Ovre på Dansk Tegneserieråds hjemmeside, kan man nu læse en opgørelse over Kunstrådets uddeling af støtte til tegneserier og tegneserieskabere i 2009.

Uden at medregne de seks 100.000-kroners legater, der er blevet uddelt til tegneserietegnere til støtte for illustrationsprojekter, der sandsynligvis ikke er tegneserier, er det samlede beløb på 478.815, hvoraf 390.000 gik til tegneserieprojekter og 88.815 til rejselegater. Alt i alt et anseligt beløb i forhold til tidligere år og mere end de kr. 400.000, der var til rådighed for Litteraturrådets i 2003 afviklede Tegneseriepulje, og mere end de forgående år.

Alt i alt en positiv udvikling for tegneseriens tilstand i det kulturelle system, om end man stadig kan spørge sig selv om, hvad den røde tråd i uddelingerne er. Det er imidlertid svært at konkludere ret meget, når man ikke kender til de ansøgninger, der ikke opnåede støtte. Hvis jeg får tid, vil jeg grave lidt og muligvis skrive lidt mere senere.

Right. Sunday at the Angoulême festival is always a bit of a wash when one lives abroad and hasn’t booked another night in France, but now it’s Monday and here are some thoughts on the festival as a whole.

The policy of announcing the festival awards and the Grand Prix winner on Sunday afternoon, instated last year, has removed a significant element of excitement from the festival — not only does it negate the popular rush to acquire the winning books from the publishers’ tents and make the awards ceremony an event an afterthought rather than a centerpiece, it removes from the awards an element of discourse and sense of import for the guests that might not compare with the Monday morning press, but surely still counts for something, seeing that it’s visited by some 200.000 people.

Reporting live from the Angoulême festival: Saturday is here and its been a busy day. Crowded as usual, negotiating the often tight exhibition spaces and lecture theaters can be trying, but is certainly worth it. We started the day at the new comics center, which I must say is amazing. Under new directorship and with a spacious new scenically situated in a row of refurbished and expanded row of factory buildings across the river, this is a major upgrade that the long ailing institution sorely needed.

The central space presents the history of Franco-Belgian and American comics in a set of serpentine display cases that mix original pages and publications as well as video and other material. Their collections are amazing, including originals from most of the major artists, from Saint Ogan to Caniff, from Franquin to Chris Ware. A just objection would be that the presentation ignores other parts of the world. There is a section with a short history on manga, but it is rather meager and includes no originals. Something to work on for the museum.