The list of exits grows. Almost all of France’s biggest comics publishers have canceled their participation in the 2026 Angoulême International Comics Festival, with Frank Bondou’s company 9e Art+ set to remain as operator until 2036. Festival organizer association FIBD has been given a November 17 deadline to come up with an acceptable alternative that includes Mr Bondhu’s immediate removal or all of them are to resign. By Tuesday evening, there were indications that the local government could take over.
Libération said the entire group of media participants, including Dupuis, Dargaud, Lombard, comic book publisher Kana, and the localizers of American comics Urban Comics, had canceled. Also the Madrigal Group (Casterman, De Noel Gráfic, Futuropolis, Salvacane, Gallimard BD). As of Wednesday morning, Delcourt has left the team. Glenna’s presence at the festival is subtle. Most independent and alternative publishers also canceled their booths.
Dupuis and others canceled — ©Dean Simons
A new development emerged on Tuesday night, when Angoulême Mayor Xavier Bonnefont fully committed to the crisis. He gave FIBD until November 17th to remove Frank Bondu and 9e Art+ from the new contract, leaving it in the hands of the publicly-run Cité de la BD from 2028, or the association would be stripped of ownership of the festival. Bonnefont will also seek to get Bondu and 9e Art+ to terminate their current contracts, which run until 2027. Ironically, as previously discussed, the reason for the rise of Bondu and the emergence of 9e Art+ was that local governments wanted to take over the management of festivals from associations.
Bonnefont, who has been elected mayor of Angoulême since 2014 and will be re-elected in March 2026, told France3 (translation by DeepL):
“We would like to discuss this with the FIBD Association this week in an environment that allows for a smooth transition and the best possible operation of the 2026 edition… (W)Our focus in working with all the public partners of the Cité de la BD is on how we can move the festival forward. We want to build together and return to a moment of peace. This situation cannot continue… For Angoulême, cancellation is unthinkable.” 2026 Edition”.
He added:
“As Mayor of Angoulême, I am ready to take responsibility and perhaps put an end to the association-based arrangement…The company 9e Art+ must also agree to resign.”
A heated online meeting was held between the publisher and the mayor of Angoulême on Monday night. No one was happy with the FIBD Association’s decision to essentially hand the festival’s organization back to Frank Bondu and his controversial company 9e Art+, but it caused a majority of disgusted writers to boycott the show.
On November 8, following the FIBD Association’s public call for alternative proposals for future event management (instead of three expected finalists, there were two), the association requested the public bodies Cité de la BD and 9e Art+ to define joint premises for a nine-year contract starting in 2028. This result puts 9e Art+ at the center of one of the most important events in global comics until 2036, despite years of complaints and public scandals. The call was similarly criticized because the conditions of the judicial process (such as the inclusion of at least one independent third party in supervision and participation) were not followed, and other applicants were not given clear reasons for their rejection. On November 10, it was revealed that Frank Bondu had threatened to sue if the company did not receive a new operating agreement.
Frank Bondu — ©Alistair Dabbs
Bondu and his private company 9e Art+ have been the target of ire over the two decades they have been running the festival. Accusations range from a lack of operational transparency, financial irregularities, a toxic management culture, and over-commercialization (some sponsors are particularly controversial). In January, Humanite released a damning report that also revealed allegations that a contractor was raped at the 2024 event and later fired when she raised the issue internally. Another source of frustration is the treatment of creators, who have busy schedules during the event but are not given any privileges, such as rest areas or the chance to jump long (sometimes hour-long) lines for popular exhibits that are limited to festival weekends. Even the winners of the French comic book world’s top annual award are scorned by Bondou, who is officially the festival’s president.
Given the current state of the strike (which numbered at least 40 people as of Monday), the festival’s massive comic marketplace will likely be empty or close to being empty of vendors. And with no writers to sign autographs, sketches or panels, the festival is pretty hollow.
Although announced last month, the David Prudhomme exhibit has been removed from the FIBD website
There are also reports that authors who have planned spotlight exhibitions for the 2026 festival weekend are asking publishers to cancel them as well. According to a report in Le Monde, David Prudhomme and Mathieu Babret have requested this from their publishers. The Babret exhibition (published by Rue de Sevres/Label 619) had not yet been officially announced, while the David Prudhomme retrospective “La vie d’un trait (tr: Life in one go)” (in partnership with Futuropolis), which was announced on October 14th, has now disappeared from the website. The same thing may happen with the Emilie Tronche exhibition announced on October 31st (co-sponsored by Casterman and the film company Les Valseurs).
Ahead of the November 8 decision, Angoulême had already begun promotional efforts for the January 2026 edition, launching an annual youth comics contest and announcing its first major exhibition. Two manga exhibitions have already been announced (Hitoshi Iwaaki’s “Parasyte” and Kazuo Umezu’s retrospective), but Anouk Ricard’s own retrospective for the 2025 Grand Prix is theoretically still under consideration, but she has declared a boycott, so she will not be participating.
The Angoulême Festival (official name: Festival International de la Bande Dessinée d’Angoulême, also known as Angoulême FIBD) is one of the world’s largest comic book events. It attracts between 150,000 and 200,000 visitors each year, making it the third largest event after Japan’s Comiket and Italy’s Lucca Comics & Games. The event, which started in 1974, takes place in a medieval town in the heart of a small city in southwestern France, not far from Bordeaux. The festival transformed the city, creating one of the world’s largest comic book museums and numerous art schools and studios. In addition to public and commercial exhibitions, the festival has a dedicated international comic book rights market. The world’s largest rights marketplace dedicated to the medium attracts publishers from around the world and has sourced many critically acclaimed releases in the United States.
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