50th Angoulême Festival!

1970s

The Ballad of the Salt Sea, by Hugo Pratt

During its third edition in 1976, the Festival, seeking to showcase new graphic and narrative styles, created prizes for the best albums. One of those to be rewarded that year is destined to become a major work of the 9th art. Inaugural adventure of the dark sailor Corto Maltese, The Ballad of the Salty Sea is the first comic to adopt the codes of the novel, Hugo Pratt multiplying the literary references there. Melancholic, poetic and mysterious, this adventure story, which comes out in your pocket, has not aged a bit.

Stephane Dreyfus

Casterman, 1975, 168 p., 12 €

1980s

Maus, d’Art Spiegelman

Show the horror of the Holocaust with mice and cats. By using animal characters, traditionally associated with children’s books, to tell the gripping testimony of his father Vladek, survivor of the camps, Art Spiegelman will contribute to taking comics out of its box of “minor art”. But the strength of Maus lies above all in his dual biographical dimension. The story of Vladek’s deportation is intertwined with the story of a difficult father-son relationship. An intimate and powerful collective work, which will pave the way for many authors (Chris Ware, Marjane Satrapi).

Aurelien Lachaud

Translated from English (US) by Judith Ertel. Flammarion, 1987, 298 pages, €30

1990s

Calvin and Hobbes, Onward, Tuna Head!, Book 2, by Bill Watterson

Calvin, 6 years old, with an overflowing imagination,

and Hobbes, his stuffed tiger who comes to life when they are alone, are already famous in the press across the Atlantic – this comic strip has been a resounding success there since 1985 – when their adventures are translated into French in 1991. Hexagone then discovers the sometimes touching, often satirical, but above all always hilarious adventures in the daily life of this average little American. Three years after his award at Angoulême in 1992, Bill Watterson will definitely put down the pencil, in full glory.

Gauthier Vaillant

Hors Collection, 1992, 64 p., 10 €

2000s

Chicken with plums, by Marjane Satrapi

After having told herself in Persepolis (2000-2003), a formidable tetralogy on her youth in the Iran of the mullahs which left an immense imprint on French comics, Marjane Satrapi, at the height of her art, won the trophy for the best album for this chronicle of an announced death. That of his uncle, a musician who no longer has a taste for anything – even his favorite dish, chicken with plums – after the destruction of his instrument. Moving ellipses, tragicomic repetitions, poetic imagination, classy black and white: Chicken with Plums is a masterpiece about Iran, lost loves and eternal regrets.

Stephane Dreyfus

L’Association, 2004, 88 p., 15 €

2010s

Quai d’Orsay, volume 2, by Christophe Blain and Abel Lanzac

Colorful jousts between diplomats, a permanent effervescence to the rhythm of crises and a hyperactive minister who exhausts his teams while arousing their admiration, all served by the dizzying dynamism of Christophe Blain’s design: Quai d’Orsay has well deserved the Fauve d ‘Or 2013. Behind the pseudonym of Abel Lanzac, a “real” diplomat, Antonin Baudry, tells the backstage of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Dominique de Villepin period. We have a good laugh on every page, this story is more than a satire, so much we guess the part of truth.

Gauthier Vaillant

Dargaud, 2011, 104 p., 16,95 €

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