And we’ll get to that in a moment. In the meantime, I trust you’ve seen that MICE has postponed its exhibitor registration, to be re-evaluated in June, that BOOM! Studios has made Hope Larson’s first Goldie Vance graphic novel free to read, and Diamond (a blight on comics in general) has announced it’s not going to be doing anything for a while. Having a monopoly on distribution in the comics direct market is an awesome idea, you guys.

That one story today, thought? We lost a giant in the world of comics. Albert Uderzo, illustrator and co-creator (with René Goscinny¹) of Astérix, died at the age of 92. It was unrelated to the current global crisis, not that there’s a good time or way to die, but reports are that he died in his sleep of a heart attack after feeling tired for a couple weeks. In the grand scheme of things, I’d be happy to have that one. Fleen Senior French Correspondent Pierre Lebeapin is working on a suitable remembrance, which we will have in the next day or two.

But while Uderzo’s death was unexpected, the ongoing effects of the novel coronavirus are not, and FSFCPL has some words from our European desk about how the [web]comics scene over there is reacting.

In these times of lockdown it seems that publishers left and right are dropping digital comics to read for free, but in that they are merely following in the footsteps of webcartoonists, who have already moved on from that to the next thing: creating works where you can contribute. Yes, you.

• Many creators have posted the inked layer for comics plates or illustrations, for everyone to color; not particularly unexpected, but this is a classic exercise and is worth a mention. We can report that Riad Sattouf, Pénélope Bagieu, Marie Boiseau, Norbert, Thorn (twice), Fabien Lambert, Marion Barraud, Timothy Hannem (where you can also look for the hidden 20 cats), Alice Des where you can also look for some objects — instructions only in French, sorry), Marion Poinsot, Julie Gore et Eric Wantiez, Aurélien Fernandez, and Sandrine Deloffre are doing so (careful, some of these links may expire shortly).
• Let us stay with Deloffre a bit longer: those are taken from her book called Les Cartes de Désavoeux, which I will roughly translate as Ill-Wishing Cards. Kind of a mirror universe Hallmark or American Greetings, though omitting any IP, thankfully. And she has posted the instructions on how you can do your own, which I will translate as best as I can manage:
  1. Trace a round shape with a round object (e.g. glass, soccer ball, the cap of a Pringles can, swimming pool, …)
  2. Define a goal: to whom? Why? How much do you care about this person? Do you have means of defense in the event of an aggression?
  3. Settle on a pattern an apply it on the outer surface of the previously traced round shape (e.g. flowers, stars, golden statues representing Vercingétorix, penis wearing a sombrero …)
  4. Settle on a message combining subtlety and realism and inscribe it upon the center of the circle while applying yourself. Don’t hesitate to overdo it.
  5. Gift the ill-wishing card to someone who deserves it. (e.g. nobody, because nobody deserves this card, because everyone walks in isolation in this long putrid and foul-smelling sewer we call life, we walk alone and we will die alone, eaten up by our cats, except if we’re allergic).
• On the initiative of Bagieu, an idea by Oscar Barda, critical contributions by Deloffre, and a template by Hannem, the Coronamaison (translated hastag #coronahome was suggested by Moemai, should you need one) was born. The prompt: you draw the house floor along with its decoration/companions/pets/food/windows where you would want to be locked down, ideally.

  It kind of exploded, with #coronamaison having now thousands of hits on Instagram, though I think they are best seen on Twitter, where they remain (mostly) uncropped; alternately, Hammen is retweeting pretty much all of them. Of particular notice to your correspondent are Obion’s), Boulet’s, Luppi’s, Moemai’s, Maitre et Talons’, Jakuboy’s, Margaux Saltel’s, and of course Bagieu’s, Deloffre’s, Hannem’s, and Barda’s.

• Meanwhile, Maliki offers a dialogue-free version of her latest strip, for you to represent what your timeline is looking like in these days of lockdown (and yes, Animal Crossing vs Doom has already been done).
• Every day, Lewis Trondheim proposes a challenge where he posts the first three panels of a strip he just created, to see if you can guess the punchline in the fourth panel; the challenge being that your response must be in the form of a drawn panel, even badly. Be sure to follow him closely, as some have managed to find the solution in 10 mere minutes.
• Meanwhile, Boulet proposes a game he co-created with his goddaughter Maya, where the game is mostly a pretext to draw hybrids; many creations can be seen in response to his tweet. Note that they need not be as elaborate as his barbarian Slowbro.
• And Erwann Surcouf, on his side, proposes the randomized comic story generator he created for Spirou magazine a while back; no English version of the instructions appears to be available, unfortunately.
• We complete by a digression though French law Twitter, where Solinette proposes we liven up the form where we French must attest for ourselves the business we have for going outside our home (e.g. buy basic necessity goods or bring out the pet), and that many of us (your correspondent included) have to fully copy by hand, for lack of a printer at home. Every day: they’re dated. Yes, it’s France, of course we have to have bureaucracy even between one and oneself.
• Still in French law Twitter, Maitre et Talons encourages children to draw in support of healthcare professionals to thank them like she or Deloffre do. She also wants you to send her photos so she can draw herself in them.

And remember: wash your hands, sneeze and cough in your elbow pit, practice social distancing, and for the Flying Spaghetti Monster’s sake, stay at home. You have more than enough to keep yourself busy now.

