Posted in: Comics | Tagged: Angoulême, france, Le Grand Off

The Angoulême Comic Art Festival Replaced By Le Grand Off For 2026

The Angoulême Comic Art Festival will be replaced by Le Grand Off for 2026, 113 events over three days at the end of January

One month after the cancellation of the controversial Angoulême International Comics Festival, the local government is organising a free alternative event, dubbed Le Grand Off, named after the traditional "Off" or fringe events that would often happen at Angoulême, separate from the main event. Like the traditional fringe, it will happen on the same dates that Angoulême would have occurred, but with a much increased 113 events planned so far across fifteen venues, as well as more throughout France, including Nantes, Bordeaux, Toulouse, Lyon, Strasbourg, Brussels, Marseille, Paris, Montpellier, Mons, and Tournon-sur-Rhône.

The event will be free, showcase 113 projects and has been largely spearheaded by authors' collectives. Around fifteen public and private venues have been secured to host exhibitions, workshops, conferences, and book signings. Rather than the pop-up "bubble" spaces that housed major publishing houses in the Place du Champ-de-Mars in the Angouleme festival, the Grand Off will take place in museums, bookshops. libraries, cinemas and theatres.

Approximately sixty publishers will be present at the Chais Magelis, which is home to the Comics Museum. The Cosmopolite bookstore has announced that it will host 97 creator signings, with creators being paid equally for exhibiting their work, signing books, and leading workshops, without any hierarchy, including travel and accommodation costs. This approach differs from the Angoulême festival's tradition of not covering these expenses.

But even with all this, there will be a lot less money swilling around Angoulême next month. The local Angoulême government, chaired by Mayor Xavier Bonnefont, has also released half a million Euros to help support Charente-based businesses impacted by the cancellation, to hotels, restaurants, food service businesses, and all companies that can demonstrate a loss of revenue related to the festival. As Karine Renay, director of the Mercure Hotel in Angoulême, says that she currently has no bookings after "all the publishing houses contacted us one after the other to cancel, with regret… The city must remain the capital of comics, the capital of visual arts schools. We must fight to keep this festival going!" The mayor is promising a big party every evening in different locations around the city. Other events include a major exhibition dedicated to Benjamin Rabier, the creator of Gédéon the duck and The Laughing Cow, held at the Moebius Vessel.

Some are out of pocket from the festival itself. Victor Dérudet's company, Cobble, was hired to put together about ten exhibitions for Angoulême and just hopes that the services already provided will be paid for by 9e Art +, the organisers of Angoulême. As for next year, no one knows.

As to the FIBD association which owns the show, which had hired 9eArt+ to run the event, and cancelled the show for 2026 after mass boycotts, it has seen the resignation of five of its members: Jacques Bernat, Philippe Tomblaine, Étienne Recoules, Pierre Page, and Eric Langlois, even as Delphine Groux remains at the head of the association despite calls for her resignation.

The Girlxcott collective who arranged the boycott that saw theww festival canelled, have created a 130-page anthology album, Nos Angoulême, featuring 39 authors, Anne Baraou, Anne Simon, Anne-Lise Combeaud, Anne-Perrine Couët, BeneDì, Brouette Girlxcottante, Camille Burger, Camille Garoche, Chloé Cavalier, Chloé Wary, Claire Bouilhac, Delphine Panique, Désirée Frappier, Ela Falkowska, Elsa Abderhamani, Émilie Gleason, Émilie Plateau, Florence Dupré la Tour, Iris Pouy, Isa, Johanna Schipper, Jul Maroh, Léa Jarrin, Léandre Ackermann, Li-Chin Lin, Lila Guimet, Lisa Mandel, Lucie Servin, Lucile Gautier, Lucy Perineau, Maïa Hamilcaro-Berlin, Maud Bénézit, Nina Six, Nine Antico, Sabine Teyssonneyre, Séverine Tales, Séverine Vidal, Silki and Sophie Darcq, who will tell their Angoulême-related stories, and will be published for 2027, with a cover by Anouk Ricard.

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