Controversial Angoulême International Comics Festival operator 9e Art+ has entered judicial liquidation. The company, which had been organising the historic festival on behalf of its owners Association FIBD for 20 years, had previously been in safeguarding measures after the cancellation of the January 2026 event left it €1.6 million ($1.9million) in the red. The latest court hearing in the legal case seeking to block the establishment of a new Angoulême Festival has been postponed a third time, as 9e Art+ boss Franck Bondoux seeks to find a way to fight on.
Judicial liquidation (liquidation judiciaire) in US legal terms that is effectively Chapter 7 bankruptcy, aka “the bankruptcy of no return”. 9e Art+ found itself in this situation after a mass boycott in November 2025 by creators and publishers led to public funders withdrawing their support, and the cancellation of the January 2026 event. Local, regional and national government grants cover around half of the festival’s annual budget.
Speaking to France3, Franck Bondoux said about the situation [translations via DeepL]:
“Since the press conference on November 20, when the government announced that the conditions were not in place to organize the 2026 festival, this has led to a domino effect of lost contributions from exhibitors and sponsors. From that point on, the company found itself in financial difficulty. We wanted to negotiate with the authorities, but we were unable to engage in dialogue with them.”
According to Bondoux, ten full time employees have now lost their jobs which can be broadened to thirty when including consultants hired by the operator.
Despite this turn of events, Bondoux remains committed to carrying on the case against the Association for the Development of Comics in Angoulême, a stakeholder body of authors, publishers and local authorities, who have contracted the Morgane Group to establish and operate a brand new comics festival in the town from 2027. He claims that the court-appointed administrator must continue the case in order to obtain the funds to redress 9e Art+’s debts. With the present postponement, the liquidator of 9e Art+’s assets and original festival owner Association FIBD will have until the next court date, July 1, to decide whether to continue pursuing the case.
As Bondoux said in the same France3 report:
“A court-appointed administrator has been appointed to oversee the liquidation. He must proceed with our lawsuits so that our legal actions can provide compensation to our creditors.”
9e Art+, on behalf of festival owner Association FIBD, has been organising the Angoulême Festival – one of the world’s largest comics shows – for 20 years of the event’s fifty-year existence. During that time the company has drawn increasing criticism concerning its opaque financial arrangements, toxic business practices, and very public scandals. The French comics industry reached breaking point with the festival following a January 2025 exposé published in Humanité revealed the dismissal of an employee after she reported her alleged rape at a previous festival. With the operating contract up for renewal in 2025, major festival stakeholders pressed Association FIBD to cut ties with 9e Art+ and call an open bidding process. When the belated bidding process yielded the resumption of their contract with 9e Art+, the industry immediately cut ties.
The Association for the Development of Comics in Angoulême – a coalition of stakeholders that includes representative bodies for comics publishers, authors, local institutions and public authorities – on confronting the intransigence of Association FIBD and its president Delphine Groux regarding its renewal decision, set about starting a “new Angoulême Festival” for 2027, selecting the Morgane Group (led by co-directors Céline Bagot and Marie Parisot) on April 21, following their own open bidding process, begun in January. This same process and new festival which 9e Art+ and Association FIBD have sought to stop with legal action on the grounds of unfair competition and parasitism. The original court date for the legal battle was set for March 18 but was postponed twice by the ADBDA to April and then May.
ANOTHER VIEW
Over at French comics news site ActuaBD Didier Pasamonik has his own take on the situation. He believes that this could be the end of the 9e Art+ and Association FIBD’s legal case, especially since the administrator for the 9e Art+ liquidation procedure would have to foot the bill for any further court procedings in lieu of paying creditors from what assets can be immediately sold. It isn’t Bondoux’s decision to make now.
In his [translated] words, Pasamonik said:
“In this context, it is difficult to see legal action continuing, since it is the liquidator who will have to finance it… The game is therefore over.”
He also says, regarding the business of Bondoux struggling to negotiate with creditors:
“Apparently, the court-appointed administrator and Franck Bondoux were unable to bring together the private and public decision-makers who were funding the event. This makes sense because…9eArt+ was suing them”
Pasamonik also considers what assets 9e Art+ really has to sell…and it isn’t much nor with many eager buyers. He mentions an archive, a website, and exhibition materials. As for the official trade name and copyright for Festival International de la Bande Dessinée d’Angoulême (the full official French title of the Angoulême International Comics Festival), that remains in the hands of the Association FIBD which, he believes, “isn’t in great shape either, since that brand is its only asset.”
So could the end really be near or are we at the latest twist in this ongoing saga? Time will tell.
À Suivre
Quel bordel !
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