the Fauve d’or 2024 is awarded to “Monica”, by Daniel Clowes

The American author saw his latest graphic work rewarded on Saturday at the major comics event.

The American Daniel Clowes won the Fauve d’or on Saturday for best album of the year with Monica, the jury of the Angoulême Comics Festival announced on Saturday January 27. This graphic novel, published in October by Delcourt, is the story of the life of an ordinary American woman, through a multitude of very diverse stories.

This book, highly appreciated by critics, among others, earned Daniel Clowes, 62 years old, enough votes from his peer authors to reach the final of the Grand Prix de la Ville d’Angoulême this year. But the American was beaten by the winner Posy Simmonds, crowned Wednesday evening. “It’s a comic book that can appeal to the general public”said Saturday on franceinfo Franck Bondoux, general delegate of the Angoulême International Comics Festival.

“We are in alternative American comics and I want to believe that this comic can reach a wider audience.”

Franck Bondoux, general delegate of the Angoulême Comics Festival

at franceinfo

For Franck Bondoux the goal of the festival ist “to arouse curiosities”. “I believe that there is a very great incentive for discovery”, with this comic. The winner of this Fauve d’or, who lives in Oakland, California, was unable to make the trip to Angoulême. “Daniel Clowes wanted to come. He came from San Francisco, he arrived in Paris. But Covid stopped him in Paris”said its publisher Guy Delcourt, who received the trophy on the stage of the Théâtre d’Angoulême.

“We have great diversity” in the 2024 list

The winners of this 2024 edition rewarded several foreign authors from the United States, Spain, South Korea but also France. A diversity of which Franck Bondoux is proud: “There are foreign authors who come to be published in France because they find publishers there who are extremely careful, conscientious about the quality of their books.” According to him, “there is really a French specificity, a love of comics” and the 2024 prize list “really reflects that”. “We have great diversity with alternative publishing houses and large market-leading houses”continues the general delegate before concluding: “I think it’s because we mix all this together that we have today in France the biggest comic book event in the world.”