to the people who bring it to life and who animate it: comics workers, authors, publishers, translators, journalists and critics… and of course the readers, through their loyalty to this event. It now belongs to the community and, as such, it is of public interest for the survival of our medium. It would therefore be unacceptable to constrain it with personal interests or authoritarian choices".

It is signed by former Angoulême Grand Prix winners Florence Cestac, Lewis Trondheim, Chris Ware, Art Spiegelman, Blutch, Posy Simmonds, and Julie Doucet, as well as other well known comics creators such as Catherine Meurisse, Joe Sacco, Pascal Rabaté, Daniel Clowes or Emil Ferris, all of whom have won awards at Angoulême for their comics. And it also includes last year's Grand Prix winner, Anouk Ricard, who is set to be the president of next year's show and to design the festival poster. Luz, who won the Fauve d'Or for best album last year was also a signatory.

Tensions have been high since the publication just before this year's show of a long investigation by L'Humanité Magazine highlighting a certain number of dysfunctions within 9 e Art +, including accusations of toxic management, issues with accounting opacity, suspicions of nepotism and commercial excesses…  and the existence of a "merger project" led by the general director of the International Comics Festival (FIBD), Franck Bondoux, "between his company and the association that delegates the festival to him". While the festival management confirmed the existence of such a "project" they insisted it would not be a "merger". But after the managers of 9ᵉ  Art+ decided to let go of the festival's former communications manager. L'Humanité Magazine uncovered that she had been fired after filing a complaint after being raped during last year's festival, which led to "Chloé, we believe you" posters placed across Angoulême this year. And the petition, launched just before meetings on the future of the show were due to take place, has seen many more sign it since.

We still don't know the results of the meetings held as the petition gained prominence, or the decisions made as a result. But if it is not addressed and Angoulême goes ahead without these many comic book creators and publishers… will there be anything left?

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