Posted in: Comics, Recent Updates | Tagged: Angoulême, Comics

Frederic Grivaud, SCARCE At Angoulême

Published Mon, 24 Jan 2011 02:00:11 -0600

Bonjour à tous!

Angoulême is the largest comic book convention in the world, held in France. SCARCE is a French magazine, running quarterly since 1983 focusing on American comics, available through subcriptions (7€ per issue, 25€ for 4 issues, shipped worldwide).

Xavier Lancel is the current editor-in-chief and he will be providing Bleeding Cool with a look at the 38th festival and running commentary from the SCARCE crew at the show.

The magazine likes to invite prominent American comic creators to the show (and the occasional Brit too) and has conducted a series of profile questionnaires with their guests before the festival begins

FREDERIC GRIVAUD

Who are you ?

My name is Fred Grivaud. I'm a illustrator/colorist and i live in Dijon, France.

I wrote, make french correction and made color of some cover for Scarce (i think my first participation with this mag must be in 86/87 for art and some little article)
I do not have anything new right now, except the cover of the last Scarce magazine, few other covers for french editors (Oskar édition…) and some color job here and there. I just hope this new year will be the good one for more publications and, i hope, for comics projects !

My own blog is http://fredgrigri.blogspot.com/ and there should be a more professional site soon (as soon as i have time to developp it, in fact) !

Is it your first trip to France, to the Angouleme Festival ?

Oh no, perhaps the sixth, i don't know.

I've come before when I worked with the Semic team (i made some cover and pages for their Pocket publications and for the Semicverse new start, 8 years ago), , also when I worked on the french project « La compagnie des Glaces » for Dargaud and when I made my mini-comics « Alcheringa » in 2000 with Alex Nikolavitch.

After that, Ive come by my own, to show my work, see friends and have some good drinks too !!!
Recently, I became a Sceneario.com « journalist » (since my fanzine's years twenty five years ago, i've made a lot of short article about comics, for diverse fanzines, magazines or websites) to do interview, to comment expositions and eventually trying to present my portfolio…
But, for the main part, i'm not a real aficionados of this kind of « grande foire », too big and too mluch business for me. Even if it's certainly the best opportunity to show my work, have new contact and meet a lot of cool people.

With this Scarce's cover, with Xavier sympathic proposition to join him and his « cool gang », it could be a good occasion to have some great time and have some interesting advise, I hope so!

What do you expect from it ?

Except for the great contact, i don't know.

I wanted to work on my project and Angouleme is generaly really energizing.

When I come back to Dijon, I always have a lot of images in my head and ideas for illustrations and projects.

But it's the perfect moment to see more independants publications too, to discover more works than the ones I see in my local book shop. Last year, i've really been excited by all these great books all around here.

Are you ready? Any specific fear about it?

He he he, yes i'm ready (I try to convince myself here).

I have made my two hours jogging around the Lar Kir, I have a strong dietetic regime and began to drink more and more beer to be ready… I came several time per day to the Angouleme website to know how to speak with caption with « Wow » and « incroyable » in each phrase.

And i repeat to myself « Fred, you will speak, you will speak » !!!!!!

It's hard, but I will be there and ready ! (« Fred, read this phrase again and again ! »)

Do you speak french ?

Some days, i'm not always sure about it ;p

But yeah, I know some good phrases, enough to have a good conversation, some jokes too !
I try to be at my best. But, in Angouleme, some time it's more usefull to speak English ;p
En tout cas, aï ouil bi zere wiz Scairss ultimat' tim', peraps not ol zeu taïm, beut enouf taïm tou sai « hi », to sign eventualli the coveur… and… Oui will si… I ouil bi zeu guy wou begin aul his phrases baï « vous parlez français, j'espère ? » ;ppp

Who are you?

I'm Diogo Bercito, 22, a Brazilian jornalist. I write about comics for Folha de S.Paulo (www.folha.com.br), Brazil's leading newspaper. I'm still trying to figure out what's the European market, since I've grown up reading Spider-Man and Japanese stuff from Clamp girls. My goal as a comics jornalist is to manage to write about technique without being boring and describing plots without being shallow. When I'm not interviewing artists, I'm writing about teenagers for the newspaper or travelling around the world.

Is it your first trip to France, to the Angouleme Festival?
I've been in France in 1997, at age 9, with my parents. We had a lot of fun, but I don't remember much of it (just something about eating a lot and visiting the Louvre!). On the other hand, in 2010 I was in Angoulême and those days are still vivid in my memory. I had a wonderful time there, in a cold weather that simply doesn't exist in Brazil. I wrote the script for a comic book about the festival, which was drawn by an amazing Brazilian artist called Julia Bax. We got nominated for a journalism prize in Brazil because of that work.

What do you expect from it?
Since last time the festival was amazing for me, it is hard not to have great expectations about this year. I hope I can interview a lot of artists. I also expect to have some fun, hanging out with comic book authors and fans.

Are you ready? Any specific fear about it?
Well, no. It may sound easy, but scheduling interviews and preparing questions is a lot of trouble. I still have to convince an important author to speak to me – and if he does, I have to study his work so that it won't be embarrassing meeting him personally and having nothing to ask. I always have many fears when I travel to work. It has to be good, for someone is paying me to go there and make a good job. That puts a lot of pressure on me.

Do you speak french?
It depends. Portuguese is my mother language, and I can speak Spanish and Italian as well. Since all of them are latin languages, French comes almost naturally. I can speak some things and I can read it if it's written simply. The difficult thing is hearing, because French sounds are really apart from those of Spanish, Portuguese and Italian.

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