Huge.
HUGE.
To be fair, it may have seemed a lot bigger than it was because I don't believe itty bitty Angoulême was built to hold that many people. Also, I discovered that in addition to my "creeper" vibe, I also have a "let's ask that girl which bus to take to the comic book festival" vibe. (Answer: the one that says COMIC BOOK FESTIVAL BUS. Pull it together, people!) At least for 3 days, my position of "foreigner but not tourist" was helpful to some people...
And I had a hilariously awkward moment where a guy came up to me and asked me directions in French, and I was trying to tell him (in French) he said "wait...are you English?" Ah, the lovely awkwardness of two anglophones trying to converse in French.
Anyway. I don't know a whole whole lot about French comic books, but there were some cool things for me to do. Some highlights:
Climbing to the top of the Hotel de Ville! There was an exhibit in there, but the best part for me was getting to go to the top. With my typical American ingenuity, I left my camera at home, but luckily had my iPod. So I got a few grainy photos of our lovely town on a not-so-typically-lovely sunny day.
There was actually a manga artist I had heard of that gave a talk: Ryoko Ikeda, who wrote the tremendously popular Rose de Versailles, which for some reason has never been published in English because they want to edit it, or censor it, or something along those lines. I've read the first volume and I don't remember anything bad, but whatever. The talk was extremely interesting. Nice to hear some Japanese again, as well.
I think the coolest thing I did was go see the Concert de Dessins, which was a band playing music while a group of artists drew a comic, live, in real-time. At the end, it was a whole story about a wrestler (for some reason called a catcheur in French) falling in love.
There was also a whole exhibit about Snoopy. I didn't realize he was so popular here.
Fun pictures!
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| Elodie and I |
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| Me with Elodie's daughter Juliene |
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