De Pilote à Poisson Pilote I

One strand of the Angoulême Festival was entitled De Pilote à Poisson Pilote: linking the generation of comics creators who emerged through Pilote magazine to their successors, featured in the Poisson Pilote collections, the up-and-coming and the new stars. For the best part of a year in the early seventies, when I lived in Versailles, Pilote brightened my Tuesdays, with the latest installment of Astérix, Blueberry, Gotlib's Rubrique-&qgrave;-Brac, Le Vaisseau de Pierre (The Stone Ship, an extraordinary tale of town-planning and the supernatural by Bilal and Christin), maybe an installment of Fred's Philémon, or one of Patrice Leconte's quirky narratives. What better guide to further reading than an exhibition pairing these heroes of my golden age with the best of the contemporary scene?

( Fred and Joann Sfar )