Posted in: Comics | Tagged: Angoulême, france

Dozens Of Events Spring Up To Replace The Angoulême Comic Art Festival

Dozens of events spring up to replace the Angoulême Comic Art Festival 2026

The dust hasn't settled on the cancelled 2026 Angoulême International Comics Festival (FIBD), over allegations of incompetence, malpractice and sexual assaults, but over the weekend and into this week, Bleeding Cool continues to spotlight a wave of grassroots momentum that has been given back by the mayor of Angoulême.

The Christian Comics Festival is still on, taking place from the 29th of January 29th to the 1st of February, the same dates as the show would have run, with exhibitions at Saint-Martial Church. The FutureOff Microfestival, a series of fringe festival events, is still taking place. And the Mayor of Angoulême Xavier Bonnefont declared that "Angoulême will indeed celebrate comics at the end of January for three days" with the local government supporting a grassroots "comics-celebration… over three days and will be free to attend", that "several hundred authors will be present", and that "There will be panels with journalists, book signings and the four big indie bookstores will be involved."

Yesterday, French newspaper L'Humanité looked at the Girlxcott collective, rooted in MeTooBD demands for better representation and conditions, which is spearheading a network of "Fêtes interconnectées de la BD" or Interconnected Comics Festivals. interlinked feminist comics parties across France and Belgium, set for the original Angoulême dates, as Angoulême Grand Prix 2025 winner Anouk Ricard, an early boycott leader, volunteered a banner design for the cause. These events aim to celebrate comics with an emphasis on diversity, equity, and the voices of creators who often felt sidelined by the old model. An open letter, signed by nearly 600 comics professionals calls for "radical change" in the comics industry to achieve a "fairer and more egalitarian model… it is a matter of defending the legitimacy of our rights as workers and the just demands concerning our status" as a bill on the way comic creators are paid is to be examined in the French Senate this week. Elsa Abderhamani, artist and member of Girlxcott, talking to Franceinfo emphasised the importance "to come together and meet around the issues that matter to us: gender-based and sexual violence, discrimination, feminism, and precariousness", hopes to return to "something where we feel welcome, where we feel good," and to move away from "the pressure" of book sales." She hopes that around fifteen events will take place in France and Belgium.

A France 3 report highlights the broader crisis hitting independent comic book publishers, as Nantes-based Petit à Petit, already dealing with bankruptcy measures, points to the Angoulême cancellation as exacerbating their low sales, and quoting Olivier Petit as saying "When we went to Angoulême, you have to understand that it cost us a lot of money; the price of the stands was exorbitant, the travel, hotel, and food expenses were impressive, but we made it a point of honor to be in Angoulême because, for comic book authors, it's the big moment for them to come together, and it's very important to make them happy. These are people who work alone for six months, nine months, a year, and there, they meet up with their friends, their colleagues, they see other publishers, they work with the publishing team that has supported them; it was important to be there."

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