Fleen, as always, thanks M Lebeapin for his reportage.

Spam of the day:

It looks like you’ve misspelled the word “remeniscences” on your website. I thought you would like to know :)

Nobody tell her.

_______________
¹ Who died more than 40 years ago. For that matter, Uderzo retired nearly a decade ago, turning over writing and art to Jean-Yves Ferri and Didier Conrad, respectively.

Hey, gang. How’s everybody holding up? Good? Good. It’s like I told my EMS crews last night: this isn’t what we signed up for, but we stay safe and do the job right, and after we’re done we can go back to life being somewhat more boring again. To the end of keeping my head in the game where it’s needed, I am vastly cutting back on my social media reading; if there’s something you think I should know, email or DM me.

Now let’s check in on other people who are dealing with the pandemic in constructive ways:

• Joining just about every other institution, the Cartoon Art Museum announced over the weekend that they were closing their galleries and cancelling programs until the 29th; any return dates that are announced for the next while should probably be seen as on the cautiously optimistic side of the scale. Similarly, all of the public-facing events around the Month O’ Scott C at Gallery 1988 are off. This is a good and responsible pair of decisions, and we at Fleen thank the management of both venues.
• Not just here, either. From Fleen Senior French Correspondent Pierre Lebaupin:
  

  I come as the bearer of good news, of an evangelion if you will. Fëanor, our envoy of the Religion of the Invisible, has vanquished Death and come back to us.

  Readers will no doubt remember Fëanor, Who was cursed early in life by a tragic slipper. But blessed as well, since that gave Him the gift of seeing the invisible, and soon afterward He adopted Maliki as His caretaker. And lo, the years passed, and Maliki started a webcomic, where He made many appearances, inspired many artefacts, current and past, becoming a general symbol) of Maliki. And lo, the years passed, with Maliki spreading the image of our beloved prophet. But resentment was rising with rumors being spread against Fëanor.

  This week, Fëanor showed all detractors wrong by revealing through His caretaker that He had vanquished Death and come back to us, ascending to godhood in the process. And yet He is content to keep a presence for His Earthly caretakers, rather than fully ascend after 40 days. All praise the eternal Fëanor.

  Fanart is accepted as proof of adoration, and to be directed to His Earthly caretakers through the keyword #PetitDieuFeanor.

  In other news, the French government as announced banning all events involving more than 100 participants, which implies pretty much all cultural events, so Fëanor kindly requests that no public celebration be made of His new status.

  Guess no more Smurf festivals for a while, then.

• For those stuck at home with time on their hands, the invaluable Jim Zub (who, to my recollection, was one of the first to cancel his appearance at EmCity, a good week before the ball really started rolling; you don’t get much appreciation for being the first at a good decision of this nature so allow us to say Good choice, Zub) has decided to make the time away from everything a little more enjoyable:
  

  Click the attachment links over on my public Patreon post for two full volume PDFs of two of my creator-owned comics, free of charge and with no strings attached:

  https://www.patreon.com/posts/34846589

  Enjoy, share, and be good to each other.

  One may recall that Zub, via his extensive series of guides to making a living self-publishing, makes a good chunk of his living not from individual floppy sales, but via trades, particularly in digital. This is going to cost him some money. If you find you like the stories, maybe purchase the subsequent volumes or some of his other work? He’s doing the world a solid, you can do him one back.

• For those stuck at home with offspring on their hands, Joe Wos (once the head of Pittsburgh’s ToonSeum, which sadly is no more) is offering a free online cartooning course for kids:
  

  Beginning on Weds March 18th Joe will be offering free live cartooning classes online for all ages.
  The live classes will take place on YouTube channel HowToToon at 1pm, 3 days a week (Tuesdays-Thursdays). Students can access the channel by visiting www.Howtotoon.com

  Joe has been teaching cartooning for over three decades! He currently teaches a daily cartooning class at Central Catholic High School in Pittsburgh, PA and is has also been the visiting resident cartoonist of the Charles M. Schulz Museum in Santa Rosa California for the past 18 years. Joe has been a staple of comic cons, school assemblies and library programs for the past thirty years touring worldwide.

  Same deal as with Zub: solid, buy stuff, etc.

• Finally, let us not forget that — global pandemic or no — plans get made and must be followed up on lest opportunities be lost forever. C Spike Trotman had plans to announce a major Kickstarter today, the largest and most ambitious in Iron Circus history, and about two and a half hours ago she delivered:
  

  Lackadaisy Cats has been running online since 2006, immersing its readership in a world of sepia-toned crime, adventure, action, and comedy. And now, it’s ready for its next big move … to a screen near you.

  It’s an art book, to fund the 10-minute short (digital download of which is available at tiers US$80+). As of this writing, funding is north of US$60K of the US$80K goal, with stretch goals going all the way up to a mind-bending US$225K (post-credits scene featuring fan-favorite character Mordecai Heller). It’s a new realm for ICC, a big ask, and a lot of logistics, but Lackadaisy Cats has a deep and ferociously invested fanbase, so I think those wacky kids might just pull this one off. Not sure if you’d be into it? You got time in isolation, start reading.

Spam of the day:

United Steel Industries is a new Rolling Mill in Fujairah. USI is incorporated in 140,000 square meters of land.

Sorry, I require all my steel to be cast, not rolled.

