Who will succeed the Japanese Rumiko Takahashi? A fortnight before the opening of the Angoulême International Comics Festival, the election for the 2020 Grand Prix is tightening. The first round of voting, in which 1,230 authors of "little Mickeys" took part, made it possible to determine the three most acclaimed artists, namely (in alphabetical order): the French Emmanuel Guibert and Catherine Meurisse, plus the American Chris Ware.
What happens next?
The second round, which will therefore designate the “winner” of the 47th edition of the festival, will take place from Wednesday 15 to Sunday 20 January (midnight), with the same college of voters; namely any author or author of professional comic books, whatever their nationality, whose works are translated, into French and distributed in the French-speaking area and who participated in the first round.
French comics finally rewarded?
The coronation, which will be announced the evening of Wednesday January 29, will therefore designate a French or an American. If it is Catherine Meurisse or Emmanuel Guibert - who has always been part of the final trio since 2018 - it will be a first since the establishment, in 2013, of the vote of the authors (the Grand Prix being previously designated by… the previous Grand Prix and still alive). These had indeed, so far, crowned a Dutch (Willem, in 2013), an American (Bill Watterson, in 2014), a Japanese (Katsuhiro Otomo, in 2015), a Belgian (Hermann, in 2016), a Swiss (Cosey, in 2017), another American (Richard Corben, in 2018) and finally a Japanese (Rumiko Takahashi last year).
From defections to retractions
On the other hand, if the authors crown Chris Ware, not sure that they can congratulate him in person because if the title offers, the following year, international visibility, a retrospective on the spot, it requires the presence of the author. Now Ware, who is said to be very shy, once said that he would not move in the event of a coronation ... unless he had changed his mind, as did the Belgian Hermann who swore , a few years before being appointed, that he would refuse the Grand Prix.
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Who are the three finalists?
- Emmanuel Guibert (born in 1964)
He began his career with a demanding work on the rise of Nazism, Brune. Then he published, between 2000 and 2008, a series of plates inspired by the memories of his friend Alan Ingram Cope, The War of Alan . Then comes The Photographer , based on interviews with Didier Lefèvre, who received an Festival Essential Prize in 2007. A great technician, recognized by his peers as an innovative and pioneering designer, Guibert is also a prolific screenwriter.
He creates with Joann Sfar The Black Olives , The Teacher's Daughter and Sardine from space , as well as Ariol , with Marc Boutavant, and these last two youth series will highlight his talents as a storyteller and narrator. He is the 2017 winner of the René Goscinny Prize and was honored by the International Comic Festival of Angoulême in 2018 through a retrospective exhibition.
- Catherine Meurisse (born in 1980)
Hired at Charlie Hebdo in 2005, at 25, when she just graduated from the Decorative Arts, Catherine Meurisse began her career with comics. The history of art and literature are her favorite playgrounds and over the course of her various albums - Mes hommes de lettres, Le pont des Arts, Moderne Olympia -, she offers an erudite and irreverent rereading of French culture. This fine criticism also arises as an observer of the contemporary world, taking a sassy look at the world of justice ( Palace life with Richard Malka), social norm ( Know how to live or die ), sex ( Scenes from the hormonal life ), without hesitating to show self-mockery. His lively and clever line sublimates his albums full of fantasy, but also knows how to be precise and searched when it comes to reproducing works of art.
After the Charlie Hebdo attack, from which she escapes, Catherine Meurisse stages herself without mask in La Légèreté . She explains how she uses art to find herself, to get out of chaos. His pictorial approach is evolving. It takes shape in serene settings, where the beautiful reigns (museums, bare landscapes). A plastic approach that she still develops in Les Grands espaces , another autobiographical and very personal story that recalls her childhood in the countryside, where, of course, books and art are as formative as nature. Catherine Meurisse is now an artist who uses comics as a place to understand her relationship to the world.
NB: coincidence or coincidence, an exhibition "Catherine Meurisse, chemin de traverse" will be presented during the 2020 edition of the Angoulême festival.
- Chris Ware (born in 1967)
It was published very early in RAW, the avant-garde review of Art Spiegelman and Françoise Mouly. At the beginning of the 1990s, he began a major work with the Acme Novelty series, a true-false magazine with a changing form and pagination which installed the soon famous characters of the author: Quimby the Mouse, Rusty Brown and above all Jimmy Corrigan. All stand out for their shyness, their fragility and the immediate empathy they arouse in the reader…
For 25 years, this is an original work, which oscillates between a sweet melancholy and a deep sadness, that Chris Ware offers, always endeavoring to look under the microscope the daily life of his characters and their most derisory gestures. In addition, his books stand out for their generosity, with instantly recognizable graphics and careful manufacturing. The strength and density of this work have never escaped criticism. Welcomed with each new publication, Chris Ware has received numerous awards, including 28 Harvey Awards and 22 Eisner Awards!
The author published in 2012 the remarkable Building Stories , an impressive book-object made up of around fifteen books of various formats that can be read in an order chosen by the reader - this last book received the Special Jury Prize at the Festival d 'Angoulême in 2013. At the end of 2020, Éditions Delcourt will publish its new book, already published in the United States, Rusty Brown.
- Literary prize
- Charlie Hebdo
- Angoulême Festival
- Culture
- BD