The biggest thing that came out of our trip to Brussels, Paris and Angouleme at the end of January was the decision to learn to read French. It was a practical decision, based in large part on the fact that a great number of books that I wanted to read have yet to be translated…Read more
Cent Pour Cent
One of the places we wanted to visit while we were in Angouleme was the BD Museum. We’ve been to Geppi’s Entertainment Museum in Baltimore and the BD Museum in Brussels. This would give us a chance to compare and contrast the three and get a sense for what the French considered museum-worthy. One of…Read more
The Major Publishers at Angouleme
As busy and crazy as the alternative press hall was in Angouleme, it was no comparison to the major hall at the other end of town – the major publisher marketplace. Where the alternative hall was a long, narrow hallway, this marketplace was wide, which gave the publishers room to set up trade show booths;…Read more
Alternative at Angouleme
The buildings for the festival in Angouleme are actually semi-permanent structures made of wood and vinyl from the same tent DNA as the air-conditioned dance tents you see at outdoor festivals during summer. The structures at Angouleme are designed to fit into the open space available (presumably park land in the city square), but they…Read more
Arriving in Angouleme
When we first booked our trip in August of 2009, we tried to get a hotel room in Angouleme for a day or two during the festival. Then we discovered that every hotel room within an 80 mile radius of the town is booked solid almost a year in advance; many of the participants probably…Read more
Marianne
One of the reasons that we were in Brussels and Paris at such a miserable time of year was that the Angouleme Comic Festival was going on while we were there. I’ve heard Angouleme described as “the world’s largest comic book festival” (which, by implication, makes it larger than San Diego Comic Con), but this…Read more
Other Things We Did in Paris
We did other things in Paris besides comic book shopping. We made an emotional visit to Jim Morrison’s grave so that my wife could say goodbye to her mother. We sat in cafes, drinking red wine and watching the snow fall while the crazy Parisian traffic screamed past. We randomly walked into what the guidebook…Read more
BD Shopping in Paris
One of the most obvious differences between Paris and Brussels is the national attitude towards language. In Belgium, there are two official languages: French and Dutch. By law, everything has to be printed in those two languages and a lot of people find it to be just as much trouble to print in three languages…Read more
The Comics in the City
Among the great tourist destinations in Brussels are Atomium, the Town Square and the Comics in the City – a series of murals throughout the city center depicting famous Belgian comic book characters. We’d heard about this before we left the States, but we were unable to find a reliable map online. When we were…Read more
BD Shopping in Brussels
In Brussels, I went to three comic book stores (in addition to the BD Museum gift shop): Brusel, Multi BD and Le Depot. Brusel is one of the more famous comic book shops in Brussels and was, coincidentally, down the street from our hotel. After fifteen minutes of shopping in Brusel, I despaired of finding…Read more