From Fleen Senior French Correspondent Pierre Lebeaupin:

I have a lot of memories in relation to Claire Bretécher’s work; I first knew her through Aggripine, the teenager whose adventures she created during the 80s, 90s, and 00s. Then, I later discovered her earlier works: Cellulite, Les Frustrés, but also some lesser-known ones. Her work was so groundbreaking in every way: the style, the themes, the language, but also everything that does not appear on the page (more on that in a minute) that I still can’t believe Angoulême never awarded her the Grand Prix. It’s a disgrace.

But I’m going to leave a proper overview of her work to people more competent than I am; rather, we at Fleen will focus here on how she has preceded French webcartoonists in their quest for independence.

Bretécher had traditionally worked with publishers, many of them in fact, in the 60s; but in the 70s for Les Frustrés she was working with Le Nouvel Obs, a weekly magazine publisher. And once enough pages had run there, she sought to have them collected. While some publishers showed interest, they also offered her conditions that she was not happy with, so she said Screw it. (not an exact quote)

She went ahead and took a loan, hired a printer, sought bookshops, etc: she self-published Les Frustrés. The 70s were a time of upheaval in Euro comics, but the contemporary initiatives¹ to break free of traditional publishers aimed at creating editorial structures pooling the publication of multiple creators; Bretécher, by herself, showed that it was possible to go at it alone, and remain independent: she kept self-publishing for the remainder of her career.

She never published on the web (she did feature the sociological impact of the Internet in the later Aggripine books, lest you think she ignored it), but nevertheless she has directly or indirectly inspired the current crop of French-language webcartoonists who are self-publishing today, the same way she did so many years ago.

For those interested in furthering their knowledge of Bretécher, a large portion of her body of work has been translated in English, with Les Frustrés being easiest to find; however, in some cases you might have to hit the second-hand market.

_______________
¹ The Hara-Kiri crew had founded Charlie Mensuel to publish Al Capp, Charles Shultz, and a few others; Moebius, Dionnet, and Druillet founded Métal Hurlant (Heavy Metal); Gotlib had founded Fluide Glacial so grown-up comics (his and other’s) could see the light of day; Bretécher herself had been part of such an initiative, with Mandryka and Gotlib, called l’Echo des Savanes, before they ran out of money, etc.

Editor’s note: Fleen Senior French Correspondent Pierre Lebeaupin attended the Festival International de la Bande Dessinée in the midsized city of Angoulême in the southwest of France. The third largest comics event in the world (eclipsed only by Lucca Comics & Games in Tuscany, and the twice-yearly Comiket in Tokyo), Angoulême is the center of the Franco-Belgian comics style, with a healthy representation of work from around the world. He’s here to tell you all about it.

I had never been to Angoulême before, whether for the FIBD or any other purpose. The town of Angoulême has a few claims to fame, notably that it was the domain for a junior branch of the French royal family, up until the senior branch became extinct and its lord ended up becoming king under the name François Premier (the first), thus starting the Valois-Angoulême subdynasty. But regardless of its historical role, I had never needed to go there, until this week-end for the 47th edition of its world-renowned comics festival.

There are a few reasons why I decided to (finally) start covering the festival this year, but the main one is clearly the Grand Prix having been awarded to Rumiko Takahashi in 2019 as a definite proof of the FIBD sincerely correcting its course (unfortunately, neither Takahashi-san nor any showcase of her works could be seen at the festival¹ besides her poster, but as predicted the Grand Prix resulted in new releases of her classic works). Even then, the festival was the occasion for protest and other such activities, whether they were in relation to the impoverishment of creators², like creators taking to the streets or taking advantage of the awards ceremony to raise their concerns, or in relation to more general opposition, such as when president Emmanuel Macron posed along a t-shirt denouncing police violence during his visit, or the placards in town denouncing the same, using comics characters.

However, I do not feel comfortable reporting on such events since I did not get to witness them first hand. I much prefer, inspired by fellow Angoulême first-timers Spike Trotman³ and Deb Aoki to give you my impressions and advice for attending the FIBD, coming from someone more used to regular Euro comics festivals. Indeed, Angoulême from its sheer scale has to or can afford to act differently from the former, and may not be representative of them.

• It feels like Disneyland: the lines The legends did not mislead me: you must pad your schedule to account for the lines everywhere. Waiting for a signing is done in a line, of course, but as is waiting to enter a tent, waiting to enter an expo, sometimes for eating, etc. Fortunately, none of those were of the “one-off hard limit” variety: all of the spaces I waited in line for, I was able to enter, the worst being the Claveloux expo, set up in an old townhouse where I was told only about 25 people could be allowed in the ground floor at any one time, and only about 20 allowed in the first elevation. Yup, once you were done with the ground floor you had to again get in line for the first elevation …
• It feels like Disneyland: the marketing This is the main event of the year for comics publishers, and it shows, with the booths in the mainstream publishers tent seemingly trying to outdo each other. For instance, just like you can spot children coming out of Disneyland, everywhere in town you could see children holding balloons, except here the balloons were shaped like Titeuf’s hairdo.

  As for Editions Dupuis, they went as far as to feature performers wearing oversized costumes of some of their characters in their booth, Disneyland-style. At least the marketing is focused on comics, and possibly comics-related works (for instance, there were a few advance showings of the latest Ducobu movie).

