The largest comics festival in Europe, the Angoulême International Comics Festival, has announced its Official Selection List, from which its “Best Album”, “Angoulême Essentials”, and other prizes will be awarded.
The Angoulême International Comics Festival revealed its Official Selection List for 2014, containing 35 titles from around the world. The winners of the festival’s prestigious awards will be selected from this list. The festival awards a “Best Album” prize, five “Angoulême Essentials” prizes, one “Essential” prize chosen by the public and one “Revelation Essential” awarded to a new creator. Awards for reprinted material and for young adult comics are selected from separate pools (the “Heritage Essential” and “Youth Essential”, respectively). A lifetime achievement award in comics, the “Grand Pix de la Ville D’Angoulême”, is also awarded each year. The festival has run every January since 1974 in Angoulême, France. In 2014, the festival will run from January 30 through February 2.
Marvel’s Hawkeye, Volume 1: My Life as a Weapon, penned by Matt Fraction and illustrated by David Aja and Javier Pulido, has made the prestigious list. The new Hawkeye series began in August 2012 and has amassed a significant fan following while telling stories of what the Avenger does on his days off. Aja received two Eisner Awards (Best Cover Artist and tied for Best Artist/Penciller/Inker) for his work on the series this year.
Saga, Volume 1 from artist Fiona Staples and writer Brian K. Vaughan also made the selection list. The part space-opera, part fantasy epic series has struggled with digital distribution issues over its graphic depictions of sex. The series won three Eisner Awards in 2013: Best Continuing Series, Best New Series, and Best Writer.
Also included in the selection list are the French translations of dark fantasy Japanese manga series Attack on Titan by Hajime Isayama and American cartoonist Alison Bechdel’s graphic memoir Are You My Mother?. The Bechdel Test for gender bias in fiction is named after Alison Bechdel, who attributes the idea to a friend, Liz Wallace, and first presented it in her long-running comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For.
Here is the complete Official Selection List, with English titles provided where available:
- Ainsi se tut Zarathoustra, Nicholas Wild
- Annie Sullivan & Helen Keller, Joseph Lambert
- Attack on Titan, Hajime Isayama
- Are You My Mother?, Alison Bechdel
- Carnet du P̩rou РSur la route de Cuzco, Fabcaro
- Cesare, Book 1, Fuyumi Soryo
- Charly 9, Richard Guérineau, Jean Tuelé
- Le chien qui louche, Étienne Davodeau
- Come Prima, Alfred
- Deadline, Lauren-Frédéric Bollée, Christian Rossi
- L’Étranger (D’après l’uvre d’Albert Camus, Jacques Ferrandez
- Fen̻tres sur Rue РMatin̩es / Soir̩es, Pascal Rabart̩
- Fuzz and Pluck in Splitsville #2, Ted Steam
- Goggles, Tetsuya Toyoda
- Goliath, Tom Guald
- Les guerres silencieuses, Jaime Martin
- Hawkeye, Volume 1: My Life as a Weapon , Matt Fraction, David Aja
- In God We Trust, Winshluss
- Jonathan Tome 16 – Celle qui fut, Cosey
- Kililana Song Tome 2, Benjamin Flao
- LastMan Tome 1, Balak, Michaël Sanlaville, Bastien Vivès
- The Book of Leviathan, Peter Blegvad
- Macanudo 4, Liniers
- Mauvais Genre, Chloé Cruchaudet
- My Friend Dahmer, Derf Backderf
- Opus, Book 1, Satoshi Kon
- Paco – Les main rouges Tome 1, Éric Sagot, Fabien Vehlmann
- Un petit détour et autre racontars, Tome 3, Gwen de Bonneval, Hervé Tanquerelle
- The Property, Rutu Modan
- King of the Flies Book 3 – Happy Days, Mezzo, Pirus
- Saga, Book 1, Fiona Staples, Brian K. Vaughan
- Les Temps Mauvais – Madrid 1936-1939, Carlos Gimenez
- La tendresse des pierres, Marion Fayolle
- Vapor, Max
- Les voleurs de Carthage Tome 1 РLe Serment du Tophet, Appollo, Herv̩ Tanquerelle
Source: Angoulême Festival International de la Bande Dessinée
