After a cancellation in 2021 and a postponement from its traditional time slot during the third week of January at the start of 2022, the Angoulême International Comics Festival returned in full swing for its 49th iteration on March 17-20. It felt particularly nice to be back especially since for many festival-goers, the last glimpse of this special town during Covid restrictions was on movie screens thanks to Wes Anderson’s loving treatment in THE FRENCH DISPATCH (2021). I happened to be staying at a house that was right in front of one of the film’s recognizable locations.
A) a huge 200 square meter mural conceived by François Boucq, located at 10 boulevard Louis Pasteur.
B) a sculpture of a menhir (6.5 meters high weighing 22.5 tons) placed just outside the train station appropriately next to the obelisk dedicated to René Goscinny.
Also outside of the train station were image installations set up by the festival that displayed political contributions by Lewis Trondheim, Riad Sattouf, Milo Manara, Victor Hussenot, Benjamin Chaud, Luiza Kwiatkowska and Natali Noszczyn that served as expressions of solidarity for the situation raging in Ukraine.
The Ukrainian colors even lit up the facade and clock tower of City Hall, which serves as the Festival Headquarters for press and professional accreditation.
The entrance to City Hall was also adorned with the Ukrainian flag, flanked by the flags of France and the European Union.
The situation in Ukraine also inspired a last minute addition to the official opening of the Festival that took place on the evening of Wednesday March 16: a live drawing concert featuring invited artists with the final piece auctioned for charities to support refugee relief. This concert followed the announcement of the winner of the Festival's Grand Prix award, which was bestowed upon French-Canadian artist Julie Doucet. The timing of this honor couldn't have been more appropriate, foreshadowed by the recent publication MAXIPLOTTE, a collection of her work (translated into French) edited by Jean-Christophe Menu for l'Association. I'm greatly looking forward to see what Menu and the Festival will put together for her Grand Prix exhibition to highlight the 50th edition of the Festival next year.
Over the two and half days that I was in Angoulême, I was able to catch nine of the festival’s exhibitions. I’ll be presenting these nine exhibitions as a series of ‘exhibition in photos’ over nine individual blog entries with limited commentary. I hope the photos will offer a decent visual idea of the installation and presentation of each exhibition. My ultimate goal is to have these photos serve as the gateway to more lengthy exhibition reviews destined for the print edition of IJOCA. -Nick Nguyen All photos taken by Nick Nguyen  |
| Press badge (left) and the invitation to the Festival's opening ceremony drawn by Chris Ware |
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