This is a first since 1974!
The Angoulême international comic book festival will not bring together the 200,000 fans who usually flock there this year.
After an awards ceremony held in January, the organizers prefer this Thursday to announce the cancellation, "in view of the evolution of the current health context", of the part open to the general public which was to take place from June 24 to 27.
A news which falls just a few days after that of the postponement of the "Japan Expo".
Until the end, however, the second European comic book festival tried to imagine solutions to adapt, and in particular that of taking place largely outdoors.
To finally give up.
"It's heartbreaking and we are very sad," notes Franck Bondoux, general delegate.
But we are obliged to take into account the real context.
Too many uncertainties still weigh.
We can't tell people
in June it will be nice and the sun will shine
.
To continue to imagine the festival in a reduced format, with gauges, while we rather have small spaces, that was no longer possible.
In view of the events, we also felt the publishers, our main partners, were beginning to hesitate to get involved.
We could not count on the presence of foreign authors either ... We had to resolve it: under these conditions, it was not economically viable, and it would have degraded our image.
"
A boycott threat loomed
In recent weeks, however, the decision was expected.
Because in addition to the virus, another threat weighed on this 48th edition: the decision to boycott some of the authors, who have been protesting for 4 years now against the growing precariousness of the profession and still await, desperately, measures from the Ministry of Culture in their favor.
A petition launched in January, on the theme "We will no longer go to Angoulême", collected nearly 780 signatures.
Two weeks ago, the designer Lewis Trondheim had made it known in a spectacular video that he was returning his medal of Chevalier des arts et lettres in front of the “carelessness” of the rue de Valois.
“Yes, that is one of the factors which played in the decision, recognizes Franck Bondoux.
But frankly, if it had been the only one, we wouldn't have stopped everything ”.
The fact remains that this 48th edition, as the general delegate consoles himself, partly existed last January thanks to the award ceremony of the festival.
“I tell myself that we were right to maintain this meeting, like that of the exhibitions in the stations.
The important thing for us now is to look to the future, and to make an appointment with everyone at the end of January 2022. And to remain positive, I hope that by then, all the actors will have succeeded in sit around a table to discuss the status of the authors.
"