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Angoulême to host “Censorship & Freedom in Creating Comics” conference

By John Freeman on October 4, 2025 • ( 0 )

The Cité internationale de la bande dessinée et de l’image museum in Angoulême, France, will convene a free conference discussing comics and censorship next month.

Censorship & Freedom in Creating Comics | Art by Witko

Taking place on 6th November, “Censorship & Freedom in Creating Comics” features a wide range of French and international creators, critics, journalists and experts, including Zainab Faziki from Morocco, Mana Neyestani from Iran, Álvaro Pons from Spain, Wotjek Birek from Poland, Annick Kamgang from Cameroun, Orijit Sen from India, and Carol Tilley from the United States.

The conference couldn’t be more timely, given recent actions against cartoonists, highlighted by organisations such as Cartoonists Rights and the Freedom Cartoonists Foundation. We reported recently that Turkish cartoonist Zehra Ömeroğlu was presented with Robert Russell Courage in Cartooning Award 2025, after persecution in Turkey.

“The year 2025 was marked by two significant events, of very different natures,” the organisers note. “On the one hand, the tenth anniversary of the Charlie Hebdo attacks of January 2015, which profoundly shook and challenged French society. On the other, the “Bastien Vivès affair,” which sparked a different kind of debate, surrounding the reception of works and the responsibility of authors to the public.

“In March 2025, the [French] Ministry of Culture appointed a Senior Official responsible for creative freedom. Today, the Cité de la bande dessinée et de l’image seeks to explore these issues, both in France and internationally. Can we still, in 2025, write or draw without constraints, as was done in the 1970s, when comics seemed to be freeing themselves from all taboos?”

The full programme in French and free registration can br found here

New Republic | Art by Witko — *Art by Witko*

The poster art is by Nikola Witko (Maubeuge, 1971), a comic book author, illustrator, visual artist, and graphic designer. A graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts and Decorative Arts of Tournai (Belgium), his work often dystopian, he was involved in the creation and expansion of independent comics in the 1990s/2000s in Belgium and France through collectives such as Hécatombe, Ferraille, Jade, and more.

He has since made several comic book albums, alone or in pairs and continues to get involved in the underground, graphic and musical scene, through collectives, posters and flyers. For a few years, his work regularly featured in Fluide Glacial magazines, and, more recently, in Métal Hurlant.

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John Freeman

John is the founder of downthetubes, launched in 1998. He is a comics and magazine editor, writer, and Press Officer for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. He also runs Crucible Comic Press.

Working in British comics publishing since the 1980s, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who Magazine and Overkill for Marvel UK, Babylon 5 Magazine, Star Trek Magazine, and its successor, Star Trek Explorer, and more. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics; and has edited several comic collections and graphic novels, including volumes of “Charley’s War” and “Dan Dare”, and Hancock: The Lad Himself, by Stephen Walsh and Keith Page.

He’s the writer of comics such as Pilgrim: Secrets and Lies for B7 Comics; “Crucible”, a creator-owned project with 2000AD artist Smuzz; and “Death Duty” and “Skow Dogs”, with Dave Hailwood.