• It feels like Disneyland: the scope Not only do the festival activities take over the town center with five tents, plus some buildings such as the Espace Franquin, resulting in an area that requires about 5 minutes to walk across, but an additional tent and a library were set up about a 15 minutes walk away from that, next to the train station, to which you have to add a cluster around the Musée de la Bande Dessinée, about a 20 minutes walk away from either of the other centers.

  And the center is on an elevation, so a bike might not be that helpful. Take good shoes, and one pair of socks for each day you’ll be there. Finally, they had a townwide PA system to remind of upcoming events and announce cancellations and the like.

• It feels like Disneyland: the price Okay, it still does not compare to Disneyland, but at 19€ for a regular day, 25€ for Sunday, or 45€ for all 4 days, this is 5 times as expensive as, say, Lyon BD.
• Plan in advance, or else The lodging situation is absolutely crazy, with every hotel room in the vicinity being booked months in advance; this is owed not just to the festival scale, but also to the fact Angoulême is not a big city like Lyon, and is not a beach resort like Saint Malo which finds itself with plenty of vacancies when the festival occurs, outside peak touristic season. I was able to get away with booking a B&B about 25km away a few days before and get there by train from Angoulême, but first I’ve been told I lucked out on being able to book so late, second this requires some faith in the reliability of the train service⁴, and lastly ties you to the train schedule even when everything goes well, which is an issue because:
• Expect long days Regular festival activities only end at 8:00pm; this is in contrast with other such festivals, which generally close at 6:00pm. As a result, I had to bail out of an interesting exposé on how a new wave of superhero-style comics are too using crowdfunding and other such techniques to fund themselves outside Diamond distribution, since the last train for my B&B was departing at about 7:00pm. Moreover, I can’t help but think of the ordeal this must be for creators, since the festival lasts 4 days, with the other festivals lasting at most 3 days.
• The footbridge does not give access to platform 3 This one is rather specific. There is a new footbridge over the train tracks, which is very practical to get to the side of the train tracks opposite the station, where the library and manga city cluster was, and to get directly to your platform, wherever you come from. However, you cannot go directly to platform 3 from it: it turns out you first have to get off the footbridge as if you wanted to get to the station building, walk the entire length of the building alongside it, and finally you will get to platform 3. No, I did not miss my train, but I had seriously started to worry at some point.

I also brought back a few more pictures:

• The bubble reads: I repeat my question: are you more interested in a career (a) in computing? (b) in mechanics?
• Nothing, just a projection of the Rumiko Takahashi poster illustration on the Angouléme cathedral …
• Two cosplayers, who I met in the Manga City tent.
• A few helium balloons ended up getting stuck under the tent entrance …

We at Fleen thank FSFCPL for his efforts, and look forward to his next dispatch from the world of BD.

Spam of the day:

“gary.tyrrell“ WelcomeTo “ProvideAuto“

Those are the most terrifying scarequotes I’ve ever seen.

_______________
¹ Here is a translation of the relevant part:

On May 30th the Fauve of the Grand Prix was given to Rumiko Takahashi at the French embassy in Tokyo. Upon deliberation and exchanges over the last months, and in coordination with her publisher, she eventually declined the traditional proposals from the Festival, such as a retrospective exhibition and a public appearance, which would have entailed a workload and availability incompatible with her ongoing workload and commitments. Furthermore, she deems her work to be best discovered through her books, rather than her original plates. The Festival is naturally understanding and respectful of her decision. Sincerely moved by the honor, she wished to create a poster symbolically and concretely representing the richness of her world-appreciated body of work. The Festival will honor the creator through a program of meetups and tributes.

“I once again thank the creators who voted for me and I was particularly moved by the professional recognition I was bestowed. It is particularly moving to realize how European creators have grown in contact with my works and how much they love them. I have particularly enjoyed and put my heart into the illustration for the Festival poster. It showcases the manga I admired with a lot of respect in my childhood. I hope you will like it.”
— Rumiko Takahashi, Tokyo, 2019/09/20

² Who had reasons to be upset, for instance a newly-released report on their situation contained a few bombshells on their pensions situation.

³ All of her impressions from her time there are worthwhile, but don’t miss her considerations on French food, which are relevant since the duck-based products she procured are typical of southwestern France where Angoulême is located.

⁴ I again lucked out on train issues, but my fellow first-timers were not so lucky; and before you think “strikes”, those issues can occasionally happen outside of any strike.

We return again to the 2019 Quai des Bulles festival of bandes dessinées and Fleen Senior French Correspondent Pierre Lebeaupin; today he’s bringing us a report of a meetup featuring Imbattable colorist Laurence Croix.

The meetup took place Saturday at 10 AM at the Saint Malo library. Questions, unless otherwise noted, were asked by Sarah Bresson, from the Saint Malo library. Unfortunately, while I was able to take photos, they were systematically plagued with coloration artifacts, making them unfit for publication given the subject matter. [Editor’s note: No worries, FSFPL, I gotcha covered.]

The meetup began by an introduction of Laurence Croix: she has been coloring comics for 20 years, and her work on Imbattable is featured in the exhibition on the series, but she has worked for varied targets, all the way from youth magazines to all kinds of traditional comics publishers, working on series such as Blake et Mortimer but also more realistic universes.

