The Origin of the Popularity of Manga in France

When the anime adaptation of Radiant was announced it was quite a novel and perhaps surprising piece of news for many anime fans. It was not the first time a French work was adapted into anime, French and many foreign works were animated by Japanese studios in the 70s and 80s. However, it was the first time for a manfra. 

Manfra is the term used to refer to French comics inspired by Japanese manga and there are many of them published in France alongside the vast amount of translated Japanese manga series that are released in the country.  Manga sales in France have been in steadily growing since the start of the century. but what is the reason for this? I will explore this in this second video of a series about comics and animation from France. 

Bravest Journey, A French comic heavily influenced by Japanese manga style

One of the reasons manga could find such a fertile ground for fans was because comics have had a deep history in France. Part of this history was how comics were accepted as a form of storytelling that not only had popular cultural value but also value as a piece of literature. In order to see how this happened we have to start with the rise of bande dessinees or comics in France and Belgium.

Bande dessinees popularity in France was like a wave with its up and downs through the 20th century. However, it gradually managed to make a lasting impression in the French imagination and successfully become a cultural element that was worth protection by the authorities. Support for the industry coming in the 80s helped the industry that had been on a high but was on a period of transition, to stabilize in the short term and thrive in the long term. The acceptance of comics by the French did make it prime market for the series coming from Japan and the spread of anime in France was the initial seed for the emergence of a thriving manga market. 

France is not stranger to animation, in fact notable Frenchmen were pioneers in the art form of animation. However,  what Japan grew to thrive from the 70s onwards was a sort of animation that was not that represented inside France. TV animated series of various series based on western works started to be animated by Japan producers and shown back in France, and since these shows were relatively cheap and well done it meant local alternatives struggled to compete.  

Amongst such series in the late 70s and early 80s were Albator, Tom Sawyer, Cobra and many others. Spearheading the spread of these series was the programing aimed children like Recre A2. Recre A2 was a weekly show that aired on Wednesday and it featured sketches in-between episodes of animated series or seitai series. More shows like it would emerge later on but the most popular and notable was Club Dorothee named after the presenter of the show. Club Dorothee that from the late 80s brought to French television many popular Japanese shows like Saint Seiya, Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z, Ranma 1/2, Sailor Moon and many more. 

The popularity of the anime series did not go unnoticed and a window of opportunity emerged in France for publishers of Bande Dessinees (French comics) but also other publishers to focus solely on manga to emerge. These publishers brought from Japan many titles and France soon stood out as a market for manga in Europe . At this time in the 90s, 2000s the Italian market was the biggest market when it came to the sheer number of Japanese titles licensed there. France was close behind, but what within the timeframe from late 2000s to now France overtook Italy and created a massive gap and firmly established itself as the biggest market for manga in Europe. 

The rise of France as comics market was driven by its cultural acceptance of comics as a respectful form of storytelling. it is referred to the ninth art. In recent times, comics have continued to grow in France, with manga being a great driver reason for that growth. It seems the generation that grew with anime in the 80s and 90s in French TV was cultivated back into anime fandom in the current animation boom. Naturally, the original work of many anime are manga series that see them turned into anime, but it seems increasingly French readers get into the manga before the anime. 

Manga sales have since the 2000s spiked in France, the increasing sales numbers have led to publishers expanding their portfolio of licensed works. The sale number have have become quite impressive even in comparison to sales in Japan in regards to some series. A natural result of the sales numbers has been publishers in France looking for authors be them Japanese or not, to draw series that they feel will be popular in France. In a quite interesting turn of events, some of those series gathered enough popularity in France to draw attention of publishers in Japan. So these series influenced by manga are published in France, but Japanese publishers pick them to publish them back in Japan. Some of notable series that made that journey are Lost Children and Outsiders and others. 

Status of The New Champion Series

It has been a few weeks since the series begun and all of them had a few chapters published in Champion Cross. 

I will analyse theirs number in Champion Cross and give some of my thoughts on the series so far. , but at the moment of writing these are the numbers and it might suggests which series will survive in the long term. Overall, I imagine all series will receive a promo in Champion Cross for volume releases which could help some to break out. 

Champion Cross - The future of Champion

Champion Cross is the new digital manga publication website of Akita Shoten that replaces Manga Cross. It is not only a replacement however, it is acts as a comprehensive digital platform that looks more like a version of Piccoma for Akita Shoten series. It demonstrates an ambitious and calculated action by Akita Shoten to expand its digital efforts. 

What is Piccoma?

