Angouleme
The Angouleme festival and the off-festival around it, and European festival culture more widely.
Part of Underground Comics
55 moments in this segment.
- - 1974: le 1er festival de la Bande Dessinée à Angoulême. Co-founder Francis Groux looks back at the opening of the first Angouleme comics festival, over images of the town during that inaugural January edition.
- - Le métier de bédéiste en 1976. Claire Bretecher, Michel Demers and Fred describe what making comics for a living actually involves, recorded around the second Montreal international comics festival.
- - Hergé et Reiser au Festival d'Angoulême | Archive INA. A look back at the first four Angouleme festivals, the 1976 arrival of the Bulle, Herge's presidency and the 1977 founding of the comics museum, with Reiser reacting on camera. Herge died in 1983 and Reiser the same year.
- - Festival d'Angoulême 1988 - Archive INA. Cartoonists at the Angouleme festival each pick a news subject and draw it on the spot, with Serre talking through his choice and the unease he sees in the French press.
- - Drawing on a jacket at Angouleme. Matt Konture works in marker on a denim jacket during the 34th Angouleme festival, the kind of unbilled improvisation that fills the streets around the official halls.
- - Angoulême 2009 - Interview Anne Rouquette. Anne Rouquette discusses Joueurs, her entry in the official selection for the 2009 Angouleme festival.
- - ActuaBD on air from the festival. Six contributors to the French comics news site ActuaBD record a radio segment on site during the 2009 festival, with Didier Pasamonik among them.
- - The museum in festival week. Visitors approach the Musee de la Bande Dessinee in 2011, when the building's permanent collection is supplemented by the festival's temporary shows.
- - Musee de la BD during the festival. The comics museum on the Charente riverbank sits inside converted 19th century wine warehouses, and doubles as a festival venue each January.
- - Monde des Bulles entrance. The marquee entrance to one of the festival's exhibition tents in 2011, part of the temporary architecture that colonises the town for four days each January.
- - Nouveau Monde entrance. A second festival pavilion in 2011, the space traditionally given over to independent and foreign publishers rather than the large French houses.
- - Festival de la bande dessinée d'Angoulême 2012. A short local news tour of the Angouleme international comics festival, showing exhibition halls, signing queues and stands during the January edition.
- - VIDEO. Angoulême : le festival de la BD fête ses 40 ans. The fortieth Angouleme salon runs four days of exhibitions covering Uderzo and Mickey alongside live drawing concerts with Zep, creator of Titeuf.
- - Angoulême comics festival: The power of the pencil. Reporting from the forty-second Angouleme festival under heavy security, with tributes to the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists killed weeks earlier, a visit to Belgian cartoonist Hermann and a twenty-four hour drawing contest.
- - Benoit Peeters at Angouleme. The critic and scriptwriter photographed in 2015, when he chaired the Etats generaux de la bande dessinee, a survey body set up to measure French authors' incomes.
- - Authors march, 31 January 2015. Comics authors walk through Angouleme in a collective protest over pay and working conditions, three weeks after the Charlie Hebdo killings.
- - Le Festival d'Angoulême face aux accusations de sexisme. An arts programme covers the sexism accusations directed at the Angouleme festival over the composition of its Grand Prix shortlist.
- - Hermann - lauréat du Grand Prix du 43e festival de la BD d'Angoulême. Hermann took the Grand Prix of the 43rd Angouleme festival, and appears the following day having drawn more than a hundred albums.
- - Hotel Saint-Simon facade. The decorated front of the Hotel Saint-Simon during the 44th festival, one of the historic houses given over to exhibition use.
- - Vivre a Frandisco. An installation inside the Hotel Saint-Simon, part of the festival's practice of filling old rooms with contemporary work.
- - Chatelet decoration. Festival dressing on the place des Halles during the 44th edition, one of the installations that turn ordinary civic buildings into venues.
- - Maison des peuples exhibition. An off-programme exhibition on rue Herge during the 44th festival, run in a community building away from the main halls.
- - Festival international de la BD : festival "Off of Off" à Angoulême. The off of off festival at 37 rue Herge in Angouleme hosts Turkish cartoonist Ramize Erer, who took the Couilles au cul prize in 2017.
- - Mael Rannou in 2018. The French critic and small press publisher at the 2018 festival, where fanzine and micro-press activity runs alongside the official selection.
- - Signing Tristan et Yseult. Singeon and Agnes Maupre sign copies of their adaptation at their publisher's stand during the 2018 festival.
- - En direct du festival de la bande dessinée à Angoulême (JT soir 25 janvier 2018). A regional evening news bulletin from the Angouleme festival, with signing queues, cartoonist Alexis Dormal of the Pico Bogue series, a report on culture minister Francoise Nyssen, guest Alexandre Clerisse and the Marion Montaigne exhibition.
- - En direct du festival de la bande dessinée à Angoulême (JT midi 27 janvier 2018). A midday bulletin from inside the Angouleme festival covers the Alix exhibition mounted around Jacques Martin's artwork and the spin-off events spread through the town.
- - Festival d'Angoulême : le neuvième art est à la fête !. A festival special covers the Angouleme year that brought a Batman exhibition and the emergence of Emil Ferris with My Favorite Thing Is Monsters.
- - Emil Ferris takes the prize. The Chicago artist receives the 2019 Fauve d'or for My Favorite Thing is Monsters, a debut drawn largely in ballpoint pen.
- - Festival de la BD à Angoulême : exposition Wallace Wood. A report from the Angouleme comics festival on its exhibition devoted to Wallace Wood, with curator Frederic Manzano walking through original pages from three decades of work for cheap American magazines spanning science fiction, humour and erotic comics.
