Timeline

Key figures

Origin and history

The International Comic Strip and Image City (CIBDI), located in Angoulême, Charente, is a public establishment dedicated to comics and images. It originated in the International Festival of Comics launched in 1974, which allowed the progressive creation of collections of original boards, first preserved at the Art Museum of Angoulême. In 1983, the Saint-Ogan gallery opened to exhibit these works, marking a first step towards creating a dedicated space.

In 1984, under the leadership of Minister of Culture Jack Lang, the National Centre for Comics and Image (CNBDI) project was launched as part of François Mitterrand's major work. The site chosen is a former disused brewery, rehabilitated by architects Roland Castro and Jean Remond. CNBDI opened in 1991 with a museum, a media library and a digital imaging centre, becoming a major centre for the conservation and dissemination of comics.

In 2008, CNBDI and the Author's House merged to form the EPCC International Comic and Image City. The museum moved in 2009 to the former Magelis cellars, renovated by Jean-François Bodin, offering spaces adapted to its collections: more than 25,000 original boards, 250,000 prints, a heritage library of 55,750 books, and rich cultural programming (exhibitions, artist residences, cinema).

The museum, labeled Musée de France in 2002, offers various exhibitions: retrospectives of authors (Crumb, Moebius, Bretécher), thematics (dreve, fashion, cinema), or historical (birth of comics, revolution of the 1970s). Its heritage library, a partner of the BnF, digitizes its collections for Gallica. In 2024, the permanent route was temporarily replaced by the exhibition Trésors des collections, pending a new route planned for 2027, designed by a committee of experts.

The City plays a key role in the cultural legitimization of comics, in connection with the Angoulême Festival and the UNESCO Creative City label for literature. It hosts more than 250,000 annual visitors, including 36,000 young people, and collaborates with institutions such as the Magelis Image Pole. Its current director, Vincent Eches, succeeds Gilles Ciment (2007–2015) and Pierre Lungheretti (2016–2022).

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