Just kidding, I can’t say nous vivons because it’s not really nous that live — this is all down to Fleen Senior French Correspondent Pierre Lebeupin, who is featured here today. It’s been too long, so let’s all be glad that the drought is over.

For the first time since 2020, in Angoulême the FIBD is taking place at the expected time of the year; this marks the end of COVID-related Angoulême controversies¹, which means we can focus again on the non-COVID-related controversies.

Now, many of these happen at or around Angoulême because it is so big that it can hardly avoid being involved in controversies spanning comics of the French-Belgian tradition in general; furthermore, Angoulême tends to get all the mainstream media attention, so people attempting to get media attention will attempt to do so in Angoulême, without this necessarily being the Angoulême organizers’ fault.

But sometimes they bring this on themselves. Case in point: in Fall it was announced everyone’s least favorite pedophilia enabler would be honored with an expo featuring his works as part of the festival. To say the announcement did not go over well would be an understatement, and after a few days of activist pushback the festival announced the cancellation of the expo, ostensibly for security reasons after they received threats. However, the timing of the announcement makes it look more like an out of the situation without angering either party, as a few days seems an awfully short amount of time to actually evaluate their options in terms of heightened security needs in light of these threats. As a reminder to Fleen readers, in 2015 not only did the festival take place not even a month after the Charlie Hebdo murders, but Angoulême that year even had a hastily set up expo around Charlie Hebdo and the murdered cartoonists.

Still, that does not mean it was the wrong decision to cancel the Vivès expo; yet that has not ended the controversy: a number of creators have since then come out in favor of Vivès (no link: I still need some time to mourn my respect for these folks), with something of a generational divide as no young creator appears to have done so. Though it does not appear to fit a naive you can’t joke about anything anymore these days framework either: I do not know of a time when anything comparable to what Vivès did in Petit Paul would have been remotely mainstream (there have been some superficially similar instances, but on closer look these did not compare, e.g.:a background gag as opposed to the main plot).

Another lasting consequence may play out in courts: the exposure appears to have led a state attorney to pay more attention to Vivès’ body of work, as an investigation was formally launched against him since the news of the cancellation, targeting his work on Petit Paul (published by Glénat) as well as two other books, this time published by Les Requins Marteaux: Les Melons de la Colère (roughly, The Canteloupes of Wrath) and La Décharge Mentale (roughly, The Mental Unload, a reference to Emma’s Mental Load).

In more positive news, on the occasion of this being the 50th anniversary of the FIBD, The Beat solicited FIBD memories from a number of professionals, and I was included, though I do not know whether I deserve to be listed along Charlie Adlard, Derf Backderf, Simon Hanselmann, Elyon’s (listed as Joëlle Epée Mandengue), Paul Gravett, or Serge Ewenczyk …

Finally, congratulations are in order to Riad Sattouf for having been awarded the Grand Prix this year. His presidency next year will be coming at an interesting time, as he will have wrapped up his current series (Esther’s Diaries and The Arab of the Future) and surely will try new formats, new narrative techniques, new publishing models, as he has always done in his career.

Many thanks to FSFCPL for his insights, and everybody drop him a line and remind him: he absolutely deserved to be included in The Beat’s roundup. Not to brag or anything, but Beat generalissimo Heidi MacDonald told me once that she wished she had an on-the-ground French contributor like FSFCPL.

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¹Don’t get me wrong, COVID hasn’t gone away; in fact, it is still one of the factors in my decision not to attend this year.

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.

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¹ Meaning more specifically, Gary. Hi.

If it seems like the only updates happening these days are from Fleen Senior French Correspondent Pierre Lebeaupin, well, you aren’t wrong. It’s partly ongoing pandemic, partly not having the time in the day to run down minor happenings and spin them into 600 words, and partly the realization that if I want there to be another 16 years of Fleen (given that 15 December is the traditional observation date for Fleenmas), I’d have to reduce my writing until I felt compulsion to resume.

And largely some things that I haven’t discussed publicly yet; some of you know the deal, and thank you for letting me share the news at my own pace and discretion. It’s a time of transition for me — don’t panic, nobody’s dying — and things are very much up in the air. I’m not going anywhere, but the pace that I’ve maintained for more than a decade and a half is not, for the moment at least, sustainable. But as long as Stuff is Going On for me, FSFCPL has been more than kind enough to provide us with news from the BD scene¹ and keep the lights on in the interim.

So without further ado, let’s turn it over to FSFCPL for this week’s update.

We weren’t the only ones to pay attention to last week’s story, and further developments call for a followup.

First, creator Souillon (through Maliki) had to put out a clarification to counter a narrative full of shortcuts that was developing in the reactions: in essence, the creator’s message is that, no, their managing to sell these 800 copies in a single day would not necessarily prove the publisher was incompetent for failing to sell these before Maliki intervened, as online selling and traditional distribution tend to be different markets². The real responsible party, if anything, would rather be the culture of overproduction in the current market where everyone attempts to get bigger in order to compete, at the expense of individual creators. Moreover, it would hardly translate to other creators who don’t necessarily have Maliki’s community.

