[jgrahamc]

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]

France 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]

From 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]

Is the money going to French bookstores, though?

[Isamu]

Moebius, of course.

Right now I really love PTSD by Guillaume Singelin.

[julienfr112]

Young french people are not buying "BD Franco-Belge", but mangas.

[908B64B197]

It'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://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.

[mtts]

According to the article they’re not buying the indeed fantastic French “BD” comic books but manga.

[rootsudo]

Manga is very good nowadays, I don't blame the kids. Go with what's in. It's culture.

[_rpd]

I 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.

[dfxm12]

Where are they buying the books? (sorry if the article mentions this, it's paywalled)

If it's independent stores, then I think that qualifies as a local enterprise hit hard by COVID, and fits in the spirit of the scheme, maybe even national bookstores can be considered thusly, too.

If they can give the money to Amazon, though, then maybe there's an issue.

[mcguire]

That'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]

This 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)

[codyswann]

More specifically, the article points out the money was supposed to be used to expose the kids to culture that they're not already exposed to. Instead, they're using it to buy more of the culture (magna) that they're already buying anyway.

[ithkuil]

Are you insinuating that manga is not culture?

[dfxm12]

They're insinuating manga is not French culture.

[duxup]

The 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]

There 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

Yes… this is definitely art in my book.