Frank Bondoux announced at a Paris press conference that his company 9e Art+ and Angoulême Festival owners Association FIBD will launch legal action to block the ADBDA’s call for projects.
Earlier this month a newly reformed Association for the Development of Comics in Angoulême (ADBDA) announced a call for an alternative organiser to develop and organise a brand new comics festival in the town. This call followed the collapse of the 53 year old institution in the latter months of 2025 following author and publisher boycotts against controversial organiser 9e Art+, who had been reinstated despite widespread opposition. 9e Art+ had been organising the festival since 2006 but over the years had become considered increasingly unpopular. In 2025, just before the last Angoulême Festival, an exposé in Humanité magazine had revealed claims of a toxic management culture and the dismissal of an employee after disclosing sexual assault.
At the nearly 2-hour conference, a seated and soft spoken Bondoux – alongside two lawyers and at least one 9e Art+ employee – laid down the case as he saw it. Among his claims were the belief that he alone made the Angoulême Festival internationally renowned and that many of the complaints against its operation over the years were contradictory, and largely not the fault of his company. He claimed that the ADBDA’s decision to start a brand new comics festival around the same time of year, in the same geographical location was tantamount to, in the words of one of his lawyers, “unfair and parasitic competition”, and are taking legal action to block the procedure. To further explain the point, Monsieur Bondoux used the analogy of an Adidas shoe.
Today’s press conference was suddenly announced with two days notice via the official Festival email account on Tuesday (January 27), with the invitation only permitting journalists be present. Besides the time, name and place, it simply read [translation via DeepL]:
“During the conference, we will discuss the uncertainty surrounding the future of the Angoulême International Comics Festival, a leading cultural event in the world of comics, which is organized by us and owned by the Association FIBD.”
Mounting legal action could potentially snarl up the entire process for months – and would almost certainly put the chances of a new event starting in 2027 in question.
[This post will be updated]
