Conversational Euro-Comics: Is There Trouble Coming To The French Market?

By Bart Beaty

I spent last week in Paris, where I was giving a lecture to the French about the changing nature of the French comics market. I was politely received. But while I was there I met with a few cartoonists, all of whom kept suggesting to me the same thing: there's big trouble brewing in the French comics industry.

This isn't exactly news. At Angouleme this year, the Pirates Litteraires (the counter-Festival organized by L'Association, Cornelius, Fremok and others) ran a discussion explicitly asking if there was a crisis in the contemporary comics market, and artists have been hinting at problems for some time. But the sense of doom is becoming palpable, even if heads aren't exactly rolling.

What's happening? And what can we learn from it?

1. Take a look at these numbers. In 1995 there were 481 comic books of all types released in France, or just under ten per week. Today I received an email from an online BD merchant listing the 40 new titles available this week. And, actually, it's a slow week. In 2005, 2701 comic books were released in France, or more than 50 per week.

Now, 1995 was the height (depth?) of the last big BD bust, and 2005 the height of the newest production boom, but the disparity is disturbing. The one refrain I hear over and over from French cartoonists is this: "Your book has one week to make an impression, then it's swept aside for the next week's books." The sheer quantity of material being published these days (much of it manga, of course) has meant that even books from cartoonists with prominent names struggle for traction in a saturated market.

Walking through the local FNAC last week I noted two books that were the exceptions. Huge piles of Tardi's L'Etrangleur (now collected in album form from Casterman) filled the aisles, and even larger stacks of the 49th Spirou book were by the cash. The biggest names (whether artists or characters) can still get great promotion (there were enormous Spirou a Tokyo billboards throughout the metro stations too). Everyone else? They should perhaps consider writing Spirou. There seems to be money in it!


North American cartoonists reading this are probably thinking: "Welcome to our world." Have you seen a Diamond catalogue? Fifty comics is a slow week. And a week's worth of bookstore exposure? French books get bookstore exposure for a whole week? Indeed, the French market might still look pretty good in comparison. The fact remains that the comics buying dollar is now split 2701 ways, and there are more and more publishers jumping on the bandwagon every day. When your name is Tardi, or Herge -- whose books are back on the bestseller lists thanks to a joint effort with the daily newspaper, Figaro -- there is some question about the ability to carry on.

2. A second problem is more markedly corporate, namely the increasing conglomeration of publishers. Media-Participations, which now owns three different comic book publishing companies (Dargaud, Dupuis, Lombard) has recently run into tremendous opposition from within its own ranks when the editor-in-chief was let go, and a clearer focus on the bottom line installed. All I hear from Dupuis-published cartoonists are horror stories about a publisher primarily concerned with moving units, and whose corporate logic is destroying the proud traditions of a once-great publishing house, and the saga Dupuis-Media Participations has played out all year in a very public fashion.

The increasing corporatization of the field, which was, in any way, already highly corporate, may have serious long-term repercussions. The bigger the conglomerate (and Media-Participations is certainly huge, as is Rizzoli-Corriere-della Sera, owners of Casterman), the less likely they seem to be interested in courting the specialist stores that contribute to the great diversity of French comics production. Certainly, it is much easier to deal with several enormous accounts (FNAC, Virgin Megastore, Leclerc, Amazon.fr) than it is with hundreds of tiny shops. But if those shops go, wither the industry?

In Jade 5635U, a new humor anthology from Six pieds sous terre, there is a marvelous two-page strip comparing BD shopping at the megastore to ordering food at McDonald's (indeed, the piece was so witty that I not only forgot to buy a copy of the actual magazine but have also forgotten the cartoonist's name! Help!). This gag cut right to the heart of the issue of the need to protect what is called biblio-diversity. Further, because the so-called Jack Lang law in France makes it illegal to discount the price of books, small stores are able to compete head to head with the biggest players on issues like price. Nonetheless, the chains have obvious and enormous advantages relating to marketing, centralized ordering, and the support offered by publishers who may prefer the chains.

What will happen when there are only McDonald's left? Sure, you can order most comics from Amazon, but what if you no longer even know anything about the new comics that are available? I follow the French comics market more closely than most, and I missed one of the Donjon books on three separate trips to France -- and I follow that series!

Right now, North American publishers are rushing into the bookstore market at breakneck speed. More power to them. I argued for years on message boards and mailing lists that they should, and some of today's keenest exponents were yesterday's wariest cynics. It is great to see the switch. But when manga publishers start pulling titles out of the comic store market I start to wonder when North American publishers will similarly start to alienate the base that nurtured them, and I wonder what effect that will have.


3. The big problem of conglomeration is that it leads to over-production, making it harder for individual artists to make a living. The other problem is that it stifles the industry by stifling creativity.

After a period of tremendous experimentation and growth in the 1970s, the 1980s witnessed a devastating retrenchment, where publishers chased best-sellers by duplicating what they've always done. Very little of the resulting work was worth remembering, and the industry collapsed. It was revived by new voices -- the L'Association generation of small press artists and the manga invasion.

But more and more I hear from artists who meet tremendous resistance to change from the established houses. The manga generation wants longer stories? I'm sorry, we do 46-page albums here. Black and white is ok? I'm sorry, our albums are always full-color; it's a tradition. You have an interesting new take on storytelling? I'm sorry, Spirou and Fantasio are busy in Tokyo. Perhaps we're primed for the next big generational shift in comics, with this generation's L'Asso equivalents prepping their work in their ateliers. But after a long period of aesthetic expansion, there's a conservative tone starting to seep back in to things at the moment.

I can't shake the feeling that we're looking at the end of something. The collapse hasn't occurred. It may not even occur. There is no crisis. Yet. But the pieces are arranged in an alarming manner. We're peering over the precipice and something suddenly could push the industry over again. I'm not saying that it definitely will happen, but when I read bestseller lists filled with 75-year-old comics and the 49th and 50th volumes of the adventures of beloved characters I get this funny feeling in the pit of my stomach.

*****

Bart Beaty is the author of December's Unpopular Culture: Transforming the European Comic Book in the 1990s (University of Toronto Press), and this site's "Conversational Euro-Comics" column.
 
posted 2:52 am PST | Permalink
 

---

 
Daily Blog Archives
November 2019
October 2019
September 2019
August 2019
July 2019
 
Full Archives