I just arrived in Algiers for their Second Annual Festival International de la Bande Designee (FIBDA) – the Algerian Comic Con. I seem to have arrived at an unusual time, when their soccer team is on the verge of qualifying for the World Cup finals, for the first time in 24 years. They just won an important game and all the streets are clogged with rampaging celebrants, yelling, honking their horns, waving flags and blowing off flares. Here is a movie I shot of the street in front of my hotel. This is not a big street; it is just like every street tonight. The noise is a strange constant roar, punctuated by occasional blasts.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q43ZpOCZYm0&hl=en&fs=1&]
I’ll post more in the blog when things happen at FIBDA. They have invited an exotic collection of one hundred cartoonists from all over the world, and I’m told that half of them are political cartoonists.
