As of today, nine of the thirty shortlisted creators have withdrawn their names from this year’s Grand Prix d’Angouleme, an award given annually to an author based on their body of work and/or their achievement in the evolution of comics during the Angoulême International Comics Festival.

The shortlist of thirty names contained precisely zero female authors, prompting a proposed boycott by French group BD Egalite.

Thus far, Chris Ware, Charles Burns, Daniel Clowes, Pierre Christin, Milo Manara, Riad Sattouf, Christophe Blain, Etienne Davodeau and Joann Sfar have joined the boycott, refusing to be a part of such an unrepresentative list.

Worryingly, Franck Bondoux, the executive officer for the Angoueleme International Comics Festival, has defended the list in French newspaper Le Monde, stating that “Unfortunately, there are few women in the history of comics. That’s the reality. Similarly, if you go to the Louvre, you will find few women artists.”

He added that the Festival “loves women, but we cannot rewrite the history of comics”, and that he hadn’t seen ten worthy female names who deserved the prize during all the online outcry .

Yeah.

Watch this space for more updates, but I would expect that more of the remaining twenty-one creators – which include the likes of Brian Michael Bendis, Frank Miller, Alan Moore, Stan Lee and Bill Sienkiewicz – will be joining the boycott before too long.

The writer of this piece was: Craig Neilson-Adams (aka Ceej)
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