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Am I to understand from this that the New York Times (and perhaps the bien pensant in the US) consider mere "comic books" some sort of gutter culture? My last
by jgrahamc 5y ago
Am I to understand from this that the New York Times (and perhaps the bien pensant in the US) consider mere "comic books" some sort of gutter culture?
My last trip to Paris I spent a long time in these "comic book" stores. They are absolute goldmines with passionate and knowledgeable staff and incredible selections.
- imperio59 5y agoFrance has a long tradition of the "BD" (Bande Dessine = Comic Books) and a thriving community of illustrators and writers who make them. There are many great series which a lot of us French kids grew up with who had pretty intricate plots and were very well crafted. I agree that sneering at Comic books as "not the culture we wanted" is BS. Culture is culture. French and Belgian comic books like "Asterix et les Gaulois" or "Tintin" or "Gaston La Gaffe" etc... are great works of comedy and art just like anything else.
- rchaud 5y agoFrom the article, it doesn't seem like the money is going towards French + Belgian comics either. I am not French, but Asterix and Tintin comics were widely sold in translated versions in my country and across the world. But mine was also the pre-Internet era, where we'd spend small fortunes on comics and magazines because we had nothing to offset the boredom. With always-on Internet, that's just not a reality now.
- dfxm12 5y agoIs the money going to French bookstores, though?
- Isamu 5y agoMoebius, of course. Right now I really love PTSD by Guillaume Singelin.
- julienfr112 5y agoYoung french people are not buying "BD Franco-Belge", but mangas.
- mtts 5y agoAccording to the article they’re not buying the indeed fantastic French “BD” comic books but manga.
- ithkuil 5y agoAre you insinuating that manga is not culture?
- dfxm12 5y agoThey're insinuating manga is not French culture.
- mcguire 5y agoThat's not bad either, unless they're under the weird delusion that the only valid culture in France is French culture. (I personally find manga to be excessively drawn-out, even more than American comics, seemingly in order to sell more books. But that's me.)
- bsder 5y agoThis is as old as the medium. Dickens was paid by the word. This is why "Tale of Two Cities" is a wonderful book with a gigantic pile of garbage in the middle. (To be fair: The middle of "Tale of Two Cities" has some of my favorite scenes, but, boy, howdy, could it use an editor to chop out about 2/3 of it)
- rootsudo 5y agoManga is very good nowadays, I don't blame the kids. Go with what's in. It's culture.
- _rpd 5y agoI think the hope was that the money would be used to support local cultural content/events since people in those enterprises have been hard hit by the COVID crisis.
- duxup 5y agoThe impression I got from the article was that the author described comic books as separate from "highbrow arts"... but beyond that I got no impression of any of "gutter culture" implications. I honestly just thought of it as an interesting article about what happens when you do the thing they describe. Not any particular judgment.
- realo 5y agoThere is no reason for the NYT snobism. Americans also make great « Comic book » art. Here is an example: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maus https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maus Yes… this is definitely art in my book.
- 908B64B197 5y agoIt's a little late to stop considering comic books as a part of French culture. Asterix has been sold worldwide to 350 millions copies. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asterix https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asterix https://www.hoodedutilitarian.com/2014/03/asterix-and-the-bland-sequel/ https://www.hoodedutilitarian.com/2014/03/asterix-and-the-bl... I guess they are unhappy about teens buying manga? Real question is why French comic book artist aren't selling in Japan? There's a lot of Japanese tourists in France, that doesn't sound too far-fetched.