Piccoma is a digital platform that has found massive success in Japan, especially due to Korean series. The platform acts as digital storefront with many offerings from Japanese series to Korean ones. However, its main success originates from its monetisation system. In the Piccoma system, chapters are published weekly but whilst people can read the first three or so chapter for free, after that there is a limit on chapters that can be read for free. However, the limit can be bypassed by waiting, if you can not wait, then you can simply pay. It is referred to the free if you wait monetisation model. It is a simple monetisation method but one that had proven successful in Korea where Kakao the organisation behind Piccoma made large profits  (Yecies and Shim, 2021).

The main benefits of the free if you wait monetisation model is that lowers the barrier for reading for people that are unsure if they want to pay and it gives the option to wait to continue reading. By giving the chance for people to read for free, readers can free trial a series and if they eventually are hooked and can not wait to read the next development they are likely to pay. It does mean that every user is not equal, because it allows for whaling as some people are likely to spend a lot if they have the disposable income to avoid waiting to read. On the other hand, some without the same amount of money to spend might wait and read the same chapters someone else paid to read for free. 

Champion Cross uses the same free if you wait monetisation model and the fact you can technically read everything for free is one of the main slogan used to promote the platform. To make it easier lets compare it to Manga Cross, in MC every series had its first three chapters available to read for free as well as the latest three or so chapters. The chapters in between the first few and the latest released chapters were not available to read on the website. Hence, a series like The Dangers in My Heart with over 100 chapters published had only six chapters available to read on the platform whilst the chapters in-between that a lot of chapters were inaccessible. Any new users that were interested in reading the series on the website would find that they could not read it there, instead they had to turn to the collected volumes either digitally or physical to continue reading. Moving users from MC to a platform to purchase a volume only serves to reduce the potential of that users making a purchase as they are likely to not bother doing it later. So as a result many potential people that would continue reading if those chapters were available read the free chapters but left it at that. 

In Champion Cross this issue was addressed by turning to a Piccoma inspired system. The first few chapters are free to read with the others being also free if you wait a day, if not you can use a ticket or pay for it. Immediately it addresses the question of middle chapters in Manga Cross that effectively forced people to turn to volumes, now they can stay in Champion Cross and read the whole series 'for free.' It takes away the likely failed incentive for users to buy volumes, and it monetises the series to create a new revenue stream for the digital platform. The potential revenue from the free if you wait system is likely to outweigh the amount from volume sales in the long run anyway, so even if it costs volume sales in the short term it is likely not going to impact the financials of the company substantially. 

What are these tickets that I keep mentioning? They are tickets that allow you to skip the wait, and they are not for sale but they can be earned through missions. Missions are like actions that if you complete, you gain a ticket, and they can include reading a chapter everyday, reading a series and leaving a like. It works as a interesting loop where people engaging with series in the platform are rewarded for continuing to do so. 

Missions

Another interesting feature that work to drive engagement is a daily gacha where a ticket can be gained, and two if you share it on X. It works to add an element of gamifying that platform, and these game like features are not by chance, they have a proven track record in marketing research for driving up engagement(itrián and Catalán, 2021). In engaging with the platform and reading titles, inevitably despite users being able to read for free, research on monetisation systems on users waiting does suggest many will spend to forego waiting (Raman and Leyton-Brown, 2024).

The daily gacha

Of course to engage users, it has to first have users. So what does it do to make join the platform? A newly registered users receives 10 tickets of the get go, and they can gain more tickets through completing tutorial missions that introduce them to the system and rewarded them for liking and sharing series. So, if a new users is hooked on as series they like with the tickets available to them they can read quite a few chapters. However, after they are hooked they are likely to fall into the gacha and mission loop and continue to engage with the platform. So the tutorial and initial user awards work alongside the mission system alongside the tickets to get people engaging with the platform with the ultimate goal of leading users to spending. It seems promising, and I believe it will be successful. 

Image taken from tutorial page that explains how the site works

So lets move on to the lineup since if the series are not good the readers will not bother. 

The main change of Champion Cross from Manga Cross is that it is no longer simply a digital platform for publishing series. It now includes all series currently published by Akita Shoten as well as some older titles. I had in a previous post mentioned the need for more resources and more series to be available in the digital platform and this is the best answer possible. Instead of pushing out a whole bunch of new series in a revamp, Akita Shoten made the best move possible which was to add series from many of its magazines as well as completed titles. So Manga Cross that had one or two series per day, now as Champion Cross has many series releasing new chapters everyday. In addition, there are many completed titles that can be fully read like the Baki prequels, Shuujin Riku, Beastars, Bachi Bachi and many others. It now has a lot to offer and many series for people to check out that makes it alongside all the features does make me confident that this is inevitably going to replace the manga magazines as it starts to bring more profits and the magazines less. 

