As a privileged moment for exchanges between authors and Festival-goers, this highlight of the Festival offers an interactive presentation of authors with the help of a multimedia installation. Each artist is invited to reveal the secret of their inspiration before 300 people in a monographic conversation freely conducted by a journalist or the audience, as they may interrupt when they please. These are neither debates nor solemn lectures, but rather fascinating interviews with simultaneous translation: the guests answer in their native language the questions they are asked in French while the non French-speaking audience gets to hear in English what the French-speaking guests say.

Recognized as a reference event for 9th art's live memory, the International Meetings match the new expectations of the Festival public who no longer sees comic books as a mere collector's item, but as an artistic and narrative form as important as cinema and literature. Here again, the Angoulême Festival proves that far from being an aficionados' ghetto, it aims at encompassing worldwide cultures.

After prestigious guests such as Katsuhiro Otomo, Régis Loisel, Art Spiegelman, Mike Mignola, Enki Bilal, Dave McKean, Yoshihiro Tatsumi, David Lloyd, Lorenzo Mattotti, Chris Claremont, Charles Burns, Jeff Smith and Blutch, the 2008 International Meetings will bring authors from all horizons to talk about transversal issues that help us understand today's comics.

 

THE INTERNATIONAL MEETINGS GUESTS
All meetings take place in the "Centre National de la Bande Dessinée" (CNBDI), Nemo room. All simultaneous translations are produced with the support of the "Délégation générale à la langue française et aux langues de France".

 

Friday 25^th January
10am:
José Muñoz / Guy Delisle / Fred Debomy :
Burma
12am:
Didier Conrad / Simon Léturgie :
Working and twisting the heritage
2pm:
Scott McCloud / Benoît Peeters / Thierry Groensteen
Thinking out comic book art
4pm:
Lewis Trondheim / Cyril Pedrosa :
Royalties: need extras or not?

 

Saturday 26^th January
10am:
Florence Cestac / Serge Clerc / Jean-Pierre Dionnet
The first French Indie comics
12am :
Gene Luen Yang / Joanna :
Drawing one's memories
2pm:
Paul Pope / David Chauvel / Carlos Sampayo :
Esthetics and romanticism of the thrillers
4pm:
Alexander Zsograf / Morvandiau :
Bearing witness to reality
6pm:
Tanino Liberatore
From sci-fi to prehistoric times, and conversely

 

Coordinated by:

Benoît Mouchart et Dorothée Vincent / CNBDI

Produced by:

International Comics Festival