Florence Cestac

Florence Cestac was born in 1949 in Pont-Audemer, France. In 1965 she graduated from the Fine Arts Academy in Rouen and three years later from the Applied Arts Academy in Paris. In the following years she drew for various French publications and collaborated with legendary magazines such as Pilote and Charlie Mensuel. In 1972, with Étienne Robial she opened the first comics shop in Paris and in 1975 created the alternative comics publisher Futuropolis. At Futuropolis she worked as a designer, packager, delivery-boy, photoengraver, translator, author baby-sitter, press agent, and editor. In 1997 she was awarded her second Humor prize of the Angoulême International Comics Festival for "The Mid-Life Crisis" (1996 Dargaud, 2016 Europe Comics), the hilarious post-marital tragedy in which the forty-year-old Noemi leaves her unfaithful husband. This masterpiece of black humor and disarming honesty has been adapted to theatre and cinema with considerable success. In 2000 she was awarded the grand prix of the Angoulême Festival and consequently presided over it in 2001, when she selected an exclusively female jury. Among other works, she completed the second and third volumes of "The Mid-life crisis," trilogy: "The Post-Mid Life Crisis" in 2005 and "The Late-Mid-Life Crisis" in 2013 (Dargaud/Europe Comics to be released in 2016). In 2015 she published "Un amour exemplaire" with Daniel Pennac (Dargaud).