And if I might add, other creators don’t necessarily have the cash on hand for such a transaction (team Maliki directly credit their Tipeee patrons for providing that), and even if they did, they could be forgiven for not willing to risk that much money in a way that may never be recouped, or only years later. Do not underestimate how much of a leap of faith this transaction was for team Maliki.

Second, I made a few shortcuts myself last week in the estimate for when the investment would be recouped.

• The first factor I forgot is the taxman, and not any tax Maliki’s business or any of its principals has to pay, but the tax the buyers do: the value-added tax, or VAT. On books, in France, VAT is 5.5%. Fortunately, we know that Maliki’s added value as a retailer here is 40%, which means that out of the 19.90€ they collect, 19.90 * 40% * 5.5% = 0.4378€ will be remitted to the public treasury, regardless of whatever else happens.

  So the operation would cease being a net loss only once 513 copies (rounding up) had been sold, not 503 as previously implied.

• The second assumption I made was that the book hadn’t earned out: in that hypothesis, we can stop now. But what if it had? In that case, each sale not only results in a net 19.4622€ increase in cash from the viewpoint of team Maliki’s finances, but also in royalties being paid out, this time to Souillon as a creator (fortunately, Souillon is the sole creator in that instance). This is triggered by declaring the sale to the publisher. By their own admission, we know the royalties to be 8 to 12% of the retail price before taxes, which here amounts to 19.90 * (100 – 5.5)/100 * 8-12% = 1.50444 to 2.25666€

  So we can now estimate the number of copies that would have been necessary to sell in order to recoup the initial expense to be between 461 and 477 copies. Still more than half of them, even though team Maliki took almost all the risk here while everyone else was willing to write off this batch as worthless.

  (Of course, there are other factors here, but for which we don’t have information, such as credit card transaction fees; this is the best estimate we can put out with the information we were generously provided.)

Speaking of the batch, Becky was kind enough to share a photo of the 800 books they now have to sign and ship. Individually. Each and every one of them. We at Fleen wish them protection from cramps and other musculoskeletal affections …

Thanks as always to Pierre Lebeaupin for keeping on top of the story. It really is fascinating to see what the differences in publishing are in the European model.

Spam of the day:

Dear Madam, Dear Sir Are you looking for splendid X-mas gifts for your loved ones and friends?

Nope. All about the crappy gifts myself. Thanks for asking!

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¹ Bandes dessinées, you pervs.

²For instance, this is the assumption Oni Press made when they simultaneously published both a Kickstarter edition of Lucky Penny — a Kickstarter which relied largely on the existing Johnny Wander community — and a regular edition for bookstores.

We at Fleen interrupt this [American] holiday weekend of pie with news from Fleen Senior French Correspondent Pierre Lebeaupin, who has a tale of skullduggery. Take ‘er away, FSFCPL!

It all began with a semi-cryptic tweet from Becky, Maliki’s right-hand woman:

We just saved 800 collector copies of Hello Fucktopia. More details soon, but it ain’t pretty.

Hello Fucktopia is a one-shot in the Maliki universe released years back, even a few years before she would declare independence from traditional publishers, intended for older readers (16 and up); in fact, it’s different enough from Maliki’s usual fare that it is signed directly under the creator’s pseudonym Souillon rather than being attributed to her name.

As for the collector, it refers to a larger, black and white limited edition with a few improvements that was released one year later.

On Tuesday, we got the details, and they aren’t pretty indeed. But they also include numbers, and if there’s one thing we love at Fleen, it’s numbers.

One piece of context: in France, there is no direct market for comics, and in fact no channel dedicated to comics. Some of them, such as weekly or monthly anthologies and US comic book TPBs, are distributed to newsstands along with magazines and follow their rules. But all other kinds of comics are distributed to bookshops along with non-sequential-art books, there is no separate channel.

For instance, we can see in the sample summary (third panel) that 17 copies were destroyed in that sample half-year period; it likely corresponds to returns from bookshops (French-only, but you should get the drift). In that case, the copies had been unbundled and unwrapped, which means it’s not necessarily easy to get them back to another retail point in a presentable state¹.

But the 800 cannot correspond to anything but one or more pallets that had never left storage, with unsealed bundles.

Another piece of context: I am not aware of any French law against the publisher directly selling the 800 copies; rather, I believe the prohibition to be contractual: it could be the distributor who has an exclusive license, which means the transaction would have to go through them. Even if the books were still owned by the publisher and the distributor was only housing them.

However, it is by French law that the publisher sets the book retail price, and no retailer may deviate from it by more than 5%.

From the product page, we can therefore obtain the retail price: 19.90€ (±5%). 800 of them at 40% discount therefore amounts to 9552€ (±5%). The 10,000€ quote, then, likely includes a few additional items such as delivery to the far-away land of Brittany.

Finally, as anyone could determine, by the time they would be down to their 297 last copies, or about 37%, of the initial pile, they would have made up their initial investment and anything beyond that would be pure profit.

One last piece of context: as part of our interesting times, there is a paper shortage going on, and that has apparently affected the release schedule of some books, according to conversations this weekend in Colomiers (festival report forthcoming). Surely this sounds like an ideal time to treat paper like a disposable resource, right?

