The last four days I was at the Comic-festival of Angouleme, invited by my Canadian editor La Pasteque. I arrived on thursday-night and joined dinner with the guys of La Pasteque, Martin and Fréderic, and the artists Liniers and Yves Pelletier.
The welcome was very friendly and after dinner we went for a drink at 'Le chat noir' where we met some artists from all over Europe.
The next morning I did my first book signing at the La Pasteque booth. As I it was my first visit to the festival, I could see now the enormous popularity of comics in France: what a lot of books, what a lot of people! I signed a good number of books and got friendly compliments from visitors.
In the afternoon I went to the Baru-exhibition, I saw the work of Dominique Goblet and looked for some new books at the store of the museum. That night -after a reception at the Belgium booth- I was invited for dinner by Hansje and Mara of Oog & Blik together with Joost Swarte and Willem (what a company!). We had a good meal, a lot of fun and I was informed about the interest for my books by foreign editors (I will let you know more soon!).
On Saturday I also had a signing-session and I experienced that the town was even more crowded than the days before. I also took some time to get a better look at some of the booths, but as I said, there was so much to see that it was hard to make a choice. In the evening we had dinner with the people of La Pasteque again, including the artists Liniers, Pascal Girard, Michel Rabagliati and Yves Pelletier. It was a good evening and we had a lot of fun and interesting discussions.
On the next day (sunday) I did an early signing session. La Pasteque was happy with number of my books they had sold. Around noon I went to the train station together with Liniers. He had to take a train to the airport to get a plane to Buenos Aires and I traveled back to Rotterdam.
It were great days and I found it a tremendous experience. Being in Angouleme made me feel that comics really matter, at least in France.
