Lire en Fête Day 2

A quieter day after the frenzy of Lire en Fête’s opening.

At the Bande Dessinée Khmer booth, we hand out dossiers about the local comics scene, and sell comics by Em Satya, Or Yuthea, and Im Sokha, among others. We also have some copies of 1960’s Reamker comics (the Cambodian Ramayana), kindly donated from the private collection of Dr. Alain Daniel.

We keep these out to read, and receive a number of inquiries: Where can I buy these? Can I copy them? Regretfully, there is no public home for these just yet. But in the future we hope to create a historical archive of comics. The difficulty is allowing access to local readers without the comics getting into the hands of bootleggers.

Several librarians stop by to ask about including comics in their library. Just as tobacco is the ‘gateway drug’ to harder stuff, I think that comics are the ‘gateway drug’ to a love of reading. This is our pitch to them.

We also have a copy of ‘Impasse et Rouge’ by French/Khmer artist Phousera Ing. I am hoping someday that ‘Impasse et Rouge‘, ‘Sept Mois au Cambodge‘and ‘Palaces‘ are carried at local bookshops, that would be great to see.