Today sees the beginning of the 40th Festival International de la Bande Dessinée (International Comic Strip Festival) in Angoulême, France – a huge event spread over several days, which regularly brings around a quarter of a million visitors to this city on the river Charente (to put this in perspective, the largest comics fair in the US ‘only’ pulls roughly half that number). I can’t be there, unfortunately – but here are a few images from past visits to Angoulême and the world of BD*.
Mazan (Pierre Lavaud) at work, in his house in Champmillon, near Angoulême
…and signing books at the Abbaye de Saint Amant de Boixe, near Angoulême (Kheti – Fils du Nil, a book by Mazan and Isabelle Dethan)
Cécile Chicault in her studio in Chateauneuf, near Angoulême, with pages from one of her Wotila books
Angélique Césano (left), Mazan (centre) and Guilhem Bec (right) in conversation, Angoulême
Cité Internationale de la Bande Dessinée et de l’Image, the comic strip museum in Angoulême
Francis Groux, founder of the Festival International de la Bande Dessinée (left), and Gerard Balinziala, Festival Director (right), at the Abbaye de Saint Amant de Boixe, near Angoulême
*BD = Bande Dessinée (‘comic strip’, though the translation remains rather misleading – there is not necessarily anything ‘comic’ in the subject matter, and and the ‘strips’ fill large format books).
All images September 2011.
For more information on the Festival see www.bdangouleme.com.
For more images of Angouleme click here.
Photos © Rudolf Abraham. No unauthorized use.