Never trust a duck, especially one drawn by Anouk Ricard. The animal, however friendly, is not necessarily the hero of a children's book. It can also be a cowboy who hides its tricks or a libidinous gay fireman in a pastiche of pornography. This is the prolific and unclassifiable work of the winner of the Grand Prix of the International Comics Festival in Angoulême, southwest France, awarded on Wednesday, January 29. A symphony of nonsense, revisiting genres with the same humor of silly and gentleness, a mix that proves explosive.

For the 54-year-old author, a graduate of the Strasbourg School of Decorative Arts, this Grand Prix is a "consecration," she declared, delighted that the award is given by the authors and not by the festival organizers. "That's why there are women," she noted. This year's finalists included Ricard, Catherine Meurisse and Alison Bechdel. "It's a positive development because there are many more women in comics than there used to be, and these women are talented," the winner added. Among them, she likes to mention Salomé Lahoche, Elodie Shanta, Anna Haifisch and Emilie Gleason, young female graphic novelists whose work, like her own, doesn't fit neatly into boxes.

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