Finalist for the Grand Prize at the 51st Angoulême Comics Festival, American author Daniel Clowes did not win the prestigious award that crowns an author’s career – the British Posy Simmonds won. A big name in independent comics across the Atlantic, the 62-year-old author is not leaving empty-handed from this edition, far from it, since he won, on Saturday January 27, the Fauve d’or for Monica (Delcourt , 2023), highest distinction on the event’s charts for an album. It succeeds The Color of Things (That and There, 2022) by Martin Panchaud, winner of the 2023 edition.
Composed of nine segments (“Foxhole”, “The Glow Infernal”, “Krugg”, etc.), the work presents many narrative arcs independent of each other which ultimately come together and form a whole. The story of a quest for identity, that of a woman born to an unknown father. By indulging in a delicious mix of genres, which sees the story navigate from romance to horror via war book, the author draws another story of contemporary America, made of neuroses and dissatisfactions.
We owe Daniel Clowes around fifteen titles, one of the first of which, Ghost World (Vertige Graphic, 1999) was adapted for the big screen by director Terry Zwigoff in 2001 with Scarlett Johansson and Steve Buscemi. With a deliberately garish style close to the photo novel and the world of comics, made of precise lines and bright colors, he borrows a lot from his personal history.
The honorary beast for the Japanese Moto Hagio
The jury which voted for Daniel Clowes was chaired by the musician Thomas Bangalter (ex-Daft Punk) and was composed of the comic book author Marion Fayolle (Les Amours Suspensiones, Magnani, 2017), the singer Aurélie Saada, the fencer Enzo Lefort, journalist Eva Bester, bookseller Vincent Poirier and the author of the Radiant manga series, Tony Valente.
The Japanese Moto Hagio, whose work is the subject of a rich retrospective until March 17 at the Angoulême Museum, receives the Honorary Fauve for all of her work. Less known in France than in her country, the author of several sagas such as The Clan of Poe (Akata) or Ohi Margot has given impetus to shojo manga, intended for a female audience.