Many thanks to team Maliki for being forthcoming with the financial details of the transaction. We couldn’t have asked for more!

PS: By the end of the day, Tuesday, all 800 copies had been sold in that garage sale.

Our thanks as always to FSFCPL; if any further information comes to light regarding the mysterious very nearly complete loss of ten thousand Euro worth of comics, we’ll be sure to bring it to you.

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¹ Which doesn’t mean the industry shouldn’t try! At Colomiers, most publishers had a bin of discounted books designated as slightly less fresh or some such, sometimes explicitly telling they were philosophically opposed to stripping these books.

And one in such exquisite detail even more so.

Welcome back to the coverage of this year’s Quai des Bulles festival, courtesy of Fleen Senior French Correspondent Pierre Lebeaupin. As mentioned in Part One, this is his report on the career retrospective interview of Pénélope Bagieu.

The interview took place Saturday at 2:30 PM in the Amphithéâtre Maupertuis, with Vincent Brunner interviewing.

30 minutes before the start, available spots were already thinning out. 15 minutes bore the start, there was no room left at all.

When Pénélope Bagieu entered the room, the audience broke into applause.

After a welcome message, a reminder of her exhibition, and a quick recap of her career, including her Eisner award, the interview started in earnest.

Brunner: How did she realize she wanted to become a comics creator, with so few examples, such as Claire Brétécher?
Bagieu: As far as her young self was concerned, the comics she read appeared out of thin air without anyone needing to be involved, and in fact she noticed female protagonists more than female creators. Later on she studied animation, then worked in illustration, at which point she started being commissioned for comics work as part of her job, and that turned out to be to her liking.

She realized she had been doing comics as a teen (typically girls playing sports, inspired by Attacker You), but she did not think of it at the time as being comics.

Brunner: So she created a blog, a new medium at the time.
Bagieu: She was not interested then in putting out a book; she had always been doing commission work, as she was hired straight out of school, so the blog provided her with a space to express herself freely: no need for any of it to provide a return on investment. In the end, it was a training ground for her to be able to make books eventually.

Brunner: And it provided her direct interactions with the public.
Bagieu: Not necessarily as interactive as with some since her blog did not have comments, but yes that meant being exposed to many people, but pre-Instagram standards. It was an ongoing entertainer job: back then when you went on holidays you used to ask another creator to cover your away days! Today she couldn’t imagine doing the same: she’s just too busy.

The blog removed some of the solemn aspect of books: she never stopped herself thinking: This joke is going to end up in a book and enter the public record! She enjoyed the lack of restraint. She found it nice for it to become a book in the end, but that was never the end goal. Now she has better outlook on the process: for instance, it has become apparent visitors do not necessarily translate to sales.

Brunner: This is where Joséphine starts.
Bagieu: It was a commission work, and her first character in fiction, so the matter was finding out in which scenarios, in which contexts, and between which characters she was going to be inserted. Once she had consistent characters, it was just a matter of coming up with setups such as the company party at which point the stories write themselves, even after 20 years.

Brunner: Then a movie.
Bagieu: Joséphine was a kind of training camp, and once it had stopped being fun to do, she stopped. She hasn’t regretted it, even when in Japan when she got asked for more at a signing (the Japanese public is more interested in the pictures than in the stories of comics of the French-Belgian tradition). She is proud of it being her first published book in Asia.

Brunner: Isn’t there always some part of treason when adapting for a movie?
Bagieu: To avoid feeling betrayed, you either do it yourself (which as a creator you always have the option to do, by law, as part of your moral rights), and you’re safe; or you put it in the hands of someone else and own up already that it’s going to be their work.

She find movies to be a source of frustration as compared to comics: in the latter, she can afford to put ellipses for instance, and one person can have total creative control, without sharing it with actors, the people responsible for lighting, sets, or props. That means it’s solitary work, but it’s fine for her.

Brunner: Exquisite Corpse was another milestone.
Bagieu: She had huge worries going into it: was she going to succeed, in particular when it comes to writing? But it didn’t matter in the end: she had fun working on it, and it was the start of a realization that once everything is said and done, the only thing that remains out of a book is the experience she has had working on it, as far as she’s concerned, so the only thing that matters is how much she enjoyed herself doing it.

Brunner: Does she follow any sort of process when creating a book?
Bagieu: She does write a synopsis ahead of time for validation, which is always a source of worries, but beyond that no particular methodology. So she works on her books in an almost school-like manner: plan, introduction, development, conclusion. Other creators may follow different methods: some start without necessarily knowing how the book will end.

Brunner: What form does this take?
Bagieu: A mix of words, arrows, roughs, sketches, in order the represent the staging in her head, and which only she can make heads or tails of it. They are literally impossible to display: it’s hard to even know which orientation the sheet is meant to have.

Brunner: And she has also worked with writers.
Bagieu: At the time of her being proposed La Page Blanche (which occurred before Cadavre Exquis), she requested being paired with a writer, and ended up with Boulet, which was great, in particular so she could concentrate on the illustrations, and moreso the colors: I handle the writing duties.

