Tlönista

I’ve been sitting on this one a while, as you can tell. Broken up into parts for your convenience.

1 “Angoulême is old, old, old”
2 General overview of demographics, genres, comix culture and industry in France
3 A very short glossary
4 Playing the bass
5 Gatecrashing
6 Notes on the panels
7 Schtroumpfs noirs
8 Party in the alt comix tent
9 Readers on the lawn of the Hôtel de Ville
10 “Je tombe amoureuse”

1 “Angoulême is old, old, old”

Angoulême is old, old, old. Bruges was quaint, pretty, and well-preserved; Angoulême is not. It looks decrepit, dilapidated, and homely. No crow-stepped gables here, just high, square white buildings with crumbling edges and black shutters and doors made centuries ago when people were shorter. Walking down the narrow mazy cobbled streets between the high white buildings feels like walking down corridors. Everything is quiet and rather cold and there is a peculiar ancient light.

2 General overview of demographics, genres, comix culture and industry in France

Looks familiar?

France is one of the very few nations, aside from Japan, to have a true comix culture. Comics aren’t an especially weird or geeky interest. As in Japan, there are lots of magazines in which comics are first serialized before being collected into proper albums. There’s also lots of stuff for kids and young adults – a stark opposite of the North American market. It’s not coincidental that people from my generation, coming of age in the early ’90’s, first encountered comics through Tintin, Astérix and the Schtroumpfs (Smurfs).

Far more North American comics make it over to France than vice versa, of course. The same goes for Japanese comics. There was a building just for manga, with a nice little CLAMP exhibit with profiles of all the creators and a documentary screening. And there were many vendors selling translated English-language graphic novels…but solely from the Fantagraphics, D&Q, Top Shelfy kind of range. No Marvel or DC in sight!

Anyway, all this means that the crowd at Angoulême is anything but a herd of smelly otaku; you’ll find the gamut of demographics represented. The real difference, however, is the amateur/professional divide. Whereas cons back home are largely for fans, here it seemed that nearly everyone I ran into was a cartoonist or an editor or at least working their way up.

3 A very short glossary

BD (bandes dessinées): comics
auteur: cartoonist
album: graphic novel/comic book

4 Playing the bass

The trip down was longish but uneventful. Train from King’s Cross to Gare du Nord, then on the Metro to Montparnasse, then to Angoulême. The trip from Paris was quite nice; I woke up from a doze to see we were passing through the French countryside in golden afternoon light. And it looked…gorgeous. It looked like a Van Gogh painting. I sat back and let myself fall in love with the landscape.

Once in Angoulême I wandered around trying to get a bit closer to my host’s place and buy a cabine téléphonique so I could phone her (the phone booths only accept special cards). Oh yeah, and in this age of mobiles there’s no phone booths. My own mobile had died the night before, naturally. Finally I got in touch with her and she sent a friend to collect me.

T.’s place, a tall and narrow medieval house on one of those narrow cobbled streets, is immensely homey. Think the Funhouse thirty years in the future: chaotic, cluttered, always with people passing through or sleeping on the couch…a haven, somewhere where you can be yourself, which for a bottly person like me is a rarity.

Sitting on the couch with a glass of wine, strumming the bass rather badly, Yoda the cat purring beside me. I’m home.

5 Gatecrashing

Bandes dessinées oui!

But one doesn’t just stay in when it’s BD time! Fellow guests Cyn and Sofi, who Know People, are off to hobnob with the professionels at some party and so Jerome One (T.’s hosting two Jeromes) and I decide to tag along. First we get a drink at a little pub where we just happen to bump into a well-known auteur. Jerome engages him in industry banter while Cyn and Sofi press a sketchbook into his hands. One of the bar staff walks into this meeting and crash! glass everywhere. We stay long enough to get the sketchbook and run off to the hotel where the party is.

It’s packed with people. We can just walk in, though. There’s much chatting and mingling and drinks and auteurs and such. At one point I’m literally falling asleep on my feet, so I leave relatively early and find my way through the medieval labyrinth of streets back to T.’s. Presently Jerome arrives, giddy and babbling and name-dropping. Apparently we were rubbing elbows with the Alan Moores of BD. The significance is lost on me, but I feel vaguely impressed.

6 Notes on the panels

I totally did a sketch of Charles Burns but have been too lazy to scan it. Just imagine it.

Despite my disorganisation busy schedule I managed to see two panels, one with Joann Sfar on drawing, the other with Charles Burns and Ludovic Debeurme on sexual imagery. My heard French is…well, more like isn’t, but I couldn’t pass up the chance to see Sfar, who is one of my favourite cartoonists. He was riffing off pairs of illustrations presented by the moderator, and seemed to mention The Lord of the Rings more than you would expect at this least geeky of cons, and spoke for a while about the tension between striving for a serious, realistic style and creating iconic, easily recognisable characters – think Tintin and Peanuts. Or he could have been talking about something entirely different, I don’t know. You’ll be happy to know it was far too crowded for glomping.

(It wasn’t a glomping sort of con anyway. Everyone did the two baises, very French.)

A memorable line from Charles Burns: “And I promise you that I’m not afraid of women.” That’s the thing with cartoonists, you can’t take that for granted.

7 Schtroumpfs noirs

I really don’t remember this from my childhood, but apparently Smurfs aren’t all blue. Some of them are black.

And evil, natch.

Comics will break your heart, indeed!

8 Party in the alt comix tent

Ah, the alt comix tent…obscure indie and small presses as far as the eye can see, hopeful auteurs hawking zines and minis like waiters outside the curry restaurants on Brick Lane. A guy at the Turkey Comics table pulls out an electric guitar and a teeny little amp, and another guy at the Warum booth opposite takes his acoustic, and they start playing punk covers. A crowd starts to gather. Kids with Spirou hats are watching the musicians with shy admiration. Someone arrives with a couple six-packs of beer. People are mingling, drinking beer, and tapping their feet. Yes, a party has spontaneously sprung into life.

One woman’s little daughter ran out and started dancing in kick-ass toddler style in front of the guitarists and grinning at them with star-struck awe. You could see the cogs turning in her little toddler brain grinding out the equation CARTOONISTS = ROCKSTARS. I can just see some young woman twenty years in the future, starving and passionate and turning out brilliant bandes dessinées to hawk at her very own table in the Angoulême alt comix tent, and it all started when she was a toddler jumping around to “Blitzkrieg Bop”. And so the cycle continues…

9 Readers on the lawn of the Hôtel de Ville

It is a gorgeously warm afternoon. Clusters of youths are spread out across the lawn of the Hôtel de Ville, those giant paper bags from the manga building piled beside them, reading comic books. Parents with their kids, reading comic books. People on the park benches reading. Back to the derelict afternoon quiet of the Place du Minage, the bare centre square, bare trees, sun-yellowed gravel, still fountain. It’s a fine day out there.

10 “Je tombe amoureuse”

Walking the ramparts of Angoulême on Sunday afternoon in the warm, brilliant sun, I look down at the green hillside that slopes down to the city below and know with certainty that I am falling in love. Impossible - there is no one I am in love with - but nevertheless there is no denying it.

In love with France? With comics? At any rate, creative times ahead.