Introduction: Exhibitions of the 47th Angoulème International Comics Festival

2020 marks the 10th consecutive year that I’ve attended the Festival International de la Bande Dessinée à Angoulème, and each year there has been a progressive intensification by the organizers with respect to the programming. This 47th edition of the festival does not disappoint: with over 14 exhibitions and more than 350 events on the official schedule, it is a daunting task to do justice to the entire scope that takes place over the four densely packed days.

I’ve contributed some exhibition reviews of the Angoulème International Comics Festival for previous issues of IJOCA so this year, Exhibitions and Media Reviews Editor Mike Rhode has generously offered to let me experiment with the IJOCA blog. Over the course of the four and half days that I am present in Angoulème, I will cover as many of the exhibitions that are scattered throughout this small medieval French city as I can, posting photos and my immediate impressions and observations on this blog. This way I hope to capture an in situ record of the exhibitions in their original presentation context, since many of them have a life span that does not extend beyond the festival itself. These blog posts will then serve as the basis for an expanded review that will find a home in a future print edition of IJOCA. So fingers crossed that this experiment will be a successful one, and that I’ll have the strength and perseverance to bypass the crowds (which will apparently include an appearance by the President of the French Republic Emmanuel Macron himself!) to actually be able to cover the exhibitions.

-Nick Nguyen