Ra traditional meeting and a result always awaited in the world of comic book publishing, the unveiling of the five finalists for the Grand Prix de la critique ACBD 2025 took place this Saturday, November 23 in the evening, during the awards ceremony of the BD Boum festival in Blois.
After a meeting that was always lively and argued, the members of the Association of Comic Strip Critics and Journalists (ACBD – of which the author of these lines is a member, to be transparent) therefore chose five titles from the list of fifteen titles resulting from a first round of voting.
This winning quintet fits well within the framework of this prize which aims to “ support and highlight, in a spirit of discovery, a comic book, published in French, with strong narrative and graphic demands, marking by its power, its originality, the novelty of its subject or the means that the author deploys ».
We will note the presence of two “indie” albums (published by Cornélius and Misma), or even three given the profile of the work of Brecht Evens. And also the presence of two “generalist” publishing houses (Actes Sud and Albin-Michel, which therefore rightly bet on Luz, who signs with Deux Filles Nues his book without doubt the most accomplished and which strays the furthest from his former status as a press cartoonist to become a real author, even artist, of comic strips – via their BD label, proof of the distribution of the comic strip Et si Le Lombard, a publishing house for the comic strip coup. has more of a general public profile youth, the works of Alix Garin prove to be quite singularly radical.
In alphabetical order, therefore, the five finalists are:
- Tonight is a nightmare, by Nicole Claveloux (Cornelius)which marks the reappearance in comics of an author with a dreamlike and profound album, graphically of great visual fantasy.
- Two naked girls, by Luz (Albin-Michel), with its daring narrative bias (the story seen in fixed shot from a painting) but perfectly held from start to finish, Luz delivers a story that is both historical on the rise of Nazi totalitarianism, and a story of cultural history around the market art, but also a great political story with contemporary resonances.
- Impenetrable, by Alix Garin (Le Lombard)an intimate story, which goes very far, on this strange illness that is vaginismus and more broadly on new couple relationships.
- Les Julys, by Nylso (Same)another fantastic story bordering on dreamlike but also the story of a beautiful relationship between a father and his son.
- King Medusa, volume 1, by Brecht Evens (Actes Sud)always carried by the shimmering and very personal style of Brecht Evens, a disturbing and paranoid story about a conspiratorial education and unhealthy influence.
The award-winning album, chosen during a final vote by all members, will be revealed on December 3, 2024. It will be presented during the Angoulême festival, at the end of January 2025
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