The finalists for the BD Fnac France Inter 2025 Prize announced: behind the scenes of the deliberations

Working hand in hand to popularize the 9^e art, Fnac and France Inter are joining forces to award the BD Fnac France Inter Prize, for the seventh consecutive year. Sponsored by Rebecca Manzoni, producer of Totemic a you Mask and the Feather on France Inter, this trophy aims to “clearing and supporting talents”specifies Guillaume Peyret, BD Fnac product manager and president of the jury.

It is therefore around them that the jury – made up of Fnac booksellers, the artist Luciole and journalists from the editorial staff of France Inter, Parisianof the Inrockuptiblesof BDGestof Babelioof Konbini…and The Pathfinder – gathered to elect the winning album, whose name will be revealed on January 8, 2025, among the five finalists still in the race.

A summit meeting

On this very special day, we are meeting at Place de la Bastille, in Paris, more precisely at the Café français. It's 5 p.m. After passing through the thick curtain of the establishment, we enter a room dedicated to the event. After a few informal presentations, we are called to gather around a large table set up especially to receive the 18 members of the jury, complete with drinks and pastries. These welcome dishes will allow some to gain strength to support their choice, others will find a little comfort there, once their favorite has been ousted.

The deliberations promise to be tough, because, according to Julie Henry, communications director of the Fnac Darty group, “the members of the jury, some of whom are regulars, have very different sensitivities, which could have led to heated debates in certain years”. What will it be this year? Will the plates fly?

Who chooses the five finalists?

A few days before meeting, each of the jurors received the list of the five finalists announced this Friday, December 6. The opportunity to immerse yourself in the world of this particularly diverse selection, like comics. Intimate, romantic, historical, anticipation… There is something for everyone!

This selection was concocted by 35 candidates: five members of Pass Culture and 30 comic book fans who all had the mission of reading, evaluating and rating the entire first selection from Fnac booksellers and the French editorial staff. Inter, made up of 20 works.

Bobigny 1972.

The Pathfinder behind the scenes

Drum roll! Our mission was therefore to bring out a winner among Ulysses and Cyrano by Antoine Cristau, Servain and Xavier Dorison (Casterman), Impenetrable by Alix Garin (Le Lombard), Inside by Will McPhail (404 Editions), The Road Manu Larcenet (Dargaud) et Bobigny 1972 of Marie Bardiaux-Valente and Carole Maurel (Glénat).

The only work signed by a non-French-speaking artist, Inside stands out for its original graphics, out of the box, refined and free, but a little cold. However, a few sketches full of fantasy come to warm up this story about mourning which has upset more than one!

More childish, Alix Garin's graphics put off some, but others were hooked from the first pages ofImpenetrablethanks to the strength of the subject, resolutely in tune with the times, and to its lively narrative division. Beyond the theme of sexual violence and vaginismus, journalists, like Christophe Levent of Parisiansaw there “a great, particularly touching love story”.

Huge commercial success, already selling more than 100,000 copies, The Roadadapted from the cult novel by Cormac McCarthy (Pulitzer Prize in 2007), by Manu Larcenet, plunges the reader into a post-apocalyptic world in agony, covered in ashes and littered with corpses. A father and his son search for food there, having to adapt to the animal law of the strongest. The entire jury praised the rich and precise drawing, but some members expressed some reservations, judging it a little dated aesthetically.

Speaking of date, in Bobigny 1972, Marie Bardiaux-Valente and Carole Maurel (Glénat) passionately recount the historic abortion trial, with an outstanding cast: Gisèle Halimi, Simone de Beauvoir, Simone Veil, Delphine Seyrig… A powerful and “necessary, but a bit academic”specify the journalists from France Inter, Rebecca Manzoni and Laetitia Gayet.

Finally, Ulysses and Cyrano by Antoine Cristau, Servain and Xavier Dorison (Casterman) has made more than one salivate, but this well-crafted story of a young bourgeois refusing to take over from his father to venture into the world of gastronomy was also criticized for its too classic style and its somewhat wise narrative. Nevertheless, for Virginie Maggio, bookseller at Fnac La Défense, the work reveals itself “be the ideal gift to introduce a friend to comics”.

Not unanimous, but almost

Without pressure, but a little nonetheless, Guillaume Peyret reminds us, before deliberating, that the BD Fnac France Inter Prize allowed the two winners of previous years to see their sales figures be multiplied by three. Our choice is therefore not trivial. Aware of the stakes, everyone intends to defend it as they should. After a first round of discussion, we are called to argue to choose the lucky winner.

For our part, it’s a wasted effort! Another work is largely different from the first vote. Not a little proud to have brought our favorite to the podium, which we share with Enrique Martinez, general manager of the Fnac Darty group, we must bow to the winner who wins a very large majority of the votes and for whom we applaud, without bitterness, narrative force. Until the verdict is announced to the general public on January 8, 2025, our lips will remain sealed, and we will discreetly applaud the lucky one.