2016 Angoulême International Comics Festival a "Train Wreck" Twice Over

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Alessandra Kelley

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http://fusion.net/story/262720/angouleme-international-comics-festival/

For 42 years, Angoulême, in France, has hosted an international comic art festival, the Festival International de la Bande Dessinée (FIBD). It is quite prestigious.

This year it was described as a "train wreck", for two pretty serious reasons.

The festival first hit the news last month, with its woman-free shortlist of thirty international nominees for the annual Grand Prix. In protest against this several prominent nominees withdrew their names.

Although it had given him "great pleasure" to find he was nominated, Sattouf, the author of 2015 winner The Arab of the Future and 2010 winner Pascal Brutal, declared on Facebook that he was "embarrassed" by the fact that only men were on the list for the Angoulême festival's prestigious prize this year.

"So I would rather cede my place to, for example, Rumiko Takahashi, Julie Doucet, Anouk Ricard, Marjane Satrapi, Catherine Meurisse (I'm not going to give a list of all the people I like)," he said.

Another French cartoonist, Joann Sfar, and American Daniel Clowes also asked for their names to be dropped from the list.

Of the festival's 43 past Grand Prix winners, only one is a woman, Florence Cestac, who won in 2000.

One of the festival's organisers, Franck Bondoux, defended the list to Le Monde newspaper.

"When you look at the prize-winners, you see that the artists on it have a certain maturity and are of a certain age," he said. "Unfortunately, there are not many women in the history of comics. That's just reality. If you go to the Louvre, you will also find few feminine artists."

According to the Washington Post:
Then, to add flame to the misfire, the festival noted that two women creators — Marjane Satrapi and Posy Simmonds — had recently been considered yet had received a low vote total. In other words: From its defensive crouch, FIBD was now willing to publicly woman-shame — which only worsened the PR nightmare as to the festival’s hostile inequality. (In its series of follow-up justifications and comparative stats, the festival even attempted a defense involving just how current one’s comics resume was — a standard applied to Satrapi that some recent male winners would not have met.)

But wait, it gets even worse. That was only the first disaster.

The actual festival and awards ceremony was this past weekend.

They announced the wrong winners.

It was not an error. Apparently it was a joke.

None of the winners or the putative winners was in on the joke.

Making the joke even less funny was the fact that the creators and publishers weren’t forewarned. “We were all happy, we had tears in our eyes, and then we were humiliated,” said Sam Soubigui of Komikku, one of the publishers whose book won a “Faux Fauve.” “Happily, my authors weren’t there, so I didn’t have to explain this shitty French humor to them.” Patrice Kiloffer, co-founder of the publisher L’Association, said that neither he nor Schrauwen got the joke, and Pol Scorteccia, the French publisher of Saga, had already relayed the news of the false win to writer Brian K. Vaughan and artist Fiona Staples, and then had to backtrack. “We looked like clowns,” he said. ActuaBD reported that one editor whose comic won a “Faux Fauve” left the auditorium in tears when she realized it was fake.

The international comics community reacted with shock and criticism.

The festival organizers responded with as much grace as they had to the earlier criticism.

In response to the criticisms, the festival said that a characteristic of hoaxes was to “briefly instil doubt to raise a smile”, and that Gaitet had been asked to bring “freedom, impertinence and humour” to his role, “in keeping with the spirit of independence of most comics creators”.

“We can regret that the humorous register of this sequence was not shared or appreciated by everyone, and the festival organisers are ready to send their regrets by letter to those comic writers who may have felt offended by this sequence,” they wrote in a statement. Franck Bondoux, the festival’s executive director, told Sud Ouest that all major awards ceremonies are “self-mocking” and “the problem is the dictatorship of the tweet”.

While the online reaction has been overwhelmingly negative, Angoulême’s official response to the Faux Fauves is surprisingly defensive, claiming they were done in answer to criticism over “the subject of boredom [that previous ceremonies] have inspired in their spectators.” The statement goes on to say (translated from the original French): “It is regrettable that the humorous register of this sequence has not been shared or appreciated by all, and the Festival organization is ready to submit written regrets to those comic writers who may have felt offended by this sequence.”

The festival’s executive director, Franck Bondoux, blamed Twitter for the negative response, claiming that all great award shows have jokes, and suggesting the “dictatorship of the tweet” created more outrage than was merited. Richard Gaitet [the ceremony's host] published a much more sincere apology, acknowledging the legitimate criticism over the absence of women nominated for the Grand Prix, and taking responsibility for the pain caused by the Faux Fauves.
 

Friendly Frog

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Hot damn, what a deplorable mess. And to think the Angoulême Festival had such prestige.

I'm a big fan of BD but this is painful.
 

MurderOfCrows

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They're going to have to work very hard to recreate any good will the festival had. They are a laughingstock in comics now - sexist, sneering, and awful. I hope they start working on it soon - maybe with a new announcement on how the festival staff has been sacked and replaced with actual competent staff who recognizes that women have been involved in comics since the advent of the medium and they should maybe not be a pack of jerks .

I don't think we're going to get that, and I think next year we're going to see more of the same. But I came hope, right?
 

GOTHOS

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I wouldn't have a problem with women creators not getting honored in a particular year, if there was some evidence that they'd been honored, however intermittently, in previous years. But only one in 43 years? Yeah, that's a real old boy network, not just a question of male artists outnumbering the females.
 

Komic Brew

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Been there once. A painful experience, too much crowded. Had to book a hotel some 15 km from the city. It was fun though, but didn't really help me find editors or publishers. Still, it's a surprise to find out this information - it's a very well respected festival in France.
 

AnnieCox

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I actually went this year! I had been studying BD abroad for a quarter in a small village in Provence. We spent about a week just outside of Angoulême in these summer camp style cabins. I'm glad people are discussing the ridiculousness of what went down. That being said, I had a wonderful time. I'm from San Diego so SDCC was the only other major convention I'd been to. While I love the over the top nature of SDCC, it was really nice to see the focus be on the actual comics at Angoulême, rather than movies and television. Even though my French was limited, I met a lot of really friendly and passionate people while spending way too much dough on a bunch of gorgeous books! I guess it just goes to show that whatever mean-spirited drama happens, I think that most comic readers are just kind, nerdy people who care a whole lot about art and story.
 
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