Belgium at the Angoulême International Comic Strip Festival
The Angoulême International Comic Strip Festival, the largest event dedicated to the ninth art in Europe, celebrated various authors on 26 January 2019. These authors included many women, who are often under-appreciated in the comic world, but also Belgians.
For its 46th edition, the International Comic Strip Festival once again lived up to its promise to celebrate the ninth art and underscore its international reach. Since the 1970s, the festival has awarded nine Fauves, the most prestigious award for international comic strips, to French-speaking works of all genres and countries of origin.
A special place for Belgium
Belgium’s presence was particularly prominent this year. The Grand Jury was presided by the Belgian author Dominique Goblet. A pioneer of comic strip autobiography, she is also known for having integrated the most adult themes into the ninth art. The major winners also included the Walloon artist Julien Lambert, winner of the ‘Fauve Polar SNCF’ for “VilleVermine”, and the Flemish artist Brecht Evens, winner of the Special Jury Prize for “Les Rigoles”. As a leading watercolour specialist, Evens had already won the ‘Prix de l’Audace’ at the Angoulême Festival in 2010 for “Les Noceurs”.
50 years ago, Hergé hoped that “the comic strip would become a means of expression in its own right, like literature and cinema“. Today, following the success of the Angoulême festival, which brought together around 1,500 authors, the father of Belgian comics can rest assured!