But she did get frustrated somewhat, as she missed not so much writing the story, as being able to stage it, which is the part she loves best. Stars Of The Stars* was another attempt at drawing someone else’s scenario, this time with Johann Sfar, who had initiated the project. None of this being out of the ordinary: there are no two pairs of writers and artists who collaborate the same way, no two writers who are alike. Sfar taught her a lot, she finds him to be an incredible storyteller.

In the end, she decided she did not want anyone else writing stories for her to draw anymore, even if she isn’t the best writer. And even if that meant leaving Stars Of The Stars stranded with a single tome.

Brunner: What kind of tooling did she use?
Bagieu: Back then, Photoshop and graphic tablet: it was just easier for her. Sometimes you have to find the right tool, as for California Dreamin’, but sometimes also get out of your comfort zone.

Brunner: On that matter, why did she draw this story?
Bagieu: First of all, she’s of course a huge fan. And she found Mama Cass’s story to be incredible and felt the need to transmit it. Her penciling came alive on the page, but any inking froze that, so she decided she would do it all in pencils.

This was her first long-haul book; she loved the feeling of spending 18 months with someone, so she came to appreciate creating biographies. If only she could tell of more women that way …

Brunner: What kind of documentation did she use for that?
Bagieu: Immersing yourself in a setting for the purpose of writing, that sounds fantastic! So she travelled to New York City, sleeping in a B&B in Greenwich Village and spending her days in cafés, and by the end of the week the book was basically written.

Brunner: To which extent does she embellish these life stories with fiction?
Bagieu: She prefers biographies that don’t lean heavily on factuals, as opposed to those that go on that date they did this then that date they did that: the biographies that made a mark on her were those from which readers received love for the person, doesn’t matter if there’s a 20-year time skip in the middle.

Which does not mean she gets to do as she pleases: there are extant relatives who could object. So she had to double-check biographical details: whether they were raised in a rich or poor family, the kind of siblings they had, etc. Her role is to provide embellishments and draw the lines between the given points as she prefers. Out of the truth, shape her own Mama Cass: the one she wants to see.

On that note, if you need background characters who nevertheless need to stay consistent from panel to panel, use your own relatives.

She’d rather introduce the subject to the reader and make him love them, rather than teaching him information.

Brunner: Did she hear from the rights holders?
Bagieu: They refused to license the lyrics, so yes she did hear about them … But other than that, when she went to Baltimore, she got feedback from someone from her parents’ generation that she did render well the high school ambiance, which she did not expect but was glad to hear.

Brunner: So what’s the relationship with Brazen?
Bagieu: Let’s do a Katia Krafft bio! No, it’d be better to do a Peggy Guggenheim one! Wait, what if I did 30 of them? She was looking for a format with Le Monde: what if she did women bios, told as children’s tales of sorts, and randomly said 30 as to how many, once every Monday? She went on to call her publisher, who said it’d have to be two books then.

Brunner: How did she settle on which ones to write?
Bagieu: She had settled on about 2/3rds of them right away, and the last third came during the course of the project: she got heaps of suggestions, not to mention those who did not make the cut and still regrets. Some who were suggested she passed on because she found them to be sufficiently well-known already, but it could also be because their stories did not connect with her. But sometimes it was love at first sight, such as when Lisa Mandel suggested Phoolan Devi¹ to her.

Brunner: That was quite a synthesis work. What was her process?
Bagieu: Oh yes, there we do learn information. She started the week with their biographies, then she’d have about two days to write and draw their chapter. This was a good exercise, as with such constraints this is what hit her that remains, and in particular their switch: the trigger, the one event where they go I’m done playing by the rules, I’m going to live my life how I decide (either in terms of career, lifestyle, etc). That was in fact her main contribution to the animated version: confirming, and in some cases reminding, of where that spot happens in the stories.

Brunner: How did she handle the publishing schedule?
Bagieu: She did do a few ahead of time, for use in rainy days and the like. But the immediate feedback kept her very motivated, as opposed to her latest book which she was done drawing back in May but isn’t out yet … (Author’s note: at the time this interview was conducted)

Brunner: No sequel then?
Bagieu: No, she’s sticking with the 30 she initially committed to. Tove Jansson never lost sight of her priorities in life, and she’s taken that in turn: she knows that if she works on something she’d rather not work on, readers will notice.

Brunner: So she has no regret on any particular one who did not make the cut?
Bagieu: No, not on one in particular, and anyway there’s nothing stopping her from from discovering more women and reading their biographies.

Brunner: And it was not intended for children specifically, was it?
Bagieu: And yet, there they are.

Brunner: Which leads us to The Witches.
Bagieu: As far as she’s concerned, the children audience is demanding, as you can’t bluff your way out, which is especially the case for drawings: she holds children book illustrators in highest esteem. So when she inadvertently brought a younger readership, she realized it was not necessary to write in a way that targets them. As a result, when she got the offer to adapt Roald Dahl, she was less afraid to do so.

That still meant some pressure, especially for backgrounds: she herself as a young reader demanded to be able to witness everything, down to the smallest detail. Luckily, everything was there in the book already: scary antagonists, funny moments, actual action. He was pretty much the only writer in children’s literature to introduce somber themes.