You might have noticed that I did not say series from all their magazines and that is because series from Young Champion did not come to Champion Cross. It went instead to a platform that is exactly the same as Champion Cross but is called Young Champion Web. It is a peculiar move but is likely driven by the sexual nature of the content of most of the Young Champion series. Some Young Champion series that are more palpable for all ages are in Champion Cross, so I definitely believe that the adult content was the reason behind the split. 

There are other questions over the platform that I hope to explore in other posts. If you have any suggestions of things to talk about place them down in the comments down below

Reference - 

Bitrián, P., Buil, I. and Catalán, S., 2021. Enhancing user engagement: The role of gamification in mobile apps. Journal of Business Research, 132, pp.170-185.

Lundy, T., Raman, N., Fu, H. and Leyton-Brown, K., 2024, "Pay to (Not) Play: Monetizing Impatience in Mobile Games." Proceedings of the AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence 38(9), pp.9856-9864.

Yecies, B. and Shim, A.G., 2021. South Korea's webtooniverse and the digital comic revolution. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield.

Saint Seiya Next Dimension Ends after 18 years. New Heaven Arc Series Expected?

Anime and new series can be expected? 

Kurumada is finally finishing 'Saint Seiya Next Dimension' that began back in 2006 when the series first begun in Weekly Shonen Champion. After 18 years and 118 chapters, the sequel to the classic shonen series from the 80s will end. Lets go over its journey to Champion from Jump and a few interesting tidbits.

The original series 'Saint Seiya' was not published in Weekly Shonen Champion, it was instead serialised in Weekly Shonen Jump from 1985 to 1990. It was not Kurumada's first work, he was a known property for his previous work 'Ring ni Kakero'  at the time but it eventually became his most known work.

 The series itself is focused on knights (saints) that receives armors (called cloths) and that represent all sorts of constellation. The main cast are all bronze knights that fight for Athena, with Seiya the titular character having the Pegasus cloth. The first arc usually called the Galaxian Wars arc sets up the main cast and introduces the main tenets of the series. However, what everyone might know about the series likely comes from the second main arc the Sanctuary arc that was focuses on the Bronze knights having to overcome the Gold knights, that each represent a sign of the zodiac, within quite a limited timeframe. Considering that the Gold knights are supposed to be the strongest knights of Athena, you can see the challenge of the task and the stakes are high as well. 

The original anime series that aired through the late 80s, after the Sanctuary arc added an Asgard anime only arc then it covered the Poseidon arc, but it did not cover the Hades arc that wrapped up the original series. The Hades arc was later animated in the 2000s in a new anime series that finally saw that the entire original Saint Seiya series was completely animated. Later arcs did not seem to reach the same status as the Sanctuary arc which was so iconic that many casual fans believe it to be the end of the series.

The anime adaptation of the series made its way around the globe especially with dubbed versions. In my home country it was a popular show in the 90s and it is one of the few anime that my parents can recognise. It established strong multimedia presence especially internationally in Spanish speaking areas and in China as well that has meant that despite times of sparse animation projects, it has continued receiving games, figurines and other merchandise products.

After the original anime from the 80s and the manga series ended, the series entered a period of slumber in terms of new content. The slumber came to an end in the 2002 with the start of the anime series covering the Hades Arc, and the start of an all new manga series called 'Saint Seiya Episode G' however this time Kuramada was only overseeing it, handling the series was Megumu Okada in the magazine Champion Red. The series was a spin off series that acted as a prequel to the original series that focused on the gold knights. It was the first time Saint Seiya as a series was published in a magazine other than Jump and by a publisher other than Shueisha. The main driver behind the new series was Sawa the head editor in charge of the creation of Champion Red in 2002 that was familiar with Kurumada, who still had many ideas for Saint Seiya and was convinced to launch a spin off series in the magazine as one of the series for its starting lineup. 

Sawa eventually became the head editor of Weekly Shonen Champion in 2005 and not long after he took over the magazine together with Kurumada a sequel of the original Saint Seiya manga that had ended in 1990 that as we know is 'Saint Seiya Next Dimension Meio Shinwa' was launched. The series act as continuation of the Hades arc that ended in a cliffhanger per say. However, soon after its debut the series became a irregular series that was published chapters in batches that were referred as seasons. With the latest season, the manga officially ends with chapter 118 in a few days. 

