Posted in: Comics | Tagged: Comics, HRL

When Thought Bubble Went to Angoulême…

Published Sat, 03 Feb 2018 18:00:01 -0600

Thought Bubble's Clark Burscough went to Angoulême, the largest comic book festival in the world, with the rest of the team this past week. He shared his first-time experience with Bleeding Cool. He writes, with photos by Clark and Bess Martin:

As a first-time visitor to Angoulême, for the festival, I really enjoyed discovering random comic characters on the walls, while sauntering around — Corto Maltese adorning a vending machine down a little side street, Gaston Lagaffe visible in a window playing the gaffophone, a mural by Philippe Druillet covering the entire wall of a building as you turn a corner — bandes dessinées permeating the entire structure of the city, in a pretty amazing way.

Both the Osamu Tezuka and Naoki Urasawa-focused exhibitions were spectacular, with Tezuka's in particular really hammering home how cinematic his work is, through some nice curation — the accompanying captions were almost entirely in French (which I don't speak much of, and read even less), but the work really speaks for itself. The Urasawa exhibition was similarly great, but mostly served to fuel a fire of envy in me for the stories of his that have yet to have translations published in the UK.

The scope of the festival, in simple geographic terms, really stood out — especially when trying to see everything there was to offer in the space of three days. Comfy shoes were the essential con-going accessory, thanks to some steep hills between the casual visitor and the wonderful Musée de la Bande Dessinée, which had some festival-specific collections, and also the very interesting exhibition The New Generation: Arab Comics Today, which is running until later this year, something I wish I'd had more time to take in.