R.M. Rhodes

Wrap Up

The biggest thing that came out of our trip to Brussels, Paris and Angouleme at the end of January was the decision to learn to read French. It was a practical decision, based in large part on the fact that a great number of books that I wanted to read have yet to be translated…Read more

Cent Pour Cent

One of the places we wanted to visit while we were in Angouleme was the BD Museum. We’ve been to Geppi’s Entertainment Museum in Baltimore and the BD Museum in Brussels. This would give us a chance to compare and contrast the three and get a sense for what the French considered museum-worthy. One of…Read more

Alternative at Angouleme

The buildings for the festival in Angouleme are actually semi-permanent structures made of wood and vinyl from the same tent DNA as the air-conditioned dance tents you see at outdoor festivals during summer. The structures at Angouleme are designed to fit into the open space available (presumably park land in the city square), but they…Read more

Marianne

One of the reasons that we were in Brussels and Paris at such a miserable time of year was that the Angouleme Comic Festival was going on while we were there. I’ve heard Angouleme described as “the world’s largest comic book festival” (which, by implication, makes it larger than San Diego Comic Con), but this…Read more

BD Shopping in Paris

One of the most obvious differences between Paris and Brussels is the national attitude towards language. In Belgium, there are two official languages: French and Dutch. By law, everything has to be printed in those two languages and a lot of people find it to be just as much trouble to print in three languages…Read more

The Comics in the City

Among the great tourist destinations in Brussels are Atomium, the Town Square and the Comics in the City – a series of murals throughout the city center depicting famous Belgian comic book characters. We’d heard about this before we left the States, but we were unable to find a reliable map online. When we were…Read more

BD Shopping in Brussels

In Brussels, I went to three comic book stores (in addition to the BD Museum gift shop): Brusel, Multi BD and Le Depot. Brusel is one of the more famous comic book shops in Brussels and was, coincidentally, down the street from our hotel. After fifteen minutes of shopping in Brusel, I despaired of finding…Read more