118 chapters in 18 years is quite a slow pace, however this is likely due to Kuramada's other projects and many spin offs  that he at the very least act as overseer as the author of the original work. This include the continuation of 'Saint Seiya Episode G' that is currently on its second sequel with the title 'Saint Seiya Episode G Requiem'. Another series notable spin off series was 'Saint Seiya The Lost Canvas' that ran in Weekly Shonen Champion from 2006 to 2011. Shiori Teshirogi drew the series, and it was the only spin off series to be animated until' Saint Seiya Santia Sho' by Chimaki Kuori was in 2018. 

Two other spin offs started in recent years one is Saint Seiya Dark Wing by Kenji Sato and Shinshu Ueda that explores the isekai trend using Saint Seiya. The other is Rerise of Poseidon by Suda Tsunagami which mimics closely Kuramada artstyle, both are interesting projects for fans of the series. 

Champion spin offs of Saint Seiya

Saint Seiya Episode G Saga - 2002 - ongoing

Saint Seiya The Lost Canvas - 2006 - 2011

Saint Seiya Santia Sho - 2013 - 2021

Saint Seiya Dark Wing - 2020 - ongoing

Saint Seiya Rerise of Poseidon - 2022 - ongoing

Does the end of Saint Seiya Next Dimension spell the end of the series? 

The end of the Saint Seiya Next Dimension was expected so there was no surprise that this was the last season, but with the end many news are expected as anticipated by comments from Kuramada earlier in the year in a comment in Champion Red. It is his 50th anniversary as a manga author after all, so I do not believe anticipating announcements from his biggest ongoing project is too much . One such announcement is likely to be a new featuring the Heaven arc that involves the Gods in the Olympus against Athena. Notably the preview of the issue whilst it does say Saint Seiya Next Dimensino will be in the cover for its last chapter does not state anything about announcements, but we can only wait and see.  

Many rumours and insiders in the Saint Seiya community expect an announcement of an animation for Next Dimension to happen as well not necessarily in the upcoming issue but by the end of the year, and it would make a lot of sense alongside the release of a final edition which is marketed as the best edition with revision on cloth designs and text by Kuramada himself and to my knowledge it is the first time the original series was published by Akita Shoten. For potential new fans it is readily available for readers to read back to prepare for the animation of the direct sequel. 

An animation for Next Dimension by Toei has always been a question. It should not be forgotten that the series is a multimedia success that is featured prominently in their financial statements. It has been a series with great returns for Toei especially internationally despite the absence of many animation projects. The slow pace of release of the series might have been an impediment to an interest in animating it by the studio but with its completion the series can be animated without worry of running short on content due to releases. 

New Serialisation Round

 

A new serialisation round is starting in WSC and it is really the first real round under the new editor in chief Matsuyama.  There have been new series before this one namely the V tuber collab project called 'Shiranai Kenykuubu' or Shiraken for short and 'They want to Fill in the Holes' that began in issue 6 and 13 respectively, with the former seeing what seems to be a good levels of sales whilst the latter has not had a volume released yet.

Shiraken was likely planned before the editorial shakeup at the end of last year, so the first series of this new editorial makeup most likely was the romance comedy title 'They Want to Fill in the Holes.' The series seems quite to lean heavily on ecchi that seems a bit out of touch with what romcom audiences seem to favour at the moment, and even thought the art especially coloured does have a nice touch to it in my eyes, the series overall is quite bland.

Moving on to the actual topic of discussion, we have the upcoming new series round and the first one under the new editorial department. 

The first one is 'Mamori Kyoudai no Sahanji' by Kuranto Yukiaki and Itonoko already started and it is based on a oneshot of the same name that was published only a few months ago in issue 16. The fast turnaround to serialisation likely means it was a popular one-shot with readers. It is a comedy series focusing on three brothers with a focus on the youngest brother that is an ordinary high schooler whilst his older brothers, one is a popular comedian and the other a super idol. It does feel like it a series aimed at a female audience, in a way it reminds me of Tanaka is Always Listless. I expect this series to be successful due to the one-shot success. 

The second 'Davul no Oukan' by Todoroki Akira begins in Issue 31 and it is not based on any previously published one-shot. The description seems to suggest it is focused on the life of the strongest former assassin and it will be an violent action series. From the author side not much can be drawn from either, Todoroki Akira is not someone that has published before in the magazine before or won any rookie awards but the possibility exists that they could have changed their penname. Overall, its a wait and see.