When she first read the book she was aged about the same as the protagonists, so it helped her get back to the right frame of mind.

Brunner: And it’s a book about grandmothers.
Bagieu: She drew a lot from her own grandmother, as part of generally making an imprint on the story: rather than being an illustrator like Quentin Blake, she was adapting the book and so needed for it to become her own, so the grandmother went from being Dahl’s to being hers as a result. As well as making a character into a girl.

Brunner: Yes, that Bruno character.
Bagieu: He made no impression on her at all, so she wondered: why is he here at all? Let’s replace him, and as we’re at it by a girl who is interesting, has her own backstory, and serves some story purpose.

Brunner: Haven’t witches evolved since then?
Bagieu: It was complicated to adapt The Witches in 2020. But it mattered for them to remain fairy tale witches, as that is what worked for her at the time, because they were impressive. But there is the grandmother who exposes and is a different kind of witch.

Brunner: What were the rights holders like?
Bagieu: A single person in fact, who was open to anything that made sense. He was very settled on some aspects: the setting being England for instance. But he accepted a female character who made sense. He reminded her of an important theme: the grandmother has to love her grandchild no mater what, and it has to be shown.

Brunner: And she created it on the road.
Bagieu: During her Brazen promo tour, so she remembers every page being done in a train or in a waiting room. The iPad was very useful for her: for instance the pencil effect, as seen in this page.

Brunner: And we get to her latest, Strates, set to release on November 10th …
Bagieu: And available at the Gallimard booth ahead of the public launch.

Brunner: Where she gets back to autobio, with moments that made an impression on her.
Bagieu: On the blogs you take highlights out of your life and make scenes out of them, without really exposing yourself: everything has to be made into comedy. Here she collected deeply personal stories, some of which aren’t funny. But it’s a jigsaw puzzle of elements that built her, out of very diverse subject matters, even if some of them appear unimportant at first glance.

Brunner: There is not even any consistent page count.
Bagieu: She’s trusting the reader to follow. This one story she wrote down ten years ago. Then years later she did three in a month. This was originally a cathartic process not meant for anyone else, but eventually she decided she should not be afraid to make a book out of it.

For this, she redrew some of the oldest ones. She thought to herself that if this was enjoyable to make, it would have to be enjoyable to read. But it’s still not easy for her, as she puts herself bare in these pages. With any luck, she hopes it has some universality and impresses other people in turn.

Audience Member: She went from bios, to an adaptation, to autobio; what’s next?
Bagieu: She does not know herself. About one week before heading into it in earnest, she’ll know. It’s never the same thing twice, because she easily gets bored. Right now she wants to do colors, painting, as Strates is in black and white; if she’s still in that state of mind in a few weeks, she’ll attempt a few pages, and if after three pages it’s still too hard, she’ll give up.

Audience Member: What would be her advice for starting out?
Bagieu: She’s not comfortable providing such advice: she started out in days that are now fully gone, and wouldn’t know how to start over today. But people today are lucky to have Instagram, even if that imposes a format constraint, which she could get bored of: she worries about Instagram formatting stories for swiping as early as inception, for fear of there not being nearly as much of an outlet for them otherwise.

Also, there are some things that shouldn’t be shown right away and need to mature, because feedback on them would catch the ego in too fragile a state.

But it is key to generally show, otherwise you never work up the nerve to do so.

Don’t worry about what pleases the public, as you’re never going to be able to hold that up in the long run: you’re going to get sick of it. Same for artificial constraints: your work as to be personal, and that comes from drawing a lot; that is how your style comes, you don’t decide it.

Existing in an era of abundance requires being demanding with the editing side: you have to demand being backed up and respected, so be careful. You must speak with other creators so as to avoid being alone, to counteract the tendency of being solitary already.

Audience Member: Do woman creators earn less?
Bagieu: Yes, big surprise here: statistically advances are lower for female creators. There has always been female creators (and readers) but now they’re spreading to other parts of the book chain, such as editors.

Things have changed in the last ten-fifteen years, and besides feminization, some commercials successes have forced the attention on them; but women creators are still invisibilized in many cases, or assigned to some boxes, etc.

It’s not the worst occupation in that regard, but not the best either. But now female creators are banding, under the descriptively-named umbrella of Collectif des Créatrices de Bandes Dessinées.

Audience Member: (Author’s note: a young girl who happened to be next to me) How did she learn how to draw?
Bagieu: As the audience member did: pencils and paper which was laying around, then art school after high school. But there are some self-taught creators, who draw better than her.

One additional piece of advice, on that matter: she herself drew a lot because she was made to treat paper and pencils as mundane: the paper won’t serve for any other purpose since there’s a bill on the other side, the pencils are old but abundant, so she was free to draw a lot. The opposite of the shiny Caran d’Ache painting set. Given disposable materials like old markers: you go ahead.

Audience Member: What kind of representation, of feminine role model did she have?
Bagieu: No, she did not know women who drew, or even the people who did: the question of who were creating comics did not occur to her. She did love Mafalda and anime as they featured girls, they were part of the action. Sometimes stories were stereotypical girl stories: rivalries, pests, etc., but it was cool to have girl protagonists. For her the golden era of French-Belgian comic book heroines starts now, with the female creators who are 20-25 today.

