The Forbidden Planet International Blog Log

Dissatisfied with the glitz and the sheer scale of modern-day comics festivals, two French comics creators have founded a new festival on a more human scale, the Plus Petit et Plus Informel Festival de Bande Dessinée du Monde, or Smallest and Most Informal Comics Festival In the World.

To the French comics magazine BoDoï, which is a partner for the PPPIFBDM, Thomas Cadène (Rosalinde) and Sébastien Vassant (La Voix des hommes qui se mirent) explain why they decided to start this event.

Basically, what they wanted was a festival on a human scale, without long lines for the signing tables (and even longer lines for the creator who’s signing at the table next to yours), and without too much of a distance between creators and their public.  A festival about comics, not commerce, without obligatory sketches, but with discussions, debates and conversations.  A festival without an Académie or a Centre, but with an informal gathering of like-minded people.

The first edition of this new festival will take place in Langlade (which is near Nîmes), on the weekend of June 12th.  There will be free exhibitions with works by all 18 cartoonists present, interviews and debates in the Nîmes pulbic libary, and on Sunday the traditional award (every festival needs one) will be given for the best book of the festival by means of a full-blown sack-race tournament.

Among the artists present, we count Bastien Vivès, Ak, Marion Montaigne, Jérôme d’Aviau, Erwann Surcouf, Kris, Christophe Dabitch, Nicolas Wild and Christophe Gaultier – an admittedly very subjective selection, based on nothing but the fact that the festival’s founders like their work.  And there will be sketchings, but only if the artists feel like it.

Sounds like a weekend of bucolic fun!

Wim Lockefeer lives in Belgium and is wondering if he held a comics festival with just a couple of Smurfs, would that become the new smallest comics festival in the world? You can read more on his Ephemerist blog.