The third series is 'Kimi wa Yotsuba no Clover by Koushi' and it begins in Issue 33. Koushi is an author that has already published series previously including for Akita Shoten in Manga Cross (now Champion Cross) named Isekai Saikyou, Nihon de JK to Konkatsu suru' that ended with three volumes last year. They had another series in 2022 that ended with three volumes with only digital release. The things to take from the previous titles they published was that they were both isekai stories largely focused on comedy with a romantic edge. In this new series the motif is the four leaf clover, and the description talks about fortune and destiny and dubs the series a 'love suspense'. It would be move away from their previous works that were comedy focused series. 

The last series is Mogaku by Gumi and Maru and it begins in issue 34. Gumi and Maru is now an artist and author separate but they won the 16th Next Champion Award as Gumimaru under one name as a duo. The one-shot that won the award 'Sekitoba' that was published in issue 10 this year. The fact the series is inspired by a one-shot, suggest it was quite popular. In fact its the first Next Champion winning one-shot to become a series. Going back to the authors, the two are actually childhood friends who wanted to become manga author, well they got published... not it is whether it succeeds.

The series is a track cycling racing (Keirin) series where the main character is betting his life for his family. In the one-shot the main character's father was a cyclist but he passed away and because it seems he was the main earner, it left the family on hard times and it becomes even worse after his mother has an accident. So as the eldest brother, he has to take up the burden of breadwinner and through Keirin to be able to support his family. It is an interesting setting, economic difficulties is not an usual motivation in sports manga nowadays, but it can act as a real rather than a bland motivator that underpins the main character personality. 

Well that is the round.. 

Black Clover vs MHA - Comparison of the First Chapter

My Hero Academia is a popular shounen manga, but I believe its first chapter highlights some of the issues I see in shounen manga. What strikes me at first is how in the initial first page the author feels the need to tell the audience about the setting. It not only tells you about the setting but gives some explanation for it, in this case it says the age of heroes started after the sudden appearance of people with quirks, special abilities people started to be born with.

The problem for me in this instance is that these elements are all simply told to the audience in the first pages of the series, it feels so superficial that it hardly leaves any impression. It is a shoddy and honestly infantilizing way to set up the world within the series.

It also introduces the character poorly, the first look of the main character is him getting bullied by other kids with super abilities because he seems to be standing up for another student even though he is called quirkless. I do not dislike that initial introduction, but within the same chapter it explains what quirks are and why he is quirkless. The fact there is no real mystery about quirks or questions surrounding them quickly makes it feel like just a way to just set up the superhero world. It also doubles as a way to make the main character an underdog since in a world full of heroes, he has no special ability to speak of. It just feels too much like a device and not an element of the story.

However, why does he want to be a superhero? That is not given much thought over, it seems like it comes from what is displayed briefly in panels showing his childhood idolization of superheroes... It is quite a shallow way to build the main character's main motivation that is supposed to move the story forward. Perhaps, it might have been better to actually develop this, because otherwise once again it feels like an element to get the story going. Its basically to do this story, we need the main character to want to be a hero. In addition, his lack of any special ability makes the task to become here a lot tougher but that is the story... until he is given one? The fact he is given one does downplay his underdog status, which seems a bit counterintuitive in my eyes.

For me the problem is that this is such a poor start to the narrative. It is using a 'tell everything' form of storytelling in a visual medium that is awkward but ever present in shounen manga. For instance, why does the series need to explain in the first chapter that quirks started to appear which eventually led to a world of heroes? You can see that its a world full of heroes, you do not need to deliver that sort of information in the first few pages of the series... Exposition has been fed over time otherwise it feels just like simply the author's explanation for why the series has the setting. In general what this means is that in general the world the series takes place lacks any real depth. It seems like a template world of shonen battle manga but with a superhero makeover.

Black Clover has similar problems in its first chapter but let's go through the chapter together. The first chapter of Black Clover starts the story by narrating the defeat of an unknown mage that came to be called the Wizard King. Back in the present we see the celebration of the return of someone that is called the Wizard King. In the following page we see the celebrations from a place outside the city and two men working in fields comment on the rowdiness of the celebrations and say that the kingdom exists due to the generations of Wizard King that have protected them.

