The Angoulême International Comics Festival has introduced the three creators in line for its esteemed Grand Prix: Daniel Clowes, Catherine Meurisse and Posy Simmonds. Considered one in all the highest of honours in the worldwide comics circuit, 2024 seems to be a decent race.
The three names acquired the most votes from a poll of registered comics professionals carried out between January 3 and 9. A second spherical of voting – between January 12 and 17 – will decide the Grand Prix recipient, which will probably be introduced on the eve of the opening of the 2024 Angoulême Festival on January 24.
In a press launch Angoulême Festival mentioned:
“Since 2014, the Grand Prix of the Angoulême International Comics Festival has been awarded following a vote by professional comics authors. The first round of voting for the Grand Prix 2024 ended on Tuesday, January 9. The three artists [in alphabetical order] who received the most votes were: Daniel Clowes, Catherine Meurisse, Posy Simmonds”
Continuing the development of current years, girls dominated the shortlisted candidates checklist after many years of being excluded. It can be an fascinating worldwide combine – with just one candidate this 12 months being from France (Meurisse).
Catherine Meurisse (43) has been nominated for the third 12 months in a row however she is certainly the junior when set beside the prolonged careers of America’s Daniel Clowes (62) and Britain’s Posy Simmonds (78). Will voters determine who wins primarily based on lifetime achievement, nationwide pleasure, or private familiarity and desire? All is to play for.
The 2023 Grand Prix went to prolific French-Syrian The Arab of the Future and Esther’s Notebooks cartoonist Riad Sattouf – beating a poll comprising Catherine Meurisse and Alison Bechdel. As a part of the award, he’s to obtain a devoted exhibition at this 12 months’s competition, targeted on his six-volume autobiographical opus The Arab of the Future.
Check out our bios of the 2024 Grand Prix candidates under.
Daniel Clowes ©Brian Molyneaux
Extract from ‘Monica’ ©Daniel Clowes, 2023
DANIEL CLOWES
As the Angoulême press launch states: “Daniel Clowes is one of the most prominent voices in North American comics, and a leading figure in the independent comics scene.” The 63-year-old cartoonist and illustrator emerged as a part of the different aspect of the Nineteen Eighties indie comics motion. He received his begin producing comics below a number of pseudonyms in Cracked journal earlier than getting picked up by Fantagraphics. His first comedian that includes his satirical detective Lloyd Llewellyn was a backup strip in the Hernandez’ Love and Rockets #13, in 1985. In 1989, Clowes launched his 23-issue Eightball anthology via which he serialised his first 5 graphic novels together with Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron (Eightball #1-10, collected version printed 1993) and Ghost World (Eightball #11-18, collected version 1997). Post-Eightball he forwent the serialised format and produced 4 critically acclaimed graphic novels. His most up-to-date graphic novel was Monica (Fantagraphics, 2023). Three of his works have been tailored to the large display screen – and he has produced the screenplays for every – first as a cowriter with director Terry Zwigoff for Ghost World (2001), then as sole screenwriter for Art School Confidential (2006) and Wilson (2017).
Catherine Meurisse ©Rita Scaglia
Extract from ‘The Young Woman and the Sea’, translation Matt Madden ©Dargaud-Meurisse 2021
CATHERINE MEURISSE
Catherine Meurisse is little identified in the anglophone market however she has constructed up vital acclaim as a cartoonist and illustrator in her native France. She can be the youngest of this 12 months’s finalists for Grand Prix, at 43 years outdated, however this will probably be the third 12 months in a row she has been nominated. A contemporary literature graduate from the University of Poitiers, she transitioned to artwork and illustration in Paris, first at the Estienne School and then at the National School of Decorative Arts. She was scouted by the French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo in 2001 and upon commencement (2005) she grew to become an editorial cartoonist and illustrator for the paper – in addition to a contract illustrator and cartoonist for a number of different French magazines. By 2014 she was nonetheless the solely girl on the everlasting editorial cartoonist workforce at Charlie Hebdo. Following the 2015 Charlie Hebdo assaults she deserted political cartooning and targeted her work on comics. Her first lengthy type work throughout this era was La Légèreté (Lightness), printed by Darguad in 2016, an autobiographical piece about her restoration from the trauma. She then explored her childhood with Les Grands Espaces (The Great Outdoors, Dargaud 2018); the life and friendship between the French romantic painter Eugène Delacroix and novelist Alexandre Dumas in Delacroix (Dargaud, 2019); and produced a travelogue of her visits to Japan, La jeune femme et la mer (The Young Woman and the Sea; Dargaud, 2022). In 2020 Meurisse grew to become the first girl cartoonist to be elected to the prestigious Académie des Beaux-Arts. Much of her work has been translated made obtainable digitally via Europe Comics – with the most up-to-date one Man and Superwoman – a group of her pages for Philosophie Magazine from 2017-2022 (Humaine, trop humaine; Dargaud, 2022) – to be launched on January 31, 2024.
Posy Simmonds ©Hervé Véronése
Extra from ‘Cassandra Darke’ ©Posy Simmonds, 2018
POSY SIMMONDS
Posy Simmonds (78) is a nationwide treasure to the UK comics scene and one in all Britain’s first graphic novelists. She is a graduate of the Central School of Art and Design (right now generally known as Central Saint Martins). Simmonds emerged as a newspaper illustrator and cartoonist – producing satirical illustrations for The Times (of London), Cosmopolitan, Tariq Ali’s Black Dwarf journal, The Guardian, and The Spectator. From 1977 she began drawing weekly comedian strips at The Guardian; whereas the strip was largely untitled it has latterly been referred to (and collected) as the Mrs Weber sequence, which was geared toward satirising the lives of the center class. An early assortment of an entire story that includes her recurring characters is taken into account her first graphic novel – True Love (Jonathan Cape, 1981). Her subsequent graphic novel Gemma Bovary was a contemporary retelling of Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary (1857) that was serialised in The Guardian and collected in 1999. Her third graphic novel, Tamara Drewe (Jonathan Cape, 1999), was the final to be serialised and was a contemporary retelling of Thomas Hardy’s 1874 novel Far From The Madding Crowd. Both Gemma Bovary and Tamara Drewe have been tailored into movies. Her most up-to-date graphic novel was 2018’s Cassandra Darke (Jonathan Cape). Since the late Nineteen Eighties Simmonds has additionally produced illustrated kids’s books, the first of which being Fred (1987) about the outstanding social lifetime of a pair’s just lately deceased cat. A multi-award winner and additionally effectively regarded in France, she at the moment has a serious retrospective exhibition at the Paris Pompidou Centre running till April 1, 2024.
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