Audience Member: What kind of pressure does she have after her previous successes, in particular Brazen?
Bagieu: Now everything she does will be widely read as being from the creator of Brazen. Including when unrelated, such as Strates. But in the worst case, she has already put out a best-seller, so that’s something taken care of already. She’s in awe of the other creators who can keep doing books in a series, because she on the other hand has to be passionate about her work. It helps to be well backed up, and not necessarily driven to what will make the most money.

And that will wrap this year’s report from St Malo. As always, we at Fleen are grateful for the contributions of FSFCPL, and all the hard work he puts in to keep us informed of the state of webcomics in the French tradition.

Spam of the day:

The ZoomShot Pro is the new tactical zoom for smartphones and tablets that resists all types of terrain and that with its magnification up to X18 will allow you to take the best photos outdoors without the need to carry a professional camera.

Make up your mind and decide on your audience: are you trying to scam warrior wannabes with the tactical angle, or serious photographers. This is just muddled.

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¹ Editor’s note: Phoolan Devi, the Bandit Queen of India, was the one subject in the original French edition that was omitted from the US/Canada translation of Brazen.

And taking the time to produce either would prevent me from getting you to the latest festival report from Fleen Senior French Correspondent Pierre Lebeaupin, and we can’t have that.

Thanks to Ted Naifeh, I now have my cosplayer identity: Unkempt Superman. At first I thought this was about my hair: I haven’t bothered cutting my pandemic hair, plus the bad weather outside wasn’t doing it any favors. But I realized my attempts to help fellow festival-goers identify my costume (this was on Halloween’s day), namely having my cape stick out of my collar, and my shirt being open in front, doubled as painting the image of a Clark Kent who had barely had time to change back from his superheroing duties. So I’m definitely keeping the image of a superhero that goes increasingly unkept as the festival progresses; in fact, as soon as masks are off (vaccines providing sterilizing immunity can’t come soon enough), this will include increasing amounts of stubble.

This year, Quai des Bulles took advantage of November 1st (a holiday in France) falling on a Monday to go from three days to four, and while this was a good way to compensate for the cancellation of last year’s edition, this also meant this was my first four-day festival.

As the first large-scale festival in months (remember the 2021 edition of Lyon BD had limited scale, and no publisher presence), this was the occasion to reconnect with some creators, such as Cy, which I hadn’t seen (except through a screen) since the release of her latest work, Radium Girls (to be available stateside from Iron Circus in 2022), so lining for a signing with her was a no-brainer. But also the occasion to meet creators I had never seen in a festival before, such as Gally: she has illustrated l’Esprit Critique (a McCloudesque treatise in defense of critical thinking) and created Mon Gras et Moi (My Fat And I), so of course I had her sign both.

And I of course couldn’t skip having John Allison sign one of his Giant Days collections at the Akileos booth (where Naifeh was as well). While Akileos does not have all the interesting adaptations of non-cape English language sequential art (the adaptation of Witch Boy was found elsewhere), they do publish the French editions of Stand Still Stay Silent, of Jen Wang’s recent works, of pretty much everything by Raina Telgemeier, and as you may have guessed those of Allison and Naifeh. While I had caught a glimpse of Allison at Angoulême in 2020, Angoulême also is a big mayhem and I couldn’t manage to meet him at the time. So many thanks to Akileos in general.

Also returning were the fairy tale performances, the drawn concert performance, the painted shop windows, exhibitions (including one of Pénélope Bagieu’s works), and various events such as movie projections. In fact, it would be easier to list the differences: the previously mentioned extra day, the absence of in-hall food options (which was a relief to me), way fewer small scale meetups in bars or the like (which is fortunate, because I don’t think I’d have attended them; in unrelated news, cases were already on the rise at the time in France), and most significantly, an impressive pipeline for validating the mandatory health pass (either vaccination, certificate of remission from COVID-19, or a recent test) before you were given the festival bracelet, valid for the day, that would allow you to enter the festival spaces. In the end, while there were lines at times, everything otherwise went smoothly all things considered, which is testament to the festival organizers.

Stay tuned, I should soon be done transcribing the interview Vincent Brunner did of Bagieu about her whole career, but in particular her latest release, Strates.

We at Fleen, as always, thank FSFCPL for his contributions, and will share the Bagieu interview as soon as it is ready.

For everybody else, there’s the entire rest of the post, which is less time-sensitive than the UK bit. Take it away, Fleen Senior French Correspondent Pierre Lebeaupin!

It was always a given that Boulet’s first crowdfunding campaign would make a splash. The only questions were when and how big.

In case you missed it, as a new year’s resolution Boulet set himself a daily strip schedule, as a way to reconnect with the spontaneity of web creation; as a sign of the times, he created them as Instagram vignettes. So even if he has later put them on his blog as well so as not to be solely dependent on Facebook infrastructure, they are quite specific in format (notably, they are narrow enough to be easily readable on handsets).