Then we are introduced to the main character, Asta, who talks about challenging Yuno, his friend, which serves as an obviously contrived way to tell the audience is not able to use magic. It also showcases that Asta and Yuno were left at the front of a church on the same day. Subsequently, there is an event that comes out of nowhere where 15 year old people receive their grimoires and Yuno receives his and Asta does not. However, after this another strikingly obvious contrived event happens when Yuno is attacked by someone that wants to rob his grimoire to sell it. The idea that there would be a black market of grimoire for the rich is believable, but I doubt the author thought of this as a macro event to hint at the inequality in the world that he could later develop... spoiler he does not.

A despondent Asta sees the attack on Yuno and tries to save him. After getting a beating by the robber he suddenly receives a black grimoire and a large blade that seems to annul magic, so he uses it to fight the man...

The way it starts off with a tale of the past is much more interesting than My Hero Academia. It has this battle which highlights this mage that defeated the demon who became the Wizard King. In the following page the author uses the celebrations and the perhaps awkward exchange between farmers to show the prestige and role of the position. I believe saying the demon was defeated was unnecessary,, it would have made the demon skull page a lot more impactful if that was what told the audience of the result of the battle. However, these first few pages do give a general understanding of what the title wizard king means without spelling it out... It is basically an army general, so not really a king.

After this the introduction of Asta and how we learn of his inability to use magic is mostly comical. However, his inability to use magic is shown to be notable which means magic use is quite widespread. That made me curious about how magic works, but all we are hinted at is that at Asta's age not being able to use is a strange which reinforces that being able to use magic is natural. It also says that grimoires are not necessary to use magic but they strengthen it which is less interesting, but it has its own implications... In a fight it might not be a bad idea to target the grimoire, because if they can be robbed from someone they are not naturally attached or an ethereal thing. I wonder if the author thought about this when he did that... Let's get back on topic.

We are also told Asta wants to become the Wizard King, which explains why the author decided to start with what exactly the title of Wizard King means earlier in the chapter. The audience does not know his motivations since they are not really shown, at least not in any serious way, so are we supposed to fill in his reasons for that? Perhaps, we are supposed to assume that this character from quite low class would idealise an army general figure?

Later we see that Yuno also wants to become the Wizard King, and a flashback acts to show his motivation. In this flashback we see that Yuno's necklace is stolen by someone because it is too nice for an orphan. Asta fights him and gets it back not without getting beaten up badly before though. Both them promise each other to strive to become the Wizard King. What this tells me is that both dream of moving up the social ladder from what seems to be their quite low status, and power is the easiest way. However, in this competition between the two friends, Asta is a clear underdog due to his inability to use magic whilst Yuno is talented in magic.

In comparison with My Hero Academia, Black Clover for me has the better chapter when it comes to narrative quality. However it is weaker when it comes to characters, when it comes to the main characters the author makes Asta too comical to take him seriously, and the spend on Asta's comedic antics means Yuno received zero to no attention. Midoriya and Bakugo leave a greater impression, one for his meekness yet his courage, and the other wants to become a hero yet seems to lack any heroic qualities.

In the character designs and art My Hero Academia also wins for me, it has a more distinct artstyle and the characters have iconic visual characteristics. Overall, whilst Black Clover eventually might be more competent in its first chapter with the narrative, it eventually leans on the major things that define action shounen manga such as characters, emotional and visual impact and My Hero Academia just plays those much better than it.

France and Bande Dessinées

Becassine Album

When the anime adaptation of Radiant was announced it was quite a novel and perhaps surprising piece of news for many anime fans. It was not the first time a French work was adapted into anime, french and many foreign works were animated by Japanese studios in the 70s and 80s.

France has a close history with comics that came to be accepted as a form of popular storytelling but also valued as a piece of literature. In order to see how this happened we have to start with the rise of bande dessinees comics in France and Belgium.

The origins of bandes dessinees in France came in the form of journals that included illustrated strips often with speech or commentary underneath for the reader to follow along with the illustrations. For instance, a journal that published stories was La Semaine de Suzette, it was aimed primarily at young upper-class girls and its pages were filled with cooking recipes, agony aunt crosswords and cut outs for dolls clothes and most importantly for us bande dessinees or BD for short. Suzette would give birth most notably to Becassine, a Bds that follows a young Breton housemaid's daily life. It is a character that found significant success and it is still widely recognized today, the series itself was presented like I described above without the perennial speech bubble.

