Daniel Clowes' MONICA picks up the Fauve D'Or; Moto Hagio honoured

America made some shock positive aspects at the 51st Angoulême Festival Fauve awards with three awards, together with the French version of Daniel Clowes’ Monica selecting up the coveted Fauve D’Or for Best Book. Two extra wins for US-produced work included the Heritage Award for the rediscovered Japanese-American 1931 Four Immigrants Manga by Henry Yoshitaka Kiyama; and James Tynion IV, Alvaro Martinez Bueno, and Jordie Bellaire’s The Nice House on the Lake selecting up the Series Prize. Meanwhile legendary Shojo Mangaka Moto Hagio acquired an Honorary Fauve.

Daniel Clowes this 12 months had been in the operating to attain the competition’s highest honour, the Grand Prix, alongside France’s Catherine Meurisse and Britain’s Posy Simmonds. The award in the end went to Simmonds (marking the first time the UK had achieved such a feat) however the Fauve D’Or for Best Book is a large deal in the French world of bande dessinée – usually giving an enormous increase in gross sales to the awardee. His first new work in seven years, launched in the US with Fantagraphics, the French version of Monica was printed by main French publishing home Delcourt as a part of its particular ‘Daniel Clowes Library‘ (La Bibliothèque de Daniel Clowes) sequence. On the evening, Clowes was unable to simply accept the award in individual after contracting covid throughout his ebook tour in Paris, it was accepted by his French writer Guy Delcourt.

That didn’t cease editor Eric Reynolds from celebrating with a person whose face few have seen.

Special competition visitor Moto Hagio acquired a Fauve d’Honneur (Honorary Fauve Award). The 74-year-old legendary mangaka was a part of the new wave of female-identifying creators who revolutionised the then-male dominated Shojo (younger women) manga house in the Nineteen Seventies – utilising a number of genres and experimenting with visible kinds. Among her work is The Poe Clan, The Heart of Thomas (regarded by many as the starting of the Yaoi (boys love) style, and Otherworld Barbara. The Festival has opened a particular retrospective exhibition of her work at the Angoulême Museum operating till March 17, 2024.

According to Angoulême Festival:

“The Fauve d’Honneur was awarded to Moto Hagio, a multi-award-winning author whose long career has been marked by diversity – in themes and genres – and an absolute thirst for freedom.”

The Series Prize going to The Nice House on the Lake vol. 2 by James Tynion IV, Alvaro Martinez Bueno, and Jordie Bellaire is a probably extra spectacular shock than Clowes’ win, if you understand somewhat about the French market. The Series Prize rewards work of multiple quantity deserving of great essential acclaim. The sequence was printed underneath DC Comics’ Black Label imprint and printed in France by Urban Comics. While The Nice House on the Lake acquired a lot buzz in the US and France, the French market’s style for the American number of the kind places it in the ultra-niche class – in 2023 solely round 3% of general bande dessinée gross sales had been underneath the ‘Comic’ class, 53% got here from ‘Manga’, and the remaining 44% being the booming native Franco-Belgian BD business. Put in that context, a win for any US format sequence at Angoulême is a large deal. And for writer DC Comics, it may very well be their first award-winning ebook at Angoulême since Alan Moore and David Lloyd’s Vertigo-published V for Vendetta in 1990.

The Heritage Prize went to Henry Yoshitaka Kiyama’s Four Immigrants Manga, printed in France, by Onapratut/Le Portillon, as Quatre Japonais À San Francisco 1904-1924 [‘Four Japanese in San Francisco‘]. An early instance of autobiographical comics, it had been produced by Kiyama round 1924 to 1927 wherein he recounted the experiences of himself and three different new immigrants to the US. It was self-published by Kiyama in 1931 and was later rediscovered. Originally produced in a mix of Japanese and English, it was translated by Frederik L. Schodt and printed by Stone Bridge Press in 1998; with a Japan version from Shimpu in 2012. The French version was launched in July 2023.

There was a distinctly worldwide flavour as soon as once more this 12 months, with quite a few works – usually first-published in France – selecting up awards. French authors led the pack with 4 pickups together with the Special Jury Prize going to South Korean-born Sophie Darcq‘s Hanbok (published by L’Apocalypse), her graphic memoir about in search of her start household later in life after having been adopted and raised in France.

Spain managed two awards with Beatriz Lema’s embroidered, Sarbacane-published graphic novel Des Maux À Dire [‘Words to Say’] selecting up the public vote in the French TV Audience prize. The Polar SNCF (crime thriller) Award went to Carlos Portela and Keko‘s graphic novel Contrition, which is a Florida-set homicide thriller in a ghetto of convicted sex-offenders. Published in Spain by Norma Editorial, the French version was printed a month earlier by Denoël Graphic.

The Kids Prize went to L’incroyable Mademoiselle Bang [‘The Incredible Miss Bang’], by South Korea’s Yoon-Sun Park (Dupuis) and one among the two Jury Prizes in the youngsters class went to Japan’s Shin’ya Komatsu with Bâillements de l’après-midi [‘Yawning in the afternoon‘] printed by IMHO. The Alternative Award, which is a salute to the small and indie press from round the world this 12 months went to the biannual Netherlands anthology Aline.

The Angoulême Awards in Full: