I promised I would have only ONE MORE post on Angoulême and here it is! Calvin Reid went to this year fest and has his full report for PW, including of course, all the controversy and insults to cartoonists. However bured in all of that, there was also a comcis festival, and the program to get more US publishers interested in European comics seems to be working. IDW’s Ted Adams in particular snapped up the rights to a number of books:
One of the publishers she’s brought over is Ted Adams, CEO of IDW Publishing, a major U.S. independent comics house that publishes comics based on licenses such as Transformers, Star Trek, and My Little Pony, as well as offering original genre and literary works through Top Shelf, which IDW acquired in 2015. This was Adams’s first trip to Angoulême. “I’ve bought the rights to so many books I’ve lost track,” he said, guessing that he’s acquired at least a dozen titles at the show. “I’m focused on getting the kind of books we don’t see in the U.S.: biographies, slice-of-life narratives, independent books driven by an individual creator’s vision.” The highlight of his buying spree, Adams said, was The Story of Boddah: How I Killed Kurt Cobain by Nicolas Otero, a fictionalized story of the revered rock musician’s life and death. IDW plans to publish the book in fall 2016 with a big marketing push behind it.
Hahnenberger said there were about 26 offers made on books at the rights market this year. Acquisitions include Caravaggio: The Palate and the Sword (published by Glenat), an account of the life of the 16th-century Milanese painter by cartoonist Milo Minara, to be published in the U.S. by Dark Horse; and Castro by Richard Kleist (published by the German house Carlsen), a graphic biography of the Cuban revolutionary, to be published in the U.S. by Arsenal Pulp.
The literary comics “bio” seems to be a staple of the Euro-US crossover, but they are generally excellent and readable, so more to come.
AND speaking of More to Come, here’s a recording of the controversial “Women in Comics” panel that included many male publishers, but also several notable women.
Recorded live at the Angouleme Comics Festival, Calvin Reid moderates the Women in Comics and Graphic Novels panel featuring Ted Adams, CEO of IDW, Angus Cargill of Faber & Faber, Australian comics creator and comics festival director Sarah Howell, Irish illustrator and animator Cliodhna Lyons, and Colin Harvie and Christopher Perry from Glyphcore Publishing. Organized in response to charges of sexism at Angouleme, the panel surveys women working in comics and broader demands for diversity of all kinds.
