'Bédé' = manga (in popularity).

Animate more of them and get the animated versions widely dubbed into foreign languages and aired on foreign TV. Most manga fans in my experience get into it via anime, and if it's on TV that boosts exposure a lot.

You're probably right. I'd also say that some manga themes are more in touch with the US comic culture, especially the myth of the superhero. Asterix, for instance, relies far more on European cultural references to be understood by Americans. Many great BéDé series are also graphic novels, a genre that, for a long time, was not that popular in the States.
 

Sumeragi

Banned
And I meant "Elaborate on why you lump Japan, South Korea and Taiwan together as one market, and France, Belgium, Netherlands, Italy, Germany
and Luxemburg as one." The latter seems to be an arbitrary selection that
does not reflect the actual basic market* for Bédé if the former is
considered to be the basic one for manga.
I was just aiming at population size only, since I don't know the actual reader's market for BéDé. I was thinking that the total market would be smaller than the East Asian combination I mentioned.


Until recently, all cultural products from Japan were banned in South Korea, especially mangas (which gave more room for the local manhwa market, BTW).

That was the official stance. In reality there were enough bootleg copies to sustain interest in Japanese culture, and the lifting of the ban just made the reality official.


Huh?
I don't see anything about paper being wasted.
Do you mean "I don't see French publishers wasting paper (and money) on
colonial editions/shipping issues to the colonies" or "You imply that
publishing printed entertainment is a waste of paper and I disagree"?

Sort of hard for me to line it, out, but basically, I don't see the majority of people in the former colonies having the peace of mind to be reading comics, so the former option is the closer.
 
I realise you will now reveal yourself as French, Belgian or a long-time
resident and working in comics publishing, but...

No fear of that

You mean something like Spirou (the magazine)?

OK, it's nowhere close to a manga magazine in thickness, but as far as I
know cheap, weekly anthologies (with stories later collected in albums)
used to be the way Bédé were published (apparently this has not always
been the case for quite some time now).

So to an outsider taking a quick look it seems the first problem never
actually existed.
(While Spirou is aimed at ages 9 to 16, a quick skim implies a reasonable
width in subjects, even if trending towards comedy.)

I suspect you're about to claim that Viz indicates that UK comics were on a similar cusp?…

Less subversively, did Japanese comics become thicker because they were cheaper? Because they were on newsprint? Because Japanese industrial society introduced the consumerist post-Fordist bargain later than Western Europe?

In a 1960s where 1968 doesn't happen, or the workers come in and are crushed in fire and blood, are there thick French language comics to provide a world of fantasy for a completely demobilised proletariat?

yours,
Sam R.
 
Not a bad idea - the events of the 60s leading to different cultural trends and modes.. would francophilia be more common, not just an 'artsy folks' stuff...
 
Bédé all my youth. The the smurfs, Tintin, Lucky Luke, Yoko Tsuno...
Well manga in belgium aren't cheaper then a bédé but I suposse it depend of the country.
 
Animate more of them and get the animated versions widely dubbed into foreign languages and aired on foreign TV.
A lot of them have been animated (and dubbed) and there are also (just
as with anime/manga) plenty which are animation-only or animation-first.
It’s just that they run into the issue of not being cultural different enough
mentioned above.
Quick, without using anything but memory and YouTube clips, where are
the following cartoons, or their original comics/books, from?
6teen
A.T.O.M.
Barbapapa
Braceface
Code Lyoko
Danger Mouse
Doctor Snuggles
Fanboy and Chum Chum
Inspector Gadget
Martin Mystery
The Mighty Bee
Monster Buster Club
Oban Star-Racers
Planet Sketch
Rocket Power
The Smurfs
The Snorks
Total Drama Island
Totally Spies!
W.I.T.C.H.

(Yes, I realise that no sensible person has seen, read about or cares
about all of these.)

Sort of hard for me to line it, out, but basically, I don't see the majority of people in the former colonies having the peace of mind to be reading comics,
Peace of mind? Why?
The majority being comics readers? No, probably not.
But more of them? Sure why not, considering that the subject is “Getting
more people to read Francophone comics”.
And if all Japanese speakers are counted as the manga market, then
surely all French speakers should count as the market for French comics.

I suspect you're about to claim that Viz indicates that UK comics were on a similar cusp?…
No, just pointing out that "What Franco-Belgian comics need is cheap,
weekly anthologies" comes across as similar to "You know what would
save the US comics market? Each series published individually in monthly
issues of about 30 pages and sold in specialty shops."

If I were going to pick a UK comics magazine to use as an indication of
their imminent ascent to world domination, I'd pick 2000 AD.
I would also like to point out that cheap, weekly anthologies also used
to be the British way (Valiant, Eagle, Tammy, Misty etc.) and that like
Franco-Belgian comics they did reach other parts of Europe - at the very
least Netherlands and Scandinavia.

As far as I know, Japanese comics magazines started out pretty thick -
Shonen Magazine, the first comics-only weekly apparently reached 300
pages pretty soon after starting.
The British ones were also on newsprint. (Haven’t seen any old issues of
Spirou, Pilote or other Franco-Belgians, so I don’t know if they were as
well.)
 

Sumeragi

Banned

Peace of mind? Why?
The majority being comics readers? No, probably not.
But more of them? Sure why not, considering that the subject is “Getting
more people to read Francophone comics”.
And if all Japanese speakers are counted as the manga market, then
surely all French speakers should count as the market for French comics.

Wait, I was talking about why Bédé was not popular in OTL. Really, stop taking my posts out of context.
 
Wait, I was talking about why Bédé was not popular in OTL.
And I am not convinced that "not popular in OTL" is an accurate
description of Bédé.

"Not currently as popular as manga", sure, but we're talking about one of
the three major "schools" of comics, one that has been exported,
translated and internationally popular long before manga. It's not exactly
obscure-language comics catering only to connoisseurs even in their
native country.
"Not as popular in the US" is also true, but how to change that is what
we're supposed to discuss.
"Not as popular worldwide", separate from "not currently" is less certain
as the number of countries published/distributed in seems a better
measure than said countries' total population and until the manga boom
that appears to have favoured Bédé.
(I'm pretty sure the numbers on international distribution manga vs. BD
has been compiled and can be found somewhere on the web. In French,
presumably.)

By the way, googling African comics gets things like this:
The implication being the French BD industry had an umbrella big enough for Francophone African artists in ways I doubt Britain would or could. Add to the mix the lucrative economics of still dependent former colonies and France’s eagerness to stay engaged with them by creating new avenues for cultural exchange and cooperation, one could see how funding and promoting comics was therefore a win-win situation for both sides.

(Edited to add additional extra space, so as to not give the impression
that the sentence below is in any logical way connected to the quote
above.)

I think we can/should go back to "If Napoleon wins, both Tezuka and Kirby
are butterflied away..." now. :D
 
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