For its return after two years of absence due to the pandemic, the Puteaux comic book festival is seeing things big with the arrival of Bill Morrison, the cartoonist of the Simpsons comics. The latter will be accompanied by Philippe Peythieu and Véronique Augereau, the French voices of Homer and Marge. What could be more symbolic than the most famous and iconic family in pop culture for the return of this festival?
The Puteaux Comics Festival is not new to the world of (many) comics festivals. It is also the biggest festival in Île-de-France in terms of attendance (12,000 visitors during the last edition). Almost twenty years ago, the town hall of Puteaux decided to set up a comic strip festival for its citizens. Through an intermediary relationship, she then contacted the BD’Essonne association, which was already organizing the Igny comic strip festival at the time. After a first successful edition, the town hall decides to perpetuate the meeting. Each edition is based on a service contract subject to the public market code and therefore goes through a call for tenders. With the exception of two years, the BD’Essonne association won all the calls for tenders, which gives great continuity to the editorial line of the event.
Benoît Pierre, one of the coordinators of the BD’Essonne association, deciphers for L’Internaute the DNA of the biggest comic strip festival in Île-de-France.
Linternaute.com: What is the philosophy of the festival?
Above all, the city of Puteaux wants to highlight popular comics in a festive way. The DNA of the festival, led by this desire, is to be a family festival open to everyone, with a main focus centered on youth comics.
Editorially, we put the kids in the event. For example by creating Radio Kids, a radio program organized by the children of the city which, during the weekend of the festival, carries out interviews of authors in public. We have also set up a youth comics prize with a specific organization at the Puteaux Comics Festival. Indeed, we carry out a preselection of ten titles in partnership with the librarians of the city then it is the CCJ (City council of the young people) and its ten children of CM2 to the 4th who read the works and debate to elect a winner. . This prize is highly appreciated by authors and publishers because of its mechanism, which puts children at the heart of the system.
We have also set up drawn tales, like in Saint-Malo, where a storyteller – often a screenwriter – tells a story with, at his side, a cartoonist who draws live to illustrate his remarks. It is an appointment that children particularly like.
Of course, authors are essential for the festival. We have about fifty guests at each edition and we pamper them as much as possible with a welcome that does not have to be ashamed in front of a number of festivals.
That’s to say ?
The city of Puteaux has understood the challenge of such a festival and provided the event with a very significant logistical envelope. And as the members of the BD’Essonne association are all volunteers, the budget is totally devoted to the organization, which allows us to take unusual actions. For example: when we invite authors, their spouses are also invited, as well as their children when possible. Train tickets are always first class and we organize a dinner cruise on the Seine on Saturday evening. The latter has become legendary among authors. Some like Régis Loisel, Didier Tarquin and Arleston accepted our invitation thanks to more than positive word of mouth in the community around the association and the festival..
Finally, in 2010, we started paying authors for dedications.
How was this set up?
It happened very naturally. In 2010, we created a day reserved for children attending school in Puteaux. The city provides albums and children have privileged access to authors just for them. As it is a specific order, it seemed natural to us to remunerate the authors for this day. The authors remained voluntarily on Saturdays and Sundays. We quickly moved on to a compensation package for the authors who stayed for the three days.
And finally, since this year we have implemented daily remuneration, which is less restrictive for authors who may have a complicated schedule. And as we set up our remuneration several years ago, it turns out that our fixed price, which is 125€ per day, is slightly above that suggested within the agreement of the Ministry of Culture.
The production of the poster for each edition is entrusted to a guest. Is this realization also remunerated?
Yes of course. It is considered a commission. The designer keeps the original design and we pay for the exploitation rights in the form of a promotional poster and digital use for social networks, for example. It’s quite restrictive because there are very precise specifications. The town hall is very involved and validates everything, from the visuals to the choice of fireproof fabrics for the tables. I remember a year when the Marsupilami was in the spotlight and there were the famous piranhas on the poster. There were discussions that almost censored this presence because they are dangerous animals, but we were able to keep them because they are iconic in the Marsupilami universe. We always plan two preparatory sketches and try to anticipate the restrictions as much as possible.
Each edition being governed by a call for tenders. How much time do you have to prepare the guest list?
The difficulty, in fact, lies in the operation by public tender. We pre-validate before the call for tenders a main guest name. We contact the latter in advance, to make sure of its potential availability, and we set up an agreement in principle “subject” to our winning the call for tenders. For the other authors, the majority being in France and knowing our reputation, we manage to validate their arrival in two to three weeks. But we do it as early as possible because there are so many comic book festivals in France, almost ten per weekend in this season, that it is imperative to book the authors before they have taken another commitment.
How do you choose who to invite?
Pascal Cizeau, Cédric Verhaeghe and myself (three members of the BD’Essonne association) are putting together this list. Cédric and I follow new products a lot and Pascal is very attentive to the market. I like to highlight young talents, it comes from the time when I was a specialized bookseller. We brought in Patrick Sobral for the release of the first volume of Legendaries, long before the series exploded and became a bestseller. Same with Miss Prickly, the first designer of Deadly Adele. We also try to vary from one year to the next, so as not to always have the same authors or the same series. With the association, we make it a point of honor to invite all the players in the world of comics: scriptwriter, designer or colorist, both male and female. So we are very proud to be able to say that this year we have almost a male/female parity among our guests.
Do you also regularly invite foreign authors?
We invite authors who appeal to our visitors. And it’s not a surprise to say that there is no border for reading. We had Italian, Spanish, German, Serbian and even Chinese guests. In 2016, we succeeded in contractualizing the arrival of Yôichi Takahashi. And it’s very complicated and expensive because a Japanese author doesn’t only travel with his family, but also his editors and assistants. But since there were attacks, the author’s visit was canceled at the last minute. But we are always interested in inviting a mangaka to the Puteaux festival.
Concretely, tell us the steps for the arrival of Bill Morrison this year.
For the choice, I remember that the release of the albums of simpsons in the 2000s was an incredible phenomenon. Especially in bookstores where I worked at the time. It’s the epitome of pop-culture, the series speaks to everyone and has become a pop-modern family icon. It was obvious to me, so I proposed it to the town hall. In 2019, his coming was validated by the town hall, but with the Covid we had to postpone.
Contractually, it was very simple. We have a good relationship with Moïse Kissous, the founder of the Steinkis group which publishes The simpsons in France. We made a request to him, he explained the conditions (stamp, type of flight, hotel, etc.) and we wrote an invitation letter for Bill Morrison. He accepted the invitation during the week and we were put in direct contact by the publisher to organize the logistics.
Bill is an incredibly warm and very approachable person.
What are your expectations for this 2022 edition?
We had 12,000 visitors during the last edition we took care of, in 2018. This is the first edition since the pandemic, which is not yet completely over. And for Bill Morrison’s scheduling reasons, we’ve shifted the festival one weekend and are on a weekend with a bridge. So we don’t know exactly what to expect, but we are aiming for at least the same attendance as in 2019.
Especially since the services of the town hall play the game thoroughly and communicate very upstream with the inhabitants of Puteaux. With the arrival of Bill Morrison and Philippe Peythieu and Véronique Augereau, the French voices of Homer and Marge, we had more national press coverage than usual so maybe there will be more people than expected .
What is certain is that it will once again be a very big popular festival and that we are impatient to see the authors and the festival-goers again.
Find practical information on the festival facebook page.