Streets of Angouleme

Not all the artwork is found indoors, in galleries or in books during the Festival International de la Bande Dessinee.

Here's a selection of street art and a couple of festival surfaces. Most of the street art was taken late on Saturday afternoon during a little walk through the town's narrow, winding streets. Even with the buzz of the festival, Angouleme is an attractive historic town. Limestone is the dominant building material and its widespread use makes the town feel ordered and calm. For me, having grown up around Fremantle, I found all this limestone quite evocative.

Let's start with the big one. Rue Hergé is the main street of the town. Here's the man it's named after.

Cheating a bit here as the illustration is part of the festival imagery, but part of the flavour.

Again, the festival uses BD images to good effect.

This one on a postbox appeared to be permanent. 

But not all course not all of the artwork is state approved.

Someone I met while walking the ramparts.

Another rampart dweller.

Artists' studio doors

Paste-up on the window of an empty yard.

And another, part of a cluster of paste-ups.

This is found near the corner of Rue Froid and Rue du Soleil. 

At night the limestone walls of the Hotel de Ville became a giant projection screen.

Careful, they might hear you

It's always a little anxious-making when I am being interviewed for radio. I'm never sure what crazy thing I might be tempted to say, what crazy kite I'm trying to cut free. Luckily being interviewed is an infrequent event.

Late last year I was interviewed about Look! by Sarah L'Strange for the Book Show on Radio National.

At one point I told her that I didn't read much adult fiction because it was so boring. Thankfully this piece of wisdom was left on the cutting room floor. What did go to air is a really good 20 minutes about the pleasure and process of picture books. Also interviewed are Ann James, Shaun Tan and a couple of parents and their children.

You can hear the program via the Book Show website.

Welcome to Angouleme: world comics capital

Just one of the many marquees, or bulles, that are part of this massive festival. Photograph taken from the roof of le Hotel de Ville, looking onto le Noveau Monde marquee.

Imagine the crowd at the MCG, the AFL grand final. Double it and then add a few thousand more.More than 200,000 people turned up for the 38th Angouleme International Festival de la bande dessinee. And like an AFL grand final, people come from all levels of society.  Angouleme, two hours by TGV south-west of Paris, is indisputably the home of BD in France. Don't be put off by the term 'la bande dessinee': literally it means 'drawn stories' and encompasses comics, graphic novels and sometimes picture books.

Saturday afternnon in Angouleme: packed!

Diversity is at the heart of this extraordinary festival. Across four days and nights, the festival caters to all tastes. Exhibitors, artists and publishers also come from all over the world.I met French, Romanian, Belgian, Finnish, French, Spain, and Hong Kong publishers, writers and producers.

Australia however, is largely invisible. In 2008 Shaun Tan won the festival's Best Album prize for Là où vont nos pères, or The Arrival. The young independent publisher I spoke to this weekend thought Shaun is an American. We are the great unknown, and Australians could learn a great deal by coming to this festival. Why more, or indeed any, Australians don't go there is a mystery to me.

Highlights included:
This year's festival president, Baru, is renowned for autobiographical depictions of the French (and migrant) working class, beginning in 1982 with Quéquettes Blues. The exhibition that honoured Baru's work was generous, imaginative, sympathetic, just a delight to explore and experience. Baru's exhilarating exhibition Debout les damned de la terre (translating roughly as Showing the damned of the earth) is a journey through working class lives over fifty years. Baru's massive body of work was smartly curated, displayed with real panache, and a great introduction to this artist.

Part of the marvellous Baru show that also included video, a documentary film, juke-box, old cars, boxing, rock and roll and original examples from his huge body of work.

Kaleidoscope: a history of bande dessinee in Hong Kong produced by the Hong Kong Arts Centre succinctly, elegantly and engagingly explored a turbulent past and present. The show - designed for touring - touched on the political, economic and technological changes that have driven Hong Kong's diverse visual comics  culture. But it looked so good that it could easily stand as a permanent exhibition. I would love to see this show in Australia.

Kaleidoscope world: Hong Kong's classy comics history

Kaleidoscope was housed in a former 'cave', a storage space for wine and grain.

The design of the Hong Kong show was museum quality - built in road cases and designed for travel.

The varied, diverse and distinct thematic marquees, ranging from the big (really packed) commercial houses to the edgy and innovative (Pavillon Jeunes Talents). If you want to see what is happening in comics internationally, this is a great way to see it. Angouleme is not just French and Belgian comics: it welcomes the world. The French remain famously relaxed in matters of sexuality.

 

 Vie de Merde is a raunchy, very funny slice of teenage life.

And finally, Les Concerts des Dessins. I saw three, each very different in flavour though using the same ingredients: live music matched live drawing. Malian singer Fatoumata Diawara was coolly complemented by illustrator Clement Oubrerie. On the other hand, Jon Spencer's new outfit Heavy Trash rocked the house down (around 800 screaming French women and men going absolutely bonkers) while Baru and friends drew up scenes of rockabilly mayhem, culminating in the artists setting fire to their pictures. Why don't all concerts come with live illustration? It was a hell of a way to go out.

Baru and friends get Jon Spencer up on the screen, while the band rocks on stage.

Angouleme is not a convention, or a fan-meet. And it's not, obviously, only about Tintin, Asterix and Spirou. There is an exhaustive schedule of in-conversations, panels and debates. 'Is Temeraire a little Nazi?'; 'Teaching BD in art school'; 'Lesbians and bande dessinee' 'Violence and manga'; 'Mainstream or indie - is it necessary to choose?' There is also a rights market, meetings with artists, film screenings and projections, book signings, sales (oh, my suitcase) and an incredible buzz throughout the town.

The festival is both a celebration and a masterful promotion of the bande dessinee. Prizes are awarded on the final night. This year's Angouleme Festival Grand Prize winner, and therefore next year's festival president, is Art Speigleman. The shortlist of 51 titles in a range of categories are heavily promoted in bookshops and beyond. FNAC (think JB HiFi meets Borders meets Ticketmaster), is a festival sponsor. National newspapers and magazines across the political and cultural spectrum get their hands dirty. The industry, its artists and readers, are taken seriously.

Yes, the French comics industry was built on the likes of Tintin and Asterix, but there is so much more. So, so, so much more.

http://www.bdangouleme.com/

Travel to Angouleme was supported by the Copyright Agency Limited Creative Industries Career Fund.

My host Evelyne was also extraordinarily helpful in all sorts of ways.

Merci beaucoup, Evelyne. Vous êtes génial!