Cartoonist Posy Simmonds is first Brit to win prestigious French prize

Posy Simmonds, 78, is a long-time Francophile who studied at the Sorbonne in Paris, but she continued to live in Britain despite its relative lack of love for graphic novels. Photo: AFP

Britain's Posy Simmonds recently won the Grand Prix at the Angouleme comics festival in France, considered the world's most prestigious awards for graphic novelists.

A pioneer of the form, her gentle but spicy humour has long charmed the world of graphic novels, even if she is better known as a press cartoonist in Britain.