Picture of BD featured in La Semaine de Suzette   

At around the time a publication called L'Epatant emerged, however, unlike Suzette it was aimed at young and the not so young. L'Epatant was where the Les Pieds Nickeles, a BD that followed a trio of anarchists that are also indolent crooks and slackers first emerged... The trio was iconic and Nickeles is renowned as one of the longest running comic series in the world. Behind this work was Louis Forton who is called a pioneer of BDs due to the path he paved for future cartoonists that would continue Les Pieds Nickeles and his other work renowned work Bibi Fricotin after his death.

Picture of Journal Les Belles Images

La Semaine de Suzette, L'Epatant were not the only publications that published Bds around. There were others in this period pre first world war like Le Rites and Les Belles Images. Some were more focused on bds and stories than others but they did all feature Bds in every weekly release, and that provided a distribution method for other journals in the future to copy.

Page of an Issue of L'Epatant

Daily publications would more actively take up dbs in the post war period and include them in their weekly supplement issues, and these issues usually marketed at younger audiences provided many notable series. The first series to take note of in this period was Zig et Puce, a series that appeared in the Le Dimanche Illustre that featured the adventure of two young boys, Zig and Puce who were accompanied by Alfred, a penguin in their travels around the globe. The series by Alain Saint Ogan was one of the first ones to actually start using speech bubbles that whilst widely used in the United States was used only sparingly by a few authors, Alain Saint Ogan being one of them. Zig et Puce would not find the same sort of success as the previous title I have spoken about so far, but it did serve as an influence to one of the most iconic BDs ever, The adventures of TinTin according to its author Herge.

 

Series like Zig et Puce and Tin Tin both were born out of a growing period for Bds in France. Daily newspaper publications had started to feature Bds in their weekly youth supplement publication. One thing to keep in mind is that these bds naturally were fit to appeal to the demographic of readers of the publication. For instance, Le Petit Vingtieme, was the supplement of Le Vingtieme Siecle a catholic ring-wing newspaper from Brussel, Tin Tin in the Land of Soviets was a product made to appeal to youth within the Christian and capitalist demographic. These weekly supplements aimed at young people were increasingly seeing their sales being driven by the illustrated stories, and publication came to include more of them over time.

However, a tsunami arrived in the third with the arrival of Le Journal de Mickey in France in 1934. Paul Winkler purchased the rights to many strips from the United States amongst which the flagship title was the ones from Walt Disney. Mickey was published in this new journal as its main flagship strip along other imported strips, all together the comic strips made up four out of eight pages of the publication. The other pages featured a french serialized novel, reply to letters, jokes and the result of regular competitions in which readers could win small prizes.

A page of Le Journal de Mickey   

Le Journal de Mickey was significant because it showcased a different style of strip from the bds prominent in France that could be described as histoires en images. The textual context that was needed for most Bds, was part of the strip with the use of speech bubbles which alongside the colour and greater art detail added a kind of exoticism around the strips. After all, many of the strips in France at the time relied on small text outside the image but were monochrome and overall drawn with less detail. Mickey was received incredibly well, the format of the publication helped a lot with the interactions with the public that made it be accepted despite its initial exoticism.

The success of the publication by Hickler, especially Journal de Mickey, naturally shook the entire landscape of bds in France. Old publications found themselves having to change as they lost readers, and Mickey's success became enviable as it reached over four hundred thousand copies sold per issue, a number that was unmatched across the whole of Europe that started to publish strips of Mickey as well by a long margin.

However, the late 30s would be a little surprising for France, the invasion of Poland by Germany meant France declared war and attacked Germany. A large part of France would be occupied by the Nazi regime and they set up a regime in Vichy. During this period many Bd publications were disrupted not only because of the drastic change in government and state control over media that some companies rejected but also because of a shortage of paper. Publications of bds continued at first but shortages of paper meant it had to rationed and the government would allocate it to publications whose content it favoured. For instance Journal de Mickey moved to the south the non occupied zone as Paul Winkler was jewish. However, whilst some publications struggled some actually excelled during this period, one notable one was Le Temeraire.

The cover for an issue of Le Temeraire

Le Temeraire is perhaps not as widely known now but it was a publication similar to the sort of type of Mickey that had become a standard. It featured many with anti-Semitic elements imbued in the stories of the bds featured in issues. Whatever one might think of Le Temeraire was a popular publication, its sales reached over two hundred thousand per issue, and to a large extent it was because of the quality of the works published. It took all the elements of Journal de Mickey but added to it with themed issues that gave it a large blend of styles and stories. Overall whilst controversial and short in duration Le Temeraire  it ceased publication in 1944 it did have an impact in the growth of Bds in France. 

