French comics festival Angoulême cancels its 2026 event

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It was once impossible to imagine a year without the comic book festival in Angoulême, France, taking place. 2026 is shaping up to be that year, however, in the wake of the announcement that next year's event has been canceled. 

The situation for Angoulême's cancellation this year has a lot of moving parts. A local newspaper, La Charente Libre, reported that lawyers for the festival's organizing company, 9e Art+, released a statement that the 2026 event has been canceled because it wouldn't have been able to take place "under appropriate conditions." The statement also emphasized that the decision to cancel was made by the public funders of the event, without consulting 9e Art+. (Without the support of public funders, 9e Art+ simply does not have the resources to feasibly put on the festival.)

Putting the funders' decision in some context, Comics Beat has reported that 9e Art+ was unable to provide a "prompt and comprehensive response" to public funders of the event - a body that includes the mayor of Angoulême, Xavier Bonnefont - about whether or not the company would be able to put on the event next month as scheduled. That this was even in question was the result of recent high profile cancellations and withdrawals from the 2026 event as planned; in recent years, under 9e Art+, the festival has been under considerable public and professional scrutiny, with comic book creators and publishers alike withdrawing from the festival in the wake of a report published by Humanité that described a culture at 9e Art+ of alleged "financial irregularities, misogyny, toxic management" under the management of Franck Bondoux. 

Mayor Bonnefont expressed in a town hall meeting on December 3 that the Association FIBD, the body that has kept 9e Art+ on as the festival's organizer, no longer has "any legitimacy" in overseeing the event. Given the importance that Angoulême has in the local area - economically, culturally, and beyond - Mayor Bonnefort is determined for the city to have a festival celebrating comic books sometime in 2026. How and when a replacement event is to take place remains to be seen. 

Angoulême was scheduled to take place from January 29 to February 1, 2026. 

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