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I didn't know Franco-Belgian comics were so popular outside of french-speaking countries. IMO here are the main differences between Franco-Belgian and American
by gettodachoppa 3y ago
I didn't know Franco-Belgian comics were so popular outside of french-speaking countries.
IMO here are the main differences between Franco-Belgian and American comics:
1. not a single comic (at least the ones written before the Marvel movies began dominating the culture) is about superheroes. Every protagonist is a normal person, though sometimes extremely competent. This results in much more variety in the industry.
I'm not sure why they didn't even try to copy the American model if only for business reasons, but I'm thankful for it.
2. Each comic usually gets a single 50-page issue per year. (Seriously, there's a series I've been reading since I was 8, and you can marathon it in a few sittings.) I think this reduces the amount of "filler issues" or low quality churn, as the author has lots of time to get things right.
3. Most of the time the comics are written by the same author, usually the creator of the characters. They're not getting pimped out to every author out there for a run. It makes things more cohesive IMO.
My favorite series is Thorgal, by the author of XIII and Largo Winch. It's a fantasy series set at the time of the vikings, with light sci-fi and magical elements. Think of it like Conan but with a non-violent hero. Read issue 9, The Archers, for an standalone story that can give you an idea of what it's like before you commit. It's been running since the 80s, but once the author retired a decade or so ago, some younger guy took over the writing, and you can see the quality of the writing drop off, so I never kept up. But you got 30 years worth of good books, about 35 issues IIRC.
- jacquesm 3y ago> Every protagonist is a normal person, though sometimes extremely competent. Or extremely incompetent! Gaston LaGaffe springs to mind, it's one of the most endearing and nice comics that I've had the pleasure to read. And in a way Asterix is a superhero. What strikes me about European comics from that era is that they are in general much more interesting culturally.
- matthewaveryusa 3y agoasterix heros are kind of brilliant like that. asterix is like superman but superman has superpowers that can be thwarted by kryptonite while asterix is simply the cleverest gauleois that makes the most out of getafix’s potion (wait, get a fix?? is that a pun I just discovered after 20 years?) On the other hand obelix is a big dummy that always has the potion superpowers (by virtue of falling in a coldron of it when he was young) and is terrible at using his superpowers without the help of the cunning asterix.
- srean 3y ago> wait, get a fix?? is that a pun I just discovered after 20 years? You must be kidding ! Readymix just doesnt cut it. My favourites are dubbelosix, squareonthehypothenus and dogmatix.
- andrepd 3y agoDogmatix is an especially brilliant one, since the original is Idéafix (stubborn, single-minded, literally "of fixed ideas"), and the translation not only manages to preserve that meaning but also add "Dog" to it :)
- srean 3y agoExactly! The translators did such a fantastic job over all. I would have imagined that kind of humor to be untranslatable.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- poizan42 3y agoThe original name would work in English too though. In the Danish translation the dog is is just idéfix which works just as well in Danish.
- 3y ago
- vidarh 3y agoGaston LaGaffe is finally available in English as Gomer Goof for those who can't read French (or any of the many other languages, including minor ones like Norwegian, who got translations long before English)
- Tuna-Fish 3y agoThe comics code authority neutered American comics for 4 decades. It's only when its grip started faltering that American comics got interesting again. There are basically no European comics from the silver age period that wouldn't violate the CCA code in some way. American comics were samey precisely because the formulaic stories they told were basically the only ones that were allowed.
- OnlyMortal 3y agoIn the UK, Kaufje (TinTin), Asterix and Suske & Wiske (Janet & John) are well known So is the little rabbit thing I forget the name of. They are predominantly children’s books, of course. Now… Rooi Oortjes isn’t known.
- moomin 3y agoAnd The Smurfs.
- murphyslaw 3y agoClose, close... It's "Kuifje" and Rooie Oortjes" (Red Ears). I can't figure out the rabbit one you mention?
- chris_wot 3y agoMiffy.
- OnlyMortal 3y agoKonijntje in Dutch, if memory serves.
- nomercy400 3y agoNijntje
- OnlyMortal 3y agoDamn. My memory fails me again!
- tmtvl 3y agoI'm probably mistaken, but do you mean Marsupilami when you say "little rabbit thing"?
- trwired 3y ago> not a single comic (at least the ones written before the Marvel movies began dominating the culture) is about superheroes I would argue that Rork - one of my favorite Franco-Belgian comic characters - counts as one. He would not feel very out of place at DC's Vertigo as Constantine's colleague of sorts. And then there are Asterix and his friend Obelix, who having access to powers unavailable to regular humans, go around solving problems by punching people particularly hard - just like a regular Marvel/DC character would. ;)
- pyb 3y agoRegarding 2., in the 1950-70s, these comics used to be published in weekly magazines first, and only published as albums a bit later.