Another contribution that Le Temeraire left was the fact it was a mostly French publication, and that would spark debates in post world war 2 that were already ongoing debates in pre-war. The popularity of Bds had caused debates about their possible influence on children,  the introduction of Mickey and other American comic strips in France during the 30s only further sparked such debates because it gave rise to fears that it would drift youth away from national culture. In Europe in general fears of Americanization were prominent and states tried to fight back against it pre world war. In post world war those debates continued and in France that had a strong cultural nationalism and left wing groups and catholic  forces joined together for a restriction in American comics. It was not just a protectionism measure however, conservatives forces pushed for restriction when it came to sexual and content with excessive violence.  

The budding industry of Bds publication did not drop dead as a result of that. A large part of this was because Le Temeraire had provided the answer due to its singular focus on only using French works. Journals in the format style of Le Temeraire emerged post world war and quickly adapted themselves to the new laws. Works like Les Pionniers De L'Esperance, Guerre a la Terre both sci-fi stories and others emerged in this period and they took the lessons of the successful publication that came before by blending in various styles of comics and including various elements like jokes, quizzes and prizes in every issue. 

Les Pionneiers de L'Esperance

In a stroke of coincidence, the bd journal that became the most popular in the 50s onwards was 'Vaillant' that managed to reach over two hundred thousand copies sold per issue. Vaillant was linked to the L'Humanite, a daily news and it and Vaillant were sponsored by the French Communist Party. The previously mentioned Les Pionniers de L'Esperance was published in Vaillant but the most notable series published in it was Pif le Chien. Pif followed the adventures of a dog and various other animals, the left wing leaning aspect of the series would be shown often by problems caused by selfish and harmful actions taken by  groups of animals, with the solutions needing the cooperation of everyone.  The iconic nature of Pif as character in the publication meant Vaillant would eventually change its name to Pif-gadget in the 60s which highlighted the special status of the series. 

There were many other publications like Coeurs Vaillant, which funnily enough was a right wing catholic publication despite the similarity in name to Vaillant. Other publications like Le Journal De Mickey managed to restart in France and Spirou the home of Tin Tin, and series like Lucky Luke from Belgium also flowed into France in the 50s. 

Cover of an issue of Couers Vaillants

In the late 50s, a new publication would emerge that became one of the biggest sources of bds in the 60s and 70s. That publication was called Pilote, it was formed by various veteran artists that joined together to create a new journal. One of the first bds that stood out from the new publication was Tanguy et Laverdure, a story about two pilots for the French Air Forces and their adventures.  It was followed tith Barba Rouge and Not much later it would give birth to classics such as Asterix, all popular titles that have left a lasting print in France's Ninth Art the BDs.

Cover of Pilote featuring Tanguy

Returning to the law of 1949 that restricted content depicted in publications, gradually over the years this censorship over bds declined. In the 1960s, bds like Barbarella that depicted the heroine well satirical series often leaned in content of sexual nature. Naturally, that led to more varied and Bds that could be aimed at an young adult demographic which Pilote was already trying to court with the works it published.

However, whilst bds were on the rise the 70s came knocking and it brought with it big economic problems for the world at large. The reasons for the crisis that would eventually lead to a new orthodoxy in the economy is nothing that is relevant to our discussions but let's just say it involved oil and inflation.

Economic woes hit home and entertainment as an industry suffered. When it came to Bds, the biggest crisis was the one faced by publications, which had to shift from weeklies as it was no longer viable. Pilote and others shifted to monthly but even that was not enough, and many publications went under in the 70s and 80s. That did not spell the doom of Bds though, publication of albums that were made up of many compiled chapters of a bd in one book started to rise.

Bande Desinees seemed to no longer need to be published in weekly journals anymore. Bds had garnered an established audience that continued to want to read Bds despite the fall of the weekly journals. This continued into the 90s with growth of album publication increasing significantly over time. In part this was driven also by the left wing government, culture minister Jack Lang that built on the protectionist side of 1949 laws by building bodies to help in the material side of publishing Bds. This was a result of a greater recognition of Bds as a medium of the arts, it officially became the Ninth Art and a cultural element of France to be protected.

The results of these measures have shown themselves to be great. Publication of albums have spiked from the 400s in the early 80s to over 4000s in the 2000s. Bds continue to grow and the space they have gained in libraries and bookstores, but also university courses for striving artists and festivals and museums on Bds have solidified itself as a cultural marker in France.

Images taken from BNF Galica - Linked below

https://gallica.bnf.fr/accueil/en/content/accueil-en?mode=desktop