Thanks as always to FSFCPL for his work bringing us the goings-on at this year’s Saint Malo festival. We look forward to hearing what QdB 2020 is like.

Spam of the day:

Soila Kopp wrote:
Hi there! I’m Dan, Managing Director of [remainder of crap deleted]

Decide on who you are before you show up trying to get me to click on your phishing links..

_______________
¹ Jacobs is the creator of Blake et Mortimer.
[Editor’s note: Speaking of Blake et Mortimer, I took the photo at the top of this post while on vacation in Brussels in August of 1999. Seeing their sixth adventure cover three stories high on the side of a building near our guesthouse made me realize both how deep the the Franco-Belgian comics tradition is, but also how thoroughly my kind of place Brussels is.]

² A Lucky Luke book by Morris and Goscinny.

³ Roughly the equivalent of a specialized BTech.
[Editor’s note: Thanks to K-pop, it is impossible to search for BTS.]

Fleen Senior French Correspondent Pierre Lebeaupin continues his report from Quai des Bulles 2019, with a report from the meetup featuring Imbattable creator Pascal Jousselin, interviewed by Arnaud Wassmer. Please enjoy his summary, which is more descriptive than transcriptive, because sheesh you people have no idea how hard it is to transcribe people in real time.

Also, please note the distinction between Imbattable, the BD in question and Imbattable, the character therein.

The meetup took place Friday at 1:30 PM. Fun fact: the event started a bit late, and while waiting for it to start my neighbor, a child who was no more than ten, asked me what I was doing, and I genuinely explained my role as accredited media, with my setup and how it allowed me to pseudojournalize: an iPhone on a table tripod to take photos, and an iPad on a stand with a keyboard to take notes. I may have omitted the pseudo part. I was able to finish my explanations, and the event started shortly thereafter.

The meetup began by an introduction of Imbattable, the only genuine comic book superhero.

Thanks to FSFCPL, especially for getting so many photos in one interview. It’s not easy!

Spam of the day:

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I am living in terrible fear that mustured is supposed to be mustard, meaning somebody out there is making condiment porn and nope, nope, nope.

_______________
¹ Imbattable’s sidekick, whose name is a phonetic spelling of 2D.

² With the gag here being that Alfred is told in the last panel to be working on a book about two brothers mourning their father.

³ In this wider photo we can see Jousselin is wearing the same outfit as his character.

⁴ With Wassmer showing the public what they consist of in the books; I will not be spoiling them here.

Editor’s note: Please enjoy the first part of Fleen Senior French Correspondent Pierre Lebeaupin’s con report from the 2019 Saint Malo Comics Festival. Take ‘er away, FSFCPL!

It would be an exaggeration to say that Saint Malo is lovely at the end of October, but the weather was pretty agreeable, as it has tended to be for my previous visits. For instance, while there was rain, most of it happened outside opening hours: when this happens, it makes the inside of the tents, where signings take place, rather noisy. This was the ideal backdrop for a new edition of Quai des Bulles and for me to cover it, and I was able to cover a broad cross-section of interests for sharing with Fleen readers.

• The first discovery of note was the redone Palais du Grand Large, the convention center in which most of the activities take place (exhibitions, meetups, concerts, etc). The most notable change was the improved entrance and atrium, resolving some of the overflow at the entrance, but most significant was, as I learned, the fact that Quai des Bulles was the first event to take place in the redone center, and that they had only been able to access it one week earlier.

  This was simultaneously testament to the significance of the festival that renovations were scheduled so the festival would be able to benefit from them, and a sign of the willingness of the festival to field test the improved infrastructure. While there was some unfinished business (for instance, I saw a sticker on a wall reading Reprise peinture, i.e. “Paint to be redone”), the festival activities did not seem to suffer from it and the center was fully functional (restrooms, in particular, withstood the load gracefully).

• Friday already had fantastic programming with a meetup with Pascal Jousselin, interviewed by Arnaud Wassmer, to talk about his creation Imbattable but also his career. You may remember Jousselin from previous coverage, and this time I was able to transcribe the talk and take photos since it took place in the Amphithéâtre Maupertuis; I expect that to take its own post. Many children were in attendance, as Friday tends to be children’s day (we were in a school holiday break).
• In between two events I was able to look at the exhibition they called indie americans, centered on small press creators. I must admit the only names I recognized were Derf Backderf (who was on site, though I was not able to attend the meetup) and Liz Prince, and there was no one associated with webcomics, but this shows a willingness from the festival to look outside the beaten path for talents and phenomenons to showcase.
• In the signing area, my first visit was to the Ulule booth, featuring Maliki, Laurel, and Yatuu, the heavyweights of French online self-publishing: they total more than 50,000 books_cce preorders from their Ulule campaigns between them. Furthermore, such a concentration can only happen in Brittany, as Laurel has expressed she would only sign there (which has been the case so far), such a location is also preferred by Maliki, as they also live in Brittany, and logistics favor it, as they now have three young children and six cats between them three (Maliki and Laurel have been known to watch each other’s children and cats when only one of them signs, but that can’t be the case here). It was also the first time in many years that Souillon (Malikis representative for such events) would booth in a traditional French comics festival (he often signs at Angoulême, but hosted by a bookshop).

