In 1974 the Angoulême Festival Awards were originally named the Alfred Awards (after a penguin featured in Alain Saint-Ogan's series Zig et Puce) before the name was changed in 1989 to the Alph'Art Awards (after the title of Hergé's last, and unfinished, Tintin story).

In 2007, the Angoulême Festival Awards were been simplified. The award winners are known as the 'Essentials' and are chosen from the 'Official Selection', a short list of books determined by the Selection Committee from among the French-language comic books published each year. The 2008 Official Selection contains 58 titles, from which the Grand Jury Of The Festival select the following:
- Fifty books compete for the six Essential Awards.
- One of the Essential Award winners is selected as Best Comic Book.
- One of the Essential Award winners is selected as Best Newcomer.
- Eight books compete for the Heritage Award.

Further Reading:
• The 2008 Official Selection Booklet (PDF)
• Indy Magazine: The Twenty Best European Graphic Novels You Haven't Read
• Angouleme 2008: Bart Beaty Examines The Angouleme Nominees
• Angoulême 2007: A Report By Paul Gravett
• Angoulême 2007: Bart Beaty Handicaps Angoulême's Prizes
• Angoulême 2006: Bart Beaty's Report & Photos
• Angoulême 2005: A Reportage by Phoebe Gloeckner
• Angoulême 2005: The Once & Future Angoulême by Jim Wheelock
• Angoulême 2004: Adventures In Comics' Capital City by Jim Wheelock
• Angoulême 2004: Changes by Bill Kartalopoulos
• Angoulême 2003: Travelogue by Jason Little

La Ou Vont Nos Peres (The Arrival) by Shaun Tan (Dargaud)

A man arrives in a strange country and tries to get used to the strange life and habits of the inhabitants. He left his wife and kids behind him so he could give them a better life. Shaun Tan, an Australian cartoonist born in 1974, deals with the issue of immigration in a metaphorical way and conjures up a phantasmagorical imagery to do so. It results in a universal story for anyone can identify to the man's existence. The readers experience through his eyes the sometimes painful, sometimes exciting process of adaptation to another culture.

"The author has told the essential story of the universal immigrant using a photoreal style of period clothing and artifacts, except that there also all his trademark alienated things. In fact the cover is a brilliant introduction to the whole shebang. The traveler in this book is wearing clothing that is familiar to us from old photos and film, and everything he meets is an extraordinary alien creation. The purpose of things cannot be deduced from their appearances and the labels and the instructions on them are all in an alien script. The book is a hardback of 120 pages (in contrast to the softcover 32 page volumes of his childrens' oeuvre), with a division of the page more often than not into twelve pictorial parts, though there is are sequences with twenty and thirty parts each. And elsewhere sprawling vistas across two pages. You will think yourself an arrival at New York's Ellis Island, but wait, that is not the statue of Liberty, and what is that odd looking longtailed beast on its shoulder? In all of this, not a single word. At least none that you or I could understand, being 'lost things' ourselves in front the majesty of this masterpiece. It's a beautifully moving and human work, and my favorite picture story book of the year."
Eddie Campbell (From Hell, Alec, Bacchus)

L'Elephant by Isabelle Pralong (Vertige Graphic)

With your job as a wardrobe master, your husband and kids, you live an ordinary and happy life. Until the hospital calls to tell you that your father is in a coma. A father you don't even know, since he has deserted your life from the start. How do you cope with this sudden comeback and impending death? This is what Isabelle Pralong relates in a series of short chapters deprived of pathos and in a graphic style one would describe as expressive. From the initial denial to the reconciliation with the stranger and finally with herself, everything is said with outstanding modesty and soundness in this beautiful book.

Exit Wounds by Rutu Modan (Actes Sud BD)

Israel, 2002. United against their will by the unknown identity of a victim in a kamikaze attack, Numi and Koby lead an investigation to try and find a man - the lover of the victim and father of Koby. Through their desperate search, punctuated with good and bad surprises, Rutu Modan (b. 1966) depicts a society that has lost ist points of references and on a more symbolical level, its fathers... This graphic novel of minimalist style gives a humanist account of life in the Near East through the prism of fiction.

"...the story is kept at ground level and focuses on communicating an unfolding series of events, the art conveys mood within a scene and a general sense of place throughout, dialog between individuals defines their personal space, and the character work adds pathos to past discoveries. Exit Wounds is a very assured story, with very little muss or fuss that spills out along the way. It's as cohesive a statement from any artist that I've seen from comics in years."
Tom Spurgeon, The Comics Reporter - Read the full review here.

