Reports Of Our Demise Are Only Somewhat Exaggerated
But Fleen Senior French Correspondent Pierre Lebeaupin is still running down the news, at least. Give us heed to what he has to say.
I’m writing this because the FIBD at Angoulême was set to be taking place right now. But it isn’t.
It isn’t because the French government announced on December 27th that entertainment gatherings (sport events, cultural ones, etc.) attendance would be capped to 2000 if indoors, or 5000 if outdoors, which wouldn’t have allowed the festival to take place with any semblance of normalcy.
Worse, by making such an announcement merely one month before it was to take place, the government did not leave the festival any opportunity to rework the format so as to make fit under the cap (e.g. as Lyon BD did), even if the organizers had wanted to do so. No, by that time obviously all expenses had been incurred and it was either go or no go, so the only way left was no go.
Then, adding insult to injury, about one week later the government clarified (in the same sense Oceania clarified having always been at war with Eastasia) that the caps would in fact apply to events (concerts, sports, etc.), and not to festivals or to trade shows. We were in fact given the reasoning that the latter would be safer since people wouldn’t be static in those, which makes me question the epidemiological consulting they received.
That came of course way too late to the Angoulême organizers, who had by then announced the festival’s cancellation (and even if they hadn’t, everyone else would have cancelled their plans anyway); I think the only reason this staggering display of amateurism on the government’s part did not get discussed more was that it was overshadowed by the even more staggering amateurism they displayed in the unpreparedness for the schools reopening on January 3rd. But I digress.
The only thing left to do, then, was for the FIBD to announce their new dates: March 17th to 20th, 2022. I still won’t be going, still a bit early for my standards (I’d rather they would have waiting for spring), but I wish them luck.
In more positive news, we at Fleen have learned that starting in February newly issued Belgian passports will feature a comics theme, more specifically imagery from comics from Belgian creators of course: Tintin (more specifically his Moon rocket), the Smurfs, Lucky Luke, Spirou, Largo Winch, Bob & Bobette (known as Suske & Wiske in Flanders), the Marsupilami, etc. If we estimate the life expectancy of this model based on that of the previous one (about 14 years), I say it should be possible, if you move to Belgium right now and apply for citizenship once the conditions are met, to obtain this model before it is itself replaced. But you shouldn’t dawdle.
We at Fleen at the end there, of course, means FSFCPL alone, as the rest of we at Fleen are waaaay behind on comics news and appreciate that he at Fleen is paying attention. We at Fleen (that being, the rest of us who are not FSFCPL¹) thank FSFCPL for his diligence, without which there would be literally nothing here right about now.
Spam of the day:
Deine Freunde verdienen bereits Vor 19300 EUR pro Tag
Google Translate says that this means Your friends are already earning 19300 EUR per day which assumes I have friends and is thus pretty presumptuous.
_______________
¹ Meaning more specifically, Gary. Hi.
I’m gonna be a pedantic Belgian for a moment and take issue with the declaration «Bob & Bobette (known as Suske & Wiske in Flanders ». It’s a long running Flemish comic, so it is the opposite: Suske & Wiske (know as Bob & Bobette in French & English). Why do I care? Because the French-speaking community tends to ‘forget’ about the Flemish/Dutch-written Belgian comics that exist or are not French. Language is a complex thing and a huge sore spot in Belgium, the cause of much division. Maybe similar to Canada? Not sure, I don’t know that history that well.
Also, don’t move to Belgium for the passports. You’ll have to get one of our new ID cards as well, for which they scan and store your fingerprint. There’s been much chagrin about it with court cases and privicy advocates but it got pushed through anyway.
By Rembrand on 02.02.22 4:52 am
I do definitely confess to a French-speaking bias, and since I try to account for under which trademark the characters I mention would be best known to my intended audience (you’ll note I wrote Smurfs, while none of the other characters are listed under their English names), this being a balancing act my biases are bound to show up from time to time (I still remember reading “Le Casque Tartare”… running concurrently with “Le Fantôme Espagnol” in old collected issues of Tintin — and if I were to put that in a post I would definitely at least look up how to write these titles in Flemish; so yes, I will always think of them first as “Bob et Bobette”). Upon reflection, I should have indeed known to list “Suske and Wiske” first, as their status as one of the few comics originating from Flanders was not news to me.
By Pierre Lebeaupin on 02.02.22 5:49 pm
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