  In short, this was not a sight to miss, and throughout the weekend I saw all three sign books while their respective partners would handle merch, transactions, etc. (or at least two of them; the partners team tended to rotate). In particular, Souillon’s line was packed for all three days, from opening to closing; at no point was I able get a clean shot of the booth.

• Saturday began with a meetup with Laurence Croix, listed in the programming as Imbattable’s colorist, but the talk went way beyond that small part of her activities to cover what it means to color a comic book, so it was transcribed, as well, and will be its own post. In particular, while Laurence Croix does not draw, a number of female French webcartoonists, such as Thorn or Maëla Cosson, make a living by coloring published books, so it is interesting to see their place in the publishing flow.
• Later in the day, I was able to visit the Lapin booth, their first at Saint-Malo in three years. Not that I had a particular need to see them, for instance I saw most of them for Lyon BD, but it was good to catch up with the creators and the books that had become available in the meantime, which allowed me to get ahead with some of my Christmas shopping.
• On Sunday I was able to take some time to attend a fairy tale performance, with Olivier Supiot drawing live. This time it was a number of short tales in quick sequence, and the experience was just as enjoyable as the last time; it’s fair to say the festival does not merely keep children occupied with cheap entertainment.
• Immediately after that I attended a meetup with Mark Waid where he introduced his new project at Humanoids, Ignited. While his process, including for these books, is firmly rooted in mainstream US comics traditions (he mentioned making them superpower-based so as to avoid stories perceived as boring, and when asked about the lead time he confirmed he was able and willing to adapt to current events with a lead time between writing and floppy publication of three months) such that his work is not necessarily what we are most focused on at Fleen, I appreciated his willingness to create bridges between US and French-speaking audiences (he mentioned the books, at least the TPBs, publishing simultaneously) and the process by which he tackles these difficult subjects, for instance he mentioned making sure he was paired with a non-white co-writer, and consulting shooting survivors early in the writing process.
• I was able to chat with creators Charlie Genmor and Holly Rectum, who you may remember from my Lyon BD report, since each of them was now published by Delcourt, and we were able to chat about their non-binary coming-out zine and Charlies delightful LGBTI+ mermaids: besides the Delcourt signing they also had their own booth under the Bande de Déchets (Garbage Gang) collective where they were able to sell prints of their mermaids, so of course I bought one.
• Finally, I was able to experience an unreleased story of Imbattable that was designed specifically for the location, the building La Grande Passerelle, with the panels, and sometimes just the characters, being printed at macro size and being plastered on the walls, but also the ground, and many other situations such as on the side of a parked car (purposefully put there, of course). In the end you had to go outside and make a full rotation around the building to be able to follow the story, which as a result would be hard to publish elsewhere, though photos can be shared.

  At the same location Imbattable was the subject of its own exhibition, though it was cleverly used as a way to illustrate comics concepts; and they took it very far, as the concepts included comic bubble shapes or lettering effects. Régis Thomas put in effort to make the exhibition follow a narrative of how a story is created, from conception to colored page through intermediate stages such as layouts, inking, etc, going as far as to imagine the kind of script that would be created for a page if it had been necessary to hand it off between the writing and drawing steps (in practice, Jousselin does not need to formalize in such a way given he both writes and draws).

  The last part, centered on coloring, shows not only the usual coloring work but also how colorist Croix had to get involved in the magic of comics: her work had to be tightly coordinated with the plot in a story in tome 2 that involves color-based powers; I won’t say more. The examples are well-chosen, resulting in a very didactic exhibition where I managed to learn a thing or two, so kudos for Régis Thomas for setting it up.¹

As always, we at Fleen are grateful for the contributions of our BD desk and the comprehensive reporting it offers. Many thanks to FSFCPL for this, and the additional reports in the coming days.

Spam of the day:

Moskinator is a portable, solar insect zapper that removes troublesome insects in a quick, effective and hygienic manner.

You say it’s solar, but later on you say it’s USB powered. Are you implying that the Sun is compliant with USB-C? Neat trick if true.

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¹ I also learned on the occasion of the festival that Imbattable had been translated in English and published on Comixology [Editor’s note: The translated title is Invincible.], but I cannot recommend that edition: besides the general issue of DRM-laden digital books such that you may lose access to your copy without you being able to do anything about it, there is the fact Comixology can only emulate, at best, the additional printing pass applied to book 1 (with words instead to point at the phenomenon), and more seriously some of the creative choices, such as some precisely highlighted in the exhibition as part of lettering, have not been reproduced in the English-language version.

This is all the more problematic when the choices not carried over are remarked upon by the characters! (It’s complicated. Let’s just say that, in Imbattable, the fourth wall may be closer to you than it appears.)

[Editor’s note: Today, Fleen concludes the recap of last week’s bandes dessinées festival in Lyon, courtesy of Fleen Senior French Correspondent Pierre Lebeaupin.

Lyon BD has always been an international festival, but it was particularly visible this year with the presence, hot off their appearance in NCSFest, of Charlie Adlard, Bill Morrison, and Steve and Luke McGarry, the latter of which was responsible for this edition’s poster. Their lines were packed whenever they were signing, unfortunately precluding me from meeting these big names, but I was able to meet other international creators such as Ariel Vittori and Natalie Nourigat on Sunday; I was especially interested in the latter’s I Moved To Los Angeles To Work In Animation (which I ate up on the trip back, very interesting even though I has little relationship with my trade of software engineering, you should check it out), and we were able to chat and discuss differences between the Euro and North American comics signing systems, since she has experience with both. I also had Jim Jourdane sign his Fieldwork Fail: while not an international creator, his book is available in English, though it seems you’ll have to catch him to get a copy after his online store had to close.