- - Discours au Festival international de la BD d'Angoulême. The French president addresses the Angouleme international comics festival, the state taking formal notice of the ninth art.
- - Angouleme 2020 in composite. A set of views from the 2020 edition, the last before the festival was disrupted by the pandemic.
- - Souvenirs d'Angoulême - Meilleurs moments du Festival d'Angoulême 2020. A short highlights reel from the 2020 Angouleme francophone film festival, cutting between red carpet arrivals, screenings and award moments. The subject is the cinema festival, not the bande dessinee one held in the same town.
- - Cérémonie du 48è Festival International de la Bande Dessinée d'Angoulême. The prize ceremony of the forty-eighth Angouleme festival, with awards announced and recipients addressing the audience in French.
- - L'Art de Chris Ware vu par Riad Sattouf. Riad Sattouf talks about Chris Ware, the 2021 Grand Prix winner at Angouleme, ahead of the exhibition devoted to Ware's work, describing what he finds in Ware's page architecture and draughtsmanship.
- - Festival international de la bande dessinée d'Angoulême. Riad Sattouf Vincent Lacoste. Mars 2022. Walkthrough footage of the Angouleme festival, passing the exhibition spaces given to Mortelle Adele, Aude Picault, Christophe Blain, Simon Roussin, Chris Ware, Rene Goscinny, Loo Hui Phang, Shigeru Mizuki and Tatsuki Fujimoto, plus the manga and young-talent pavilions. Riad Sattouf and Vincent Lacoste appear among the crowds.
- - Festival poster. The official poster for the Angouleme festival displayed in the town, the annual image that sets the edition's visual identity.
- - Angoulême, festival de la B.D et du Manga ! Pourquoi y aller en 2023. A preview of the 2023 Angouleme festival programme aimed at readers coming for manga, running through what is scheduled and why the trip is worth making. Practical festival information is given throughout.
- - Riad Sattouf : l'auteur de "L'Arabe du futur" remporte le Grand Prix d'Angoulême • FRANCE 24. Riad Sattouf, born in 1978 and raised between Libya, Syria and Brittany, was voted the Angouleme Grand Prix by the profession itself.
- - 50ème Festival de la Bande Dessinée d'Angoulême : une édition bien dans sa bulle • FRANCE 24. The fiftieth Angouleme festival opened on 25 January expecting two hundred thousand visitors, with the Grand Prix going to Riad Sattouf.
- - VISITING ANGOULÊME INTERNATIONAL COMIC BOOK FESTIVAL - First time experience. A first visit to Angouleme recounted practically: how to reach the town, what the site is like, and the books an outsider comes home holding.
- - Signing at Lilosimages. Noemie Fachan meets readers in a bookshop during the January 2024 festival, part of the parallel programme that runs in the town's own shops.
- - 3 jours au Festival de la BANDE DESSINÉE à Angoulême 🎨📖. Three days of the Angouleme festival from a reader's vantage: signing queues, the exhibition halls and the stack of albums carried home.
- - VISITING ANGOULÊME INTERNATIONAL COMIC BOOK FESTIVAL 2025 (Silent Vlog). A Berlin artist and his wife travel to the 2025 Angouleme festival, the walk through halls and stands recorded without commentary.
- - FIBD : tourmente autour du festival de la BD à Angoulême. Control of the Angouleme festival is contested between the organising company 9e Art Plus and the association that owns the event, reported here as the dispute escalates in November 2025.
- - Boycott du Festival d’Angoulême : pas d'auteurs, pas de festival ? • FRANCE 24. Hundreds of authors and publishers boycotted the 2026 Angouleme festival, and Lisa Mandel of the publisher Exemplaire discusses what is left of the event.
- - Pourquoi le festival de BD d’Angoulême risque l’annulation. An explainer on the dispute surrounding the Angouleme international comics festival and why its 2026 edition was at risk. The report lays out the positions of the parties around the largest French-language comics event.
- - Pourquoi le festival d'Angoulême est annulé ? (avec Boulet). Cartoonist Boulet joins a Mediapart morning programme to explain why the Angouleme festival was called off.
- - La solution pour sauver le Festival de BD d'Angoulême | ÇA IRA !. With the 53rd Angouleme festival cancelled and most of the trade treating it as finished, culture minister Rachida Dati proposes restoring a subsidy withdrawn the previous year.
- - Festival d’Angoulême : comment nos révélations ont provoqué son annulation | ENQUÊTE. Journalist Lucie Servin sets out the reporting she published in L'Humanite magazine in 2025 on the running of the Angouleme festival by 9eArt plus, covering allegations of toxic management, sexism and the sidelining of artists. The 2026 edition, set for late January, was cancelled after authors boycotted and publishers withdrew.
- - Festival d'Angoulême 2026 annulé : l'alternative des fêtes interconnectées de la bande dessinée. After the 2026 Angouleme festival was cancelled amid accusations of opaque management and mishandled sexual violence complaints, the Girlxcott collective set up an alternative in its place.
- - LIVE from the Grand Off Comic Fest, Angoulême 2026. A walking tour of the Grand Off alternative fair running alongside the 2026 Angouleme festival, filmed live around the town and in front of the Musee de la Bande Dessinee. Tables, stands and street activity are shown as they are encountered.
- - La Crise du Festival d’Angoulême. The 2026 cancellation of the Angouleme festival is set against the decades in which the event shaped French and European comics and absorbed the growth of manga.
- - Le grand OFF d'Angoulême 2026 : la BD malgré tout ?. The official Angouleme festival did not take place in 2026, and this report follows the off-festival events that filled the town in late January instead.
- - Podcast I French Festvial I Angoulême International Comics Festival. A French-language listening piece built around the Angouleme comics festival, using the event to carry vocabulary about the ninth art.