After a year 2020 where the average productivity was slightly lowered, he surprised himself when he reached update 100 and didn’t stop until May (with a few more in August) — all that in parallel with his breadwinning activities.

Which raised the question of what to do with them.

As he reveals in the crowdfunding video, his publisher, or to be more accurate, the one where he has published his comics blog collections so far under the name Notes, did proactively contact him about, maybe, publishing these?

But not only did he feel these were sufficiently different in format and tone to warrant developing them as a specific project, also times had changed since the last tome: a new kind of publishing house where his promotional efforts would be taken into account, where he would not sign away any more rights (merchandizing, translation, adaptations, etc.) than he strictly needed to, and where he would need to only give up a share of the crowdfunding money proportionate with the work taken off his plate, which was the main obstacle keeping him away from self-publishing? (Note who was agreeing with Boulet in this discussion? Lisa Mandel)

As he put it, it’s as if Fate had sent him a sign. Hence, Rogatons.

After an explosive start that dissuaded me from reporting on the extravagant amount that applying the FFFmk2 would have given (given the lack of track record), the campaign did nevertheless reach 7195 preordered books, or 6759 Books_ecc, putting him among the top crowdfunded French comics creators.

I don’t know if that allows him to be completely independent from traditional publishers (if you think this book just required the 6 months or so of work where we actually saw his strip output, you’re fooling yourself). But he certainly took a giant step towards that.

Meanwhile, he isn’t leaving his historical publishers down so far, as evidenced by the fact that he’ll be in Cumbria this weekend for the Comic Art Festival) where he will sign Notes for Soaring Penguin Press, and by his relaying of the availability of Dungeon in English at NBM Graphic Novels.

As always, we at Fleen thank FSFCPL for keeping us up on the Continental scene. Have a good weekend, everybody, espeically those of you in Cumbria. Oh, and maybe come back sometime over the weekend? I’ll have some news for you then.

Spam of the day:

Summer is here Is your lawn ready?

I’ll note this was sent on 18 September, which is just before the end of summer in the northern hemisphere.

Readers will hopefully recall that one of the things that distinguishes Fleen from all other webcomics blogs of long standing is that we have a dedicated European reporting desk. He’s back with news of what’s going on upon the Atlantic’s eastern shores.

It’s been a while, hasn’t it? Let us catch up.

• Earlier this month, public French TV had a special report on Fric News (Fric being slang for money), in which¹ the reporters checked in with the crowdfunding platforms where a conspiracy-peddling documentary about Covid was able to get funding.

  While Ulule was apologetic, Tipeee was much less so, and that has led some YouTubers to reconsider their use of Tipeee, often moving (or encouraging their patrons to move) to uTip) instead. Webcartoonists have tended to follow YouTubers’ footsteps when joining Tipeee, will they do the same here? We’ll see.

• Speaking of Tipeee, Maliki’s translation of their comic on the matter certainly took some time, but still progressed faster than French justice. Did you note that background joke consisting of a Bisous du Panama (from Panama, with love) postcard? That was referring to Jacques Glénat, founder of the Glénat publishing house, more specifically his name appearing in the then recently revealed Panama Papers.

  Earlier this month, Jacques Glénat pled guilty to charges of tax evasion, and was sentenced to 18 months, fully suspended, as well as a 200,000€ fine, which is on top of seized 470,000€ assets. Boulet only commented: The wonderful world of publishing, episode 94493922.

• Speaking of Boulet, let us follow up on previous coverage): Natalie Nourigat let us know during the summer that she’d be moving to Paris in the end! We at the Fleen French news desk are proud to be in the same country as she now is, and look forward to seeing what she will come up with next and to seeing her more regularly in local conventions.
• Meanwhile, other French national treasure Kéké let us know he’d be going the other way: to Los Angeles to work in animation! Congratulations are in order; my only suggestion would be for him to read Natalie Nourigat’s guide on the matter of course, but also Comme Convenu …
• Finally, Team Maliki recently revealed why their (usual) summer hiatus was extending way beyond the end of August (which was less usual): they have a few projects going, including a big one. The mother is obviously going well, as after the fact she was proud to reveal she had received the vaccine while knowingly pregnant, at a time when recommendations were still in the air. Congratulations to the mother, to the other parent, to eldest Tiko, and to little Tanooki (my own term for them, since they don’t even have a pseudonym yet).

Stay tuned: normally our next report from France will cover Boulet’s first crowdfunding campaign.

As always, we at Fleen thank FSFCPL for his reportage. It’s always welcome and it’s good to get an idea of what’s happening beyond your own corner of the world. As a reminder, you can find all of his previous contributions here.

Spam of the day:

You do need a large number of affiliates to make things work. I was lucky to sign up 3 friends who put in USD$10,000 each and depending from their trade volume, I made an extra USD$1000 to $5000 per month PASSIVELY.

Aside from the redundancy of typing both USD and the $, you are literally describing a pyramid scheme. Go peddle your desperation somewhere else, when your digital god comes crashing down I will have no sympathy for you.

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¹ Among other coverage: the same report also had a segment about the Gateway Pundit and its monetization through Google ads, and I’m sure it’s sheer coincidence that Google demonetized that site mere days before that report aired.