Ma Maman Est En Amérique by Jean Regnaud & Emile Bravo (Gallimard)

Jean, an adorable little boy, relates his daily life and small adventures with his sour-tempered teacher, his busy dad, his nanny Yvette (the queen of iced chocolate), his neighbour Michèle (whose parents own a kennel and his little brother (with whom he keeps fighting)... all the small and funny things that seem to make of him an ordinary boy. But Jean feels like a great emptiness inside...though he tries to avoid the question: "Where is my mum?" With sensitivity and emotion, but never lapsing into melodrama, Bravo and Regnaud tell their story and remind us that children are not the only ones who'd rather invent some imaginary story than cope with reality...

La Marie En Platique by Pascal Rabate & David Prudhomme (Futuropolis)

Under the same roof of a provincial house live the three generations of a family. The father is a craftsman, the mother is a housewife and the two kids are ordinary. It is quite different for the grandparents on the mother's side. He hates priests whereas she comes back from Lourdes with a plastic statue of the Virgin Mary in her luggage. They soon quarrel fiercely and the whole family can enjoy the show... The rest of the story, among which a miracle and a solemn communion dinner, is both hilarious and derisory. Rabaté succeeded in making moments that we all intimately know as boring and insignificant, captivating and above all, funny. David Prudhomme illustrates the story with a clarity and fluidity that never prevent daring innovations in terms of colours and structure.

RG by Frederik Peeters & Pierre Dragon (Bayou/Gallimard)

What do we know about the policemen's lives, except for the clichés found in detective stories? This very realist account plunges the readers into a detective's daily life and discloses his secrets: the hideouts, the hours spent in unmarked vans, the snaps taken with telephoto lens and the tailing... These particularly impressive stories are inspired from a veteran of the secret police. A real-life experience thanks to Pierre Dragon's script and the striking drawings of Frederik Peeters who produced one of his most unexpected books.

Trois Ombres by Cyril Pedrosa (Shampooing/Delcourt)

Isolated from the world and the misfortunes, Joachim and his parents live peacefully at the bottom of the hills until the shadows of three mysterious horsemen appear and disrupt everything. Joachim's fate is immediately turned upside down. To escape the threat of the three shadows, he has only two alternatives left: escape or submit. Of course his father chooses the first option and throws himself wholeheartedly into a long and dangerous travel with an uncertain end. A magnificent parable on the utterly painful death of a child, this initiatory tale relies on an amazingly dynamic graphic style.

Moomin by Tove Jansson (Le Petit Lézard)

Finnish artist Tove Jansson (1914-2001) was a painter and an illustrator, but also the author of the adventures of Moomin the Troll, a character she invented during World War 2 to bring dream and comfort to the children. It has been read all over the worl since and is considered to be a classic. This fantasy and humorous story was first adapted as a comic book by Tove Jansson herself, later replaced by her brother Lars. This perfectly edited first volume allows the readers to jump into a lively and unpredictable world populated with strange, though immediately familiar, creatures (Snorks, Hatifnattes, a gluttonous Stinky who smells awfully bad...). Recommended for children of all ages!

"In 1952, the Helsinki-born author, 37 at the time, jumped at the rewarding contract from the Associated Newspaper Syndicate to create, as they proposed, 'an interesting strip cartoon, and not necessarily for children' that would use her upright, mouthless, albino hippo-like clan 'to satirise the so-called civilised way of life.' Jansson's dream that the money from crafting 'only six comic strips in a week' for the London Evening News would leave her free enough to pursue painting was soon replaced by the time-consuming challenges of devising Moomin serials in daily episodes of two to five panels."
Paul Gravett - Read the full review here.

Kiki De Montparnasse by Catel & Bocquet (Écritures/Casterman)

In 1913, an unpolished young girl who feeds on garlic sausage and red wine leaves her native Burgundy and settles in Paris. Nothing about her suggested that she might achieve an artistic career, but the young girl has the intuition of a coquette and knows how to identify the talented painters who will make her pretty and give her eternity. This first graphic biography of Kiki de Montparnasse by Catel and Bocquet plunges the readers in the libertine Paris of the 20s and relates the rise and fall of a real star with emotion.

Turkey Comix No. 16 - www.turkeycomix.com