BBC Angouleme Comics Festival Report 2008

By John Freeman on 17 February 2008

BBC reporter Hugh Schofield has filed a report on this year’s Angouleme Festival on the BBC web site as part of coverage by Radio 4’s From Our Own Correspondent news programme, still reeling, it would seem, from arriving in the comic crazy town and being bear-hugged at the station by a sky-blue pixie in a Phrygian bonnet.

France sees itself as the world capital of “bandes dessinees” or BDs, what we might call comics. Thousands of albums are published every year and the international festival in the town of Angouleme is a major event in the European comics calendar.

• Read the report on the BBC web site
• The programme was broadcast on 16 February and you can “Listen Again” for seven days

About the Author
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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.