[Editor’s note: I never before realized that when reading quickly, it’s very easy to see demonized in place of demonetized. Seems indicative of something but hell if I know what.]

The world is slowly returning to in-person experiences; granted, the word world is doing some heavy lifting there, as COVID-19 decides to create new waves in various parts of the world. Some have not yet had the chance to vaccinate, and others steadfastly refuse to do so, which is an idiocy I will never understand. As long as I live, that will never make any godsdamned sense.

But in places where it’s safe¹, comics fans are again gathering. Or, in the case of Fleen Senior French Correspondent Pierre Lebeaupin, bandes dessinées fans. Here, then, is his report from this year’s Lyon BD festival.

As ever, we at Fleen thank FSFCPL for his endeavours on behalf of our readers. He’s a good dude.

Spam of the day:

Mining farm for Chia coin

Unless the farming results in a coin base upon which grows actual Chiapet style chia, not interested.

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¹ And, tragically, many places where it is not — looking at you, Missouri. When you’re done with your little muh freedom temper tantrum and your healthcare professionals are so traumatized at how you chose to abuse them that they leave and never return, I am going to be hard pressed to have sympathy. On behalf of my colleagues, fuck you.

² I believe that FSFCPL is here using gross in the English sense of disgusting rather than the French sense of large, although honestly it works either way. — Ed.

I mean, I love Wes Anderson’s movies as much as anybody, but here at Fleen the words French and dispatch mean that Fleen Senior French Correspondent Pierre Lebeaupin has news for us from The Continent. Take it away, FSFCPL!

On the 13th of January 2018, Boulet made it publicly known he was interested in working in animation in Los Angeles. Heh, I should point him to Natalie Nourigat, who famously wrote the comic book on the matter¹ … I thought. Wait a minute, didn’t she also famously tell us not to let fear stop us from traveling based on her time in Europe and France in particular? Could it be that … nah, that’s too far fetched; OK, I will make a check on her web presence solely to alleviate any doubt: there I should be able to quickly find elements to disprove that theory …”

And that is how I found out about Natalie and Boulet: as if the fact she was treating it as an open secret on her own social media presence wasn’t enough, I quickly found incriminating photo evidence anyway.

Boulet had been telling us for some time already of his long-distance relationship with his girlfriend, of which we only knew that she works at Disney, and how he was able to live with her in Los Angeles for sessions of about three months, which I assume were bound by the limits of a tourism visa. That made sense: vacation time is notoriously limited in the US, even at Disney, while on the other hand Boulet as a comic book creator can work from pretty much anywhere.

There had also been hints of him being restless and dissatisfied with what he could do in comics, both artistically and career-wise: for instance, he has never shied away from expressing his solidarity with the self-publishing movement, but couldn’t see himself following the same path.

In the years since, he has worked a day job in a studio). Created animations on his own. Built up his portfolio. Kept going to Los Angeles whenever he could. And worked on his visa application.

And then came the March that never ended.

After a few months, once it became clear that international travel restrictions wouldn’t be lifted unless and until vaccination were widespread, the campaign Love Is Not Tourism was able to make inroads and convince some countries to allow travel for people who could show evidence of being in a transnational relationship.

Evidently, the US with their then-current administration was not moved. But that kind of cruelty was not enough for them, as they went as far as to summarily crush the hopes of the few whose visa applications had been able to proceed, without warning (look for hell).

In the end, she had to take a leave from work and come to France (who was more receptive to their plea) so they would be able to rejoin, even though he was much more mobile work-wise. They had to take that opportunity to get married in these conditions (which meant limited attendance, among other constraints) so that they wouldn’t depend on the goodwill of Bloody Mary to see one another in the future.

Then a new administration took power despite violent attempts to the contrary, and as March looped back into March he was finally able to come back the the US, and I believe their marriage ought to be enough to allow him to stay there, resume looking for work, and generally live the dream.

Congratulation, Gilles and Natalie. Your travails may not be over, but you definitely won a big battle and have earned some rest and time together, and I wish you all the possible happiness for years and years to come.

Last minute: Angoulême just cancelled for 2021. Given current guidance from French authorities, and how the EU has been having trouble effectively securing vaccine production, this isn’t surprising; for instance, earlier this week Japan Expo Paris just announced their own cancellation. It’s unclear what will happen to the Grand Prix for 2021, which was supposed to be announced at that time.

Thanks to FSFCPL for his sleuthing-out of the story, and congrats to the happy couple finally having love win out over the great orange idiot.

Spam of the day:

[large block of Korean text] (BTC Wallet): 1EwKoVaiFm4rXtHynT8X5qE1RVhJVBxwC4 [large block of Korean text].

That’s the first time I’ve gotten the Saw you whacking off through the webcam you don’t have, pay me US$1500 in Bitcoin blackmail scam in a different character set. Oh but look! A Bitcoin wallet ID in Latin characters! It would be a shame if it got flooded with bogus traffic. Yep, just a real shame.

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¹The link is slightly anachronistic: back then it existed only as a digital download on Gumroad.