Number 2.04:- Metropole Paris - Monday, 26. January 1997:-The annual grand festival of the comic strip opened at Angoulême, in Charente, for the 24th time last Thursday and closed up shop for the year yesterday evening.

A long time ago before I got into this Metropole-Internet- deadline-rat-race, I had an all-day Sunday rat-race to finish a full-page comic strip every week. This was in the late '70's, long before mistakes could be fixed with 'undo' and it was a hard grind.

I would deliver the week's 'planche' to the magazine on Monday mornings - and with a little Tip-Ex and a pencil, slight repairs could be made to my 'fautes.' After six months I took to taking an 'emergency kit' with me because all they really had there to work with were felt-tipped markers.

With this little detail out of the way, the editor would pour a slug into his cafe mug, light his pipe, and think up a new scenario. I couldn't think in French that early in the morning and a having a slug too wouldn't have helped my French anyway. In a half hour it would be done and I would take this wretched scrap of manuscript to the managing editor, and get him to re-write it - by hand - into readable French.

Then I would go off to other editorial offices that day or during the week, and one way or another, the page comic-strip always ended up the last thing to do before starting the new week.

As a reward for this - besides a little regular money - one year the editor invited me to go to Angoulême to help represent the 'maison.' I had never heard of it - this 'festival de la B.D.' - nor of Angoulême, but I went anyway. It was quite a long train ride from Paris.

Angoulême was a fairly small town at the time and this comics thing took the place over. Besides having a big tent for publishers to show off their latest albums, books and other articles; the displayed comics were all over town and three or four of my 'planches' were hung in the city hall, which was a real event for me.

One reason why the annual comics festival is so far away from Paris is because most of the people who have much to do with the business are slightly wacko, and at Angoulême they can be wacko together, without Parisian distractions like wives or girlfriends, or boyfriends.

Comic books in France and in Europe really are books - in the sense that most of them are produced with hard covers, and most of them contain real stories. My weekly B.D. - 'bande dessinée' - appeared in a magazine for kids from about nine to 12, and I never got up the concentration necessary to do an album, which could take three months or more.

Another way comic books are like books is that they are sold like books - in bookstores. Every decent one has a section for B.D's, even my little news shop in the village has a dozen titles. Some B.D. albums also sell in great numbers, with 'L'Affaire Francis Blake' having sold 680,000 to date. How many 'Tintin's' have been sold over the years is a good question - but it is a very high number.

This year at Angoulême 'Tintin' was featured as an attraction covering the last 50 years. The year I went, the author of 'Tintin,' Hergé, was the honored guest and Mort Drucker who did 'Beetle Bailey' was the exotic guest.

I was a 'working' guest because I was stuffed in the tent, far from the portable heater and near the open gap by the bottom of the canvas, to do 'demonstrations' for the passing throng.

This is how it was: the kids come by and see I'm nobody but sometimes there are too many around the somebodies and I would get an overflow kid and he or she would either ask me to draw something, or I'd propose to draw something for them.