- brazzy 3y ago> not a single comic (at least the ones written before the Marvel movies began dominating the culture) is about superheroes. Um... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superdupont https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superdupont
- senko 3y agoYou've proved the parent's general point. From that page: > It is a spoof of American super-hero comics that sends up French national attitudes.
- prmoustache 3y agoI never understood US obsession with people fighting in ugly pajamas.
- anthk 3y agoBecause all of them are metaphors of social and personal struggles, and Europe has the 90% of them solved.
- selimthegrim 3y agoYou might wanna ask the north part of Marseille about that at the moment
- prmoustache 3y ago> and Europe has the 90% of them solved. I highly doubt that.
- WitCanStain 3y agoCan you elaborate on the metaphors bit?
- anthk 3y agoX-Men: black people and minorities struggling for civil rights. Superman/Batman: Metaphor on politics. Control vs freedom. Spiderman: Corageous journalism can end crime. New Titans: Family issues thru generations, mostly.
- Tade0 3y agoThorgal was pretty big here in Poland because up until 2018 the illustrator was Grzegorz Rosiński, who is Polish. I remember Franco-Belgian comics being more popular around here - partly because those few American comics which you could see on store shelves usually contained a lot of gore, so they were appropriately labeled.
- ilkke 3y agoI have no source for this so anecdotal, but I read in some comic anthology that boycotting American superhero comics was an intentional act to preserve the local comics legacy. It didn't resist Manga equally well, though.
- jacquesm 3y agoNonsense, you could buy them but they were pretty boring and shallow compared to the French/Belgian/Dutch stuff.
- signal11 3y agoTintin and Asterix are pretty popular in the UK and India. Easily found in most bookshops. Beyond those series, it’s much harder to find other Franco-Belgian comics. Even the Adventures of Jo and Zette isn’t that well known. But Tintin and Asterix are very easily available. India has local language translations of Tintin and Asterix as well, example[1]. [1] https://duckduckgo.com/?q=tintin+bengali&t=fpas&iax=images&ia=images https://duckduckgo.com/?q=tintin+bengali&t=fpas&iax=images&i... Anecdotally the quality of the Asterix translations are pretty good, too, complete with the funny character names.
- chris_wot 3y agoDefinitely NOT scarce in Australia, though you won't find Tintin in Congo anywhere... in fact, even in the 1990s you couldn't find it.
- signal11 3y agoSorry, by “beyond those two” I meant “beyond Tintin and Asterix”, not “beyond the UK and India”. I’ve reworded my comment.
- z3phyr 3y agoI spent my recess in the school library reading Tintin and Asterix!
- wiether 3y agoI was born in northern France, spent my childhood reading "comics", visited the "comics museum" in Bruxelles multiple times and never heard of the Adventures of Jo and Zette before your comment. So I can understand why it's not well known in anglosaxon's countries.
- wsc981 3y agoI have found Blake & Mortimer [0] to also be a very interesting series. The graphical style is very similar to Tintin as the author (Edgar P Jacobs) worked together with Hergé in some capacity and later became a friend. --- [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blake_and_Mortimer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blake_and_Mortimer [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_P._Jacobs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_P._Jacobs
- barrkel 3y agoTintin is a superhero whose superpower is luck. It's hard to suspend disbelief when reading the stories without adding this pinch of salt, IMO.
- vintermann 3y agoFranco-belgian comics are popular everywhere except for the English-speaking world. It wasn't rare for a comic to be translated to a dozen languages, and English wasn't one of them. The really big ones (Asterix, the Smurfs, Tintin) of course exist in English, but they're not all that popular, especially in the US. Niche US comic book publishers like Fantasy Flight periodically try to market some of the less-known but good looking F-B comics, but they rarely have the commercial success to have a whole series translated. Franquin once made a joke about it, in one of the Marsupilami books there's a parodically evil American assassin who claims one if his victims was a Mr. Gagman who made the mistake of trying to introduce French comics to the US market. I think that to many Americans, Franco-Belgian comics code as "children's comics" due to the drawing style. But most of them are directed at teens or older, just like US superhero comics.
- AugieDB 3y agoSadly, they're not popular in the U.S., but I love them. I switched my comics reading habit after nearly 30 years to European comics and haven't looked back. I prefer Asterix over Tintin, but I think reading Tintin with some of the historical background in mind might help. One of these days... For anyone in North America looking for European comics to read, I review them at PipelineComics.com - there's something in European comics for everyone, from humor to action to drama and everything else.
- Georgelemental 3y agoAsterix is more aimed at children, compared to Tintin. Also, one of the best/funniest parts of Asterix is the constant wordplay, which often does not translate well (though the translators do try).