Leaving France

February 3rd, 2014

I’m leaving France and heading home. Not because of the massive anti-gay protests that happened here yesterday, just because it’s time to go. There have been these big demonstrations lately where people carry pink and baby blue banners and equate gay marriage with “familyphobia.” Their slogan is “Manif Pour Tous,” which I think is short for “manifesto for all.” (Though “all” seems a little disingenuous.) Libération’s headline about it today reads, “la grande manip,” which seems to be a pun, as in manipulation. It feels like a great triumph to understand a pun in French, though of course I could be mistaken about the whole thing.

The Angoulême comics festival was amazing. I spent many hours signing books and drawing pictures in them, and met lots of people. Here is a reader from Luxembourg who wanted to take this picture because we were dressed alike. Unfortunately I was not wearing my blue checked shirt that day.

And here is the amazing Israeli cartoonist Rutu Modan, who I got to have dinner with one night. She won a big prize at the festival for her new book The Property, which I have not read yet but it looks really great.

Also I got to sign for a while next to the genial (in its original, genius-related sense, not in its meaningless “awesome” sense) Joost Swaarte. He drew astonishing things for people. And he wore two pairs of glasses-his regular ones over his reading glasses. Like Holly does! Okay. Gotta come home now.