In Angoulême, in the south-west of France, the 49th International Comics Festival is held until Sunday. Comic book lovers, authors, publishers are meeting there for the first time since the appearance of the Covid pandemic. But if this reunion takes place without masks or gauge, the news obscures this celebration of the 9th art. The first major international cultural event to be held since the start of the conflict in Ukraine, the Angoulême festival could not overlook this war in Europe.
With our special correspondent in Angoulême,
The fawn, this little cat drawn mascot of the Angoulême festival, waves the Ukrainian flag. And for its opening ceremony, the event entrusted the cartoonist Alfred with the organization of a drawing concert in solidarity with Ukraine.
At the piano the Franco-Ukrainian Dimitri Naïditch. On stage, a dozen artists of different nationalities are filmed drawing on a canvas drawn up by Alfred: This canvas told the story of this family which seems to be fleeing a conflict. Leaves seem to escape from the child’s bag. We follow the movement of these leaves through conflicts to discover at the end that it is an immense child’s drawing which simply recalls the better days before and which simply hopes for the better days to come, very soon, if possible. »
On his side, Joann Sfar posts every day on social networks the drawings inspired by this news, he who was working on a book dedicated to his maternal family, originally from Ukraine. ” I share my anguish with the reader and the viewer. I have nothing else to convey than the rage and helplessness that we feel from France, with all the telescoping linked to the history of this land where my family comes from. I tell what I can about it. »
For the moment, Joann Sfar is releasing these drawings spontaneously, without any editorial intention or desire to do so every day.
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