World Comics

The nominees in the four juried categories of the FIBD 42 have been announced, 35 "Official Selections", 12 in the "comics for young readers" category, 10 in the "best reprint" category and 5 in the "mystery novel" aka Polar category (all descriptions are my own.) "Polar" which you see so often in various listing at Angoulême, as best I can make out, tarnslates as a "light mystery" or thriller category....kind of the popular genre in Franco-Belgian comics, as opposed to say, superheroes. If I'm wrong, please someone correct me.

The Angoulême Festival International de la Bande Dessineé for 2015 has released the schedule of art exhibits, spotlights and other goodies. They attached this...

The winners of the third annual British Comics Awards were announced during the Thought Bubble fest and they are: Best Comic – The Wicked +...

Among the countries most taken by comic con fever is India. A lengthy email offering pr on this year's Mumbai Film and Comic Con 2014, taking place at the Bombay Exhibition Centre from 19th December-21st December arrived in my mail box. Among the facts revealed: Guests include Nick Spencer, Nicolas Wild and Dan Goldman. She show will offer a 50,000 sq feet show floor and 100 exhibitors, including Amar Chitra Katha, Orange Radius, Pop Culture Publishing, Holy Cow Entertainment, Crimzon Studios, Simon and Schuster India, HarperCollins Publishers, Aayumi Productions, Shamik Dasgupta, Jazyl Homavazir, Pepper Script and Raj Comics.

§ Marvel is putting out a Thor Annual and they pulled out all the stops to get the wackiest mix of creators ever. Wrestler...

Magnetic Press launched earlier this year bringing some top-notch French comics to the US market and they're not only still here, they are expanding to Chinese comics with DAOMU, which adapts the popular novel series by Chinese author Xu “Kennedy” Lei, who's knwn as China's Stephen King.  How popular is this series? The first novel, which forms the basis of the graphic novel has sold three million copies as of 2010 with an additional 20 million copies on the black market. I didn't know there was a lack market for novels but it's a thrilling world.

Earlier this year, the selection of Bill Watterson as the Grand Prix winner at the Angoulême comics festival created quite a stir. The winner is traditionally the "grand marshal" of the whole festival, helping plan exhibits and appearing at official events. (Or, as in the case of Willem, last ear's winner, hanging out at Le Chat Noir until 1 am with everyone else.) It seemed a bit of a stretch for Watterson, but was it impossible? Although the once reclusive Calvin & Hobbes creator hasn't exactly turned into Taylor Swift, he makes occasional semi public appearances and is way more accessible in interviews. (If you call once or twice a year accessible.) When the win was announced, Watterson's editor Lee Salem said he would try to tell him how wonderful Angoulême is, so maybe Watterson would make an exception for this so not a comic-con event?

Digital Manga has been successfully Kickstarting publication of several books by God of Comics Osama Tezuka for a few years now. So far they've done Barbara, Swallowing the Earth and more. But Tezuka drew some 150,000 pages of comics in his lifetime, so this is a pretty big task to bring all his comics to English. The new project has ambitious goals: to publish the following titles:

The Metabarons is a long running French SF epic originally by Alexander Jodorowsky and Juan Gimenez (spinning out of The Incal by Jodorowsky and Moebius) about a race of perfect warriors and their generation spanning advenures. The story wrapped up in 2003 after selling more than a millions copies internationally. Now Humanoids is bringing it back, starting in 2016 in a four book series written by Jerry Frissen from a story by Jodorowsky and drawn by different artists. the story will follow the fate of No Name, the last of the Metabarons. Ecah chapter will be 108 pages long, released in 8 month intervals.

The British Comic Awards have announced their short list of nominees and that the great Posy Simmonds will be inducted into the hall of fame. The nominees were selected by the BCA Committee based on suggestions from the public and winners will be chosen by a panel consisting of Jonathan Entwistle, Jessica Hynes. Danny John-Jules (yes The Cat from Red Dwarf!), Jonathan Ross and Suzy Varty. Winners will be announced November 15th at Thought Bubble.

Via PW, word that Antonin Baudry, who wrote the GN Weapons of Mass Diplomacy and happens to be the the cultural counselor of the French Embassy is opening Albertine, a French language bookstore in the building that houses the French consulate in New York, a historic building located across from the Metropolitan Museum of Art designed by the great Stanford White, with the embassy’s cultural services division at 972 Fifth Avenue, across the street from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The store will house "14,000 volumes of fiction, nonfiction, art, graphic novels, and children’s books in both English translation and French."

The 2014 Joe Shuster Awards, honoring the best in Canadian comics, were handed out on Saturday and here are the winners. For more information on the legacy award winners, please check out the Shuster Awards home page. In addition, Jammin' Jamie Covillerecorded the ceremony and has more photos and a list of the winners handily formatted. Thank you Jamie!