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In France, Comic Books Are Serious Business (nytimes.com)
It's a big year for comic book anniversaries. Batman's 80th is this year, and Asterix is turning 60. But at the Angouleme International Comics Festival in France, which finished on Sunday, there was a sense that the form's best days may be yet to come -- in the French-speaking world, at least. From a report: "It's a kind of golden age," said Jean-Luc Fromental, a comic book author who also runs a graphic-novel imprint for the publisher Denoel. "There has never been so much talent. There have never been so many interesting books published."
There are now more comic books published annually in France and Belgium than ever before, according to the festival's artistic director, Stephane Beaujean. "The market has risen from 700 books per year in the 1990s to 5,000 this year," he said in an interview. "I don't know any cultural industry which has had that kind of increase." Research by the market research company GfK, released to coincide with the festival, showed that turnover in the comic book industry in those two countries alone reached 510 million euros, or around $580 million, in 2018.
The bumper year in France and Belgium contrasts with a mixed situation worldwide. Comichron, a website that reports on comic book sales in the United States, where the market is worth around $1 billion, says that sales there are declining. But in terms of respect and recognition, comics are on the way up.
There are now more comic books published annually in France and Belgium than ever before, according to the festival's artistic director, Stephane Beaujean. "The market has risen from 700 books per year in the 1990s to 5,000 this year," he said in an interview. "I don't know any cultural industry which has had that kind of increase." Research by the market research company GfK, released to coincide with the festival, showed that turnover in the comic book industry in those two countries alone reached 510 million euros, or around $580 million, in 2018.
The bumper year in France and Belgium contrasts with a mixed situation worldwide. Comichron, a website that reports on comic book sales in the United States, where the market is worth around $1 billion, says that sales there are declining. But in terms of respect and recognition, comics are on the way up.
"I don't know any cultural industry which has had that kind of increase."
Video games. You're welcome.
The wrong comic can be deadly serious these days.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
I've been raised on Franco-Belgian comics (Belgium is a comics powerhouse, too — that’s where Tintin comes from, after all), and I can trace back the inspiration of many movies to those Franco-Belgian comics; Star Wars being the best known example (and the Star Wars designers admit having the whole Valérian comics collection)
No further comment required.
French/Belgian comics "feel" different from American ones, and it's a whole different cultural thing. Manga for example is still growing in the US, even if traditional superhero comics are not, and I'd argue French/Belgian ones are more similar to manga. It's just a medium to communicate a story, whereas in the US "comics" are traditionally all about superheros (at least that's my knowledge of US comics).
n/t
I see a movement in using other styles, asking different pencillers and scenarists for classics like Spike and Suzy, Jethro, the Red Knight, Kiekeboe, and probably others I don't buy. It's a movement I have also seen with US Comics. I have almost everything from the X-Men between 1963 and 2003, and in the nineties there was a movement to break out of the classical drawing styles. I see the same here. Also, more dark and alternative scenarios. It is something that I welcome, and which indeed made me buy new comics.
We live in a time of abundance of inspiration. People are able to discover interests that 30 years ago you'd have to have been lucky to stumble upon randomly. Thanks to the internet and, dare I say it, even memes, people get first contact encounters with so many possible hobbies these days.
So there are many more artists and considering publishing has gotten way easier even in print, the times are good for comics above and beyond mainstream.
The challenge for the consumer is to find the right artist/genre/story. I have never gotten into Marvel and fallen out of anime and manga because at some point because I got used to the cliches and tropes and it didn't hold any interest for me. I have similar issues with literature.
Even in today's society, where everything can be found in a database, we still lhaven't evolved beyond tags and with tags it's important that other people tag something the way you would.
And there lies my issue. Goodreads has yet to pique my interest in a book that then proves to be to my taste. All these "You've liked that so you might also like these" have yet to prove effective.
I just don't know where to find more of what I loved. Even going into the fan communities seems pointless because people usually just don't think like me.
join the movement.
What's this nerd subject doing on this serious, political website! >:-(
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
In America, the comic book majors essentially fired their customers. They are now making books that appeal to a social justice audience and dumping their old audience of white males. It's causing a lot of disruption as the whites don't like their heroes being diversified. It's canon that Captain America is a Nazi and was all along. A nice fist to the face of the old fascist fanbase, that was.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
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It used to be possible to go for a week or two on the Internet without being lectured by the Social Police. Now you'd be lucky to go a day without people tripping over themselves to be offended at something—anything.
