A group of international comics publishing professionals, colleagues, and friends of the late Sophie Castille, who died unexpectedly in July, have organized a memorial gathering to pay tribute to her memory and career during the Frankfurt Book Fair.
Castille was the international rights director and v-p, licensing of Mediatoon, and cofounder of Europe Comics, a consortium of European comics publishers launched in 2015 that sells digital editions of European comics in English translation, in addition to offering rights to North American publishers. Her work with Europe Comics has been directly influential in the growth and popularity of graphic novels in the North American comics market.
Europe Comics editorial and marketing representative Nazeli Kyuregyan-Baron, who worked alongside Castille at the consortium, says the group plans to celebrate Castille’s life when her friends and colleagues gather during the Frankfurt Book Fair. The group, which calls itself “The Comics World of Sophie,” has organized “Remembering Sophie in Frankfurt,” which Kyuregyan-Baron describes as “a more casual get together,” to be held today, “in a beautiful literary venue,” with a crowd of publishers from around the world in attendance. The event, which is by invitation only, will take place tonight at Restaurant Goldmund in the Literaturhaus.
The group has also established a Virtual Memory Wall (www.inmemori.com/scastille). Kyuregyan-Baron says that the online memorial site is now filled with moving tributes to Castille from members of the comics publishing industry, personal friends, family, and “an impressive array of people from four continents, publishers, creators, festival organizers, journalists, and other professionals.”
