Our beloved funnybooks continue their march into the respectable pages of mainstream media with even the Economist providing coverage. Actually kudos to the Economist for not only discussing comics and graphic novels but for discussing the French market, mentioning La Face Karchée de Sarkozy (a satire on one of the likely candidates for next year’s presidential elections in la belle France) and mentioning how different the cultural attitude to comics is in France, with BD books frequently claiming several spots in the national bestsellers list.
Alas, that isn’t something that usually happens in the UK, although SF&F novels very often claim top spots in the national bestsellers lists – of course, the more snobbish commentators simply ignore this fact and continue to paint the genre as a niche market for a few people (because obviously books make it to the number 1 spot on the Times bestseller list if they only appeal to a few real-ale drinking blokes…sigh) which does make me wonder what chance comics have with that mentality. Although rather than being discouraged I suppose I should be cheered that journals like the Economist are indeed discussing the genre. Benoît Mouchart of the famed Angoulême BD festival explained:
“The BD is not a genre, like science fiction or the thriller. It is a real form of artistic and literary expression, like the cinema or the novel.”
Of course France again has a very strong indigenous cinema industry compared to the UK, although on the novel front I suspect we more than hold our own with a very vibrant mix of established and new authors. In the comics field as well we have some of the best talent working on the world stage of comics, with writers and artists who are in demand not just here but with major comics publishers abroad and yet still the biz struggles to gain that respectability and cultural acceptance here that the French have given. But with more and more quality graphic novels being picked up and discussed in the mainstream media as well as the specialist press perhaps things are slowly, slowly changing. All the more reason to keep discussing good work then!
One thing I did notice though was that the Economist article didn’t look at the down side of comics publishing in France. It rightly talked about the huge numbers of titles being printed there in recent years, but it didn’t discuss the fact that this avalanche of new titles is actually causing huge problems for creators trying to get their work noticed among so many (I know of one UK creator who struggled to get his work noticed there, despite being very famous), for booksellers who struggle to select new books and display them (because quite simply no bookseller can stock every book and give each one a prominent spot to give it a chance, especially when another slew of new ones is coming next week) and confused readers who either can’t keep up with what is coming out or find it when it does. It is almost like the housing market here where commentators keep saying, this bubble has to burst, it can’t keep going this way and yet so far it is. While it is terrific to see a lot of new material coming out in a comics-loving country it is also important to be aware that too much of a good thing can also be pretty bad. Hmmm, I’ve just realised I’m starting to sound like the comics version of Goldilocks: these sales and cultural acceptance are too low, these sales and cultural acceptance are too high – oh, these comics sales and cultural acceptance are just right…
Wed, Dec 20, 2006
Comics and cartoons