You know the type. We all do. You'd rather have your teeth filed down to nubs than be cornered by one at a party. These preachy, bloviating, pharisaic shit-heads bristle at the thought of lecturing you on morality, usually with the help of a Tumblr post to enumerate all the things you're doing wrong and why you should feel like an asshole every waking second of your life.
You don't need to ask them for their opinion because they'll give it to you whether you want it or not. The periodicity of how often these whiners find something to be outraged at is regular enough for scientists to start replacing atomic clocks. The cause of all the social outrage this time? A variant—read: optional—comic book cover:
Hey here's an idea: don't like something?
DON'T BUY IT.
If you don't like something, vote with your dollars by not buying it. Companies will hear your message loud and clear and stop making content that offends you. End of controversy, right? Of course not.
I don't believe for a minute that the most vocal critics of this cover were ever intending on buying this comic (or any other) in the first place. And it's likely that this was a calculated move by Marvel to drum up controversy and sales. But like all great non-issues, this controversy is blown way out of proportion by idiots who aren't familiar with the many borderline-erotic poses Spider-Man has had over the years. Here are the two covers superimposed (Spider-Woman scaled and rotated):
J. Scott Campbell's cover with identical pose.
And here are three more instances where Spider-Man is crawling in a similar pose, though the ones on the left and right don't give Spider-Man as much of a bubble-butt as J. Scott Campbell's rendition in the middle:
What critics of this cover aren't willing to acknowledge is that art evolves and reflects the culture we live in, every bit as much as music, fashion and even food. You can see trends in fashion depicted on the pages of comic books because many artists draw inspiration from real life. Steve Ditko made the print (above, right) during the Silver Age of comic books in the 50s/60s, when giant bubble butts weren't in vogue, whereas Campbell's cover came out when Mystikal's "Danger" was on the top Bill Board chart. And it's plausible that the artist, Milo Manara, is influenced by pop culture just as much–if not more–than he influences it himself. The variant cover can even be seen as a commentary on current pop culture trends, or at least a reflection of it. It's telling that people are outraged by the supposed sexualization of a fictional character which, as many have pointed out, closely mirrors Nicki Minaj in her Anaconda video:
Nothing wrong with either of these.
The criticism that Milo
"US comic fan utterly amazed at the concept of a comic without superheroes."
"Are US marvel and DC fans finally discovering how shitty, bland, boring, overpriced and repetitive their favorite comics are?"
"DC comic readers head explodes from overload after catching glimpse of Franco-Belgian hardcover by Vance & van Hamme"
"Marvel enthusiast dies of heart attack and endorphine overdose after repeatedly masturbating to French Milo Manara album."
"US Superhero fan sells all belongings, moves to southern Europe after enchanting read of Coseys "A trip to Italy" comic"
"Euro comic shipment arrives at US borders. Marvel & DC stock plummets."
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
For the last 5 years, Marvel Comics has been destroying itself by going full SJW retard. They've done everything they can to directly insult and antagonize the original comic fans They drove out anyone who wasn't far left and began hiring SJW types off twitter that knew nothing of comics or cared for comics. These new people hijacked the original characters and started forcing SJW propaganda into every single comic until everything became toxic. Last year, they actually started calling the old fans Alt-Right Nazis for no reason. It's crazy. Iceman became a gay parody of what actual gays act like. Captain America is now permanently a Nazi. Yes, he was always a Nazi sleeper agent and there will be no retcons. Republicans are now Nazis. Conservatives are now rabid communists that hate Democracy and equality. The new diversity heroes are so poorly written that it's an endless April fools joke.
I don't even pirate their crap any more. It's European graphic novels and manga now for me.
So: Less than than the revenue from one Marvel movie.
The likes of Fantagraphics have been pushing Euro-style "serious" comics for decades, and they only stay afloat by publishing porn.
I still have a stack of these I bought when I lived in Belgium in the early 80s. I wonder if they are worth anything.
Transgender furry narratives are my escapism ...
you Insensitive Clod!
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