Another Sunday highlight was the Badass (sic) exhibition: Sandrine Garage, who has been helping organize Lyon BD for some time already, took it upon herself to see whether there were now enough comic book heroines to be worth showcasing, 6 years after the first Héro-ïne-s exhibition, and there were. Rather than commission imaginary covers, she was able to showcase 10 actual, published comic book heroines that have in common that they don’t conform to stereotypes, including that of the strong female character: instead, they do what they want to do; one may be bold, while also being empathetic (and they made sure to display the pages showing that), while another heroine may be friendly to everyone while having a tendency to take responsibility to solve every single problem in the valley. Akissi and Aster were featured, but also Ben Hatke’s Zita the Spacegirl and Cece Bell’s El Deafo, giving it a worldwide scope. In between the various heroines, pages of Miron Malle’s comic book on feminism concepts, The League Of Super Feminists, were featured. However, they did solicit visitors in creating their own badass heroines, and they obliged.

But Sunday was most interesting for its interviews, beginning with that of Pénélope Bagieu. Of particular interest were these bits:

• While she has to focus on one project at a time, she likes to alternate between personal projects and boring ones, the latter of which to allow her to recharge and remind her why she sets out to plunge on multi-year personal projects. In fact, at the end of a project she tends to be unable to work on much, trying to start new stories but failing, though by no mean remaining unoccupied as she devolves some time to the promotion of the just completed project (book tours, etc.), until such time as the sparks strikes again and she dives back in a new project.
• No one has so far managed to publish Brazen in Arabic; the only publisher who was interested started demanding a long list of absurd changes which she gave up on reading halfway through, such as not showing women who smoke, at which point she told them she might as well remove all women and avoiding them the trouble of publishing the book. She did mention breasts having to be covered and the story of Phulan Devi having to be removed from the U.S. edition, explaining to the audience the particularity of the young adult positioning of the book in the U.S., in no small reason because comics books are still thought as being for children there and are hard to sell to adults, relating feedback such as I bought it for my daughter, and couldn’t believe I was enjoying it myself. But she was proud to mention she successfully fought back more meaningful censorship, such as when the Polish publisher wanted to remove any mention of abortion, while she refused, and she won as it ended up being published there without any cut in that regard. Ironically even when censorship happens there is no mention of it: the only disclaimer that was added to the U.S. version was a warning that elements in the books should not all be taken literally, due to the duality in the U.S. market of fiction/non-fiction and Brazen being sold as non-fiction, and the fear of fact-checkers coming e.g. for the campus restaurant background gag in Agnodice’s story. On the other hand while there was less censorship there Russia made sure to physically slap the book with a forbidden to minors badge, due to the references to homosexuality.
• She is currently working on a comic book adaptation of Roald Dahl’s The Witches, which she is very excited about: she takes it to be the best Roald Dahl book. The idea of a comic adaptation of a Roald Dahl book came from Dahl’s estate, which proposed it to Gallimard, their French publisher, and that is how she was proposed the job. However, Gallimard initially proposed adapting Matilda, and while she loves the book, its relative lack of action did not strike her as making it particularly suited for a comics adaptation (that, and people’s idea of the universe tend to be shaped by the 1996 movie, not to mention Quentin Blake’s illustrations), so she made a counter-proposal to Gallimard of adapting The Witches, which the Dahl estate accepted. It will simultaneously come out in French and English beginning of 2020, which means she’s glad it is going to beat the Zemeckis movie to market and not be taken to be the book of the movie.

Then later in the afternoon, as the last event of the day, it was Boulet’s turn to be interviewed in a similar setup, and … wait, what are these people queueing in the stairs for? Oh, come on, it can’t be for the room where the Boulet interview will take place, it’s too far!? Well, turns out that is what it was for that. I swear, I never intended for the Lyon BD festival to conclude with the sight of Boulet’s mile-long line to be a running gag, but here we are; except that in the case of a panel/interview/etc., it’s not that you have to wait hours for your turn, it’s that the room is full before you have a chance to enter. So I am unfortunately unable to report on anything that happened there. I’m going to have to start showing up 15 minutes early whenever Boulet is involved from now on …
[Editor’s note: Nobody tell him about the Hall H camp-out lines in San Diego.]

Spam of the day:

It’s 2019 and yes! you can now burn fat without exercising!

I do that all the time, unless you count trying to put out a grease flash on my stovetop as exercise.

Editor’s note: Fleen Senior French Correspondent Pierre Lebeaupin continues his reporting of the French comics festival scene.

Setting up a festival of the scale of Lyon BD is never an easy task, but this year they had their work cut out for them. For instance, terror level in France as a whole has abated somewhat since 2017, when I first went; but the explosion of an abandoned package which wounded about a dozen people (they’re all out of the hospital by now) in the center of Lyon mere weeks before the event was undoubtedly responsible for heightened security: mainly, the need to show an ID before entering the main festival spaces on Saturday, and the need for tickets to be nominative, which was completely unplanned. As a result, at the ticket booth vendors had to manually write down the name of the attendee on the tickets, slowing down the sales process and lengthening the lines.¹

Given that context, my Saturday went remarkably well. I took advantage of the lack of panels in the morning to check out local creator Phiip and his Lapin crew (Marc Dubuisson, Cy, Tim, etc.), and catch up on their latest releases. Same with Thom Pico (who I met for the first time on this occasion, allowing me to congratulate him for not talking down to kids in his writing, and he was glad I noticed that) and Karensac, whose Aster is slated to be released in English by Random House in 2020.

