Posy Simmonds Wins Grand Prix at Angoulême Comics Festival

Celebrating A Career In Comics

On Wednesday, Angouleme Comics Festival, it was announced that British comics illustrator Posy Simmonds won its Grand Prix award…

Simmonds follows in the footsteps of Will Eisner, Jean Giraud (Moebius) and Enki Bilal as the winner of the award at the 51st Festival International de la Bande Dessinée d’Angoulême. She is the first British creator to win the award.

She had this to say about winning the award in the Guardian earlier this week:

“I was gobsmacked – époustouflée, as you would say in French … It’s extraordinary because if you’re writing or drawing, you work in a room on your own, and it’s then very extraordinary when the book, or your work, or you are given a lot of exposure.”

Simmonds has a large following in France where she is known as ‘the queen of the graphic novel.” She has a career that goes back to 1979, creating a number of regular strips for the Guardian and her work has been published in a number of collections over the years.

Her original graphic novels, Gemma Bovery (1999), and Tamara Drewe (2006) have been made into feature films – Tamara Drewe, directed by Stephen Frears in 2010, and Gemma Bovery, directed by Anne Fontaine, in 2014.

Tripwire congratulates Ms. Simmonds on winning her award.