[Editor’s note: I’d been wondering when another imprint would challenge the essentially free reign :01 Books has had with grabbing the pick of Franco-Belgian comics for re-release in the US; it’s not surprising that it’s Gina Gagliano that’s taken up the banner.]

Then the afternoon was the occasion to get to the LGBTI+ comics event (the second edition, meaning the first wasn’t a one-off), where I bought a zine from Anna Lkiss and Holly Rectum, where each of them tells how they found out they were non-binary. Then a number of panels and events on Chilean comics (including a zine created by women, the latest edition of which they made wordless, in order to present their work abroad), on migrants entering France through the Roya valley north of Nice, and on making the invisible visible, where creators of a “hobo mom” story, of a story of a Roma family tricked into emigrating to France then getting trapped into debt by the human traffickers, and of a story of emigration from Africa to Europe, exchanged on their processes for bringing these stories to life. For instance, Christian Lax, creator of the latter story, told he took advantage of a partnership with a museum and mixed that with a migration theme to create the story of a man saving an African art artifact from Muslim fanatics by taking it with him in Europe.

Come back soon for coverage of the third day, including U.S. and English creators, Pénélope Bagieu, and Boulet.

Spam of the day:

This revolutionary lightbulb camera is driving home security companies out of business

Yeah, under no circumstances am I putting an unvetted wi-fi attached camera on my home so that you assholes can either stripmine the video for your own purposes, or leave it exposed to the world. Bugger off.

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¹ Oh, and the Lyon city hall was searched by police mere days before the festival following an inquiry involving the mayor, though I have no idea whether that affected festival activities.

Editor’s note: It’s all Fleen Senior French Correspondent Pierre Lebeapuin today, chiming in from the Lyon BD festival. Well, except for the Spam of the day, that’s me.

Guess what happens at the beginning of June? That’s right, Lyon BD Festival, and just like in 2017 and 2018 your correspondent was there to cover it.

One characteristic aspect of Lyon BD is that it lacks a congress-center-like space as a central hub: Quai des Bulles in Saint Malo has the Palais du Grand Large, Colomiers has the Hall Comminges, and that is without mentioning the convention centers housing the various anime cons. As a result, when the Place des Terreaux had to go into renovations this year, meaning they couldn’t erect tents to host booths like the previous years, Lyon BD had to split itself between the Town Hall where it usually resides and the Palais de la Bourse) a few blocks away.

But regardless, Lyon BD always sets up or encourages more exhibitions that they have space in the main locations for, spilling them in many public places. The lobby of a small theater/comedy scene? Yup. The town halls for three boroughs? You bet’cha. A local bookshop? Of course. A hospital lobby? Been there, done that. An underground parking space? That, too. Contrary to Angoulême it does not feel quite like comics taking over the town, because Lyon is just too big, but they’re getting close.

So while sub-par planning on my part prevented me from attending professional day on Friday or entering the main locations, I nevertheless had a full day going to and fro between the different exhibitions¹. My favorite piece was in the Héro-ïne-s exhibition, one of the new pieces recently introduced from international creators, called Umah-Mah, by Thomas von Kummant (the names at the top may be familiar: Umpah-Pah was an early work of theirs, from just before they started Astérix). What if Sacagawea was a badass warrior, not merely saving hapless European explorers ready to walk into every trap, but able of single-handedly hunting buffalo armed with but a tomahawk, and striking fear in the hearts of her enemies, becoming single-handedly responsible for the success of the expedition? That’s Umah-Mah in a nutshell, since that is pretty much the plot of Umpah-Pah that von Kummant references².

The day was capped by an opening party, the first of its kind, with a dozen artists including Boulet and Luke McGarry drawing live on a small scene over music they chose (one or two at a time!), with in the middle a zombie-themed drawn concert on the main scene, featuring Charlie Adlard (The Walking Dead) and
Julien Limonne.

P.S. I should mention Boulet and Cy directly switched to covering the Annecy animation festival as in past years. Since the two festivals arrange themselves to be set up on successive weeks, couldn’t they coordinate to give poor creators a day of rest?

Spam of the day:

If you’d not prefer not to recive future emails Unsubcribe here
480 Walnut Drive Penn, ND 58362

Hey, I don’t want to alarm you, but apparently Penn, North Dakota is literally about six small blocks, a car repair shop, and a bar, situated on maybe eight streets total, none of which is called Walnut Drive. Weird! You’re referring me to a place that doesn’t exist, no doubt by accident.

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¹ Note to the lowlife who stole my bike: I hope it gets stolen back from you at the most inconvenient time possible. And that you get caught, of course.

² Umpah-Pah actually takes place in the somewhat extrapolated context of a French expeditionary force reaching New World shores in the 18th century (e.g. they end up encountering a Prussian expeditionary force; Goscinny’s penchant for playing with history did not start with Astérix), but the parallels are otherwise striking.