France Gave Teenagers $350 for Culture. They’re Buying Comic Books • Hacker News Board

Re: France Gave Teenagers $350 for Culture. They’re Buying Comic Books

#21

Post by yumraj » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 5:29 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #3

Comic books are culture. Whether you like that or not is a matter of taste. Personally I absolutely love 'Gaston' and 'Asterix', but also like some other old school ones. The newer stuff I don't feel much connection with.

Never read Gaston, might have to look it up. But I love Asterix and Tintin, which I read while growing up in India.

Interestingly the other comics I read were Phantom, Mandrake, Rip Kirby, Flash Gordon - available via a local publisher, Indrajal Comics [0], that were sent to us monthly (or was it weekly) via a subscription. Got introduced to all the *men much later.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indrajal_Comics

Re: France Gave Teenagers $350 for Culture. They’re Buying Comic Books

#22

Post by mimixco » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 5:31 PM UTC

derefr wrote: post #19

mimixco wrote: post #17

The NYT title is intentionally derisive and xenophobic. The words "comic books" and the French term bandes dessinées relate to two entirely different experiences. In the US, comics are considered by the masses to be the bane of pubescent boys or puerile adults obsessed with superheros and cosplay. In France, graphic books (they're not all novels) are an elevated and widely-used cultural resource. They're found in edu…

The NYT is using that term because most Americans have never even heard the more fitting English-language term "graphic novels", and wouldn't know what it meant if the NYT used it. (Though, also, it's clickbait. They want to shock people into reading the article by asking an implicit question with an evocative contrast: highlighting the discrepancy of mood between a term usually used to refer to high-brow concepts —…

For sure, but they're not all novels. There's lots of factual graphic books and lots of conceptual things that can be learned from those books.

It's also notable that the NYT did not mention any of the differences between US and French or Belgian "comics."

Re: France Gave Teenagers $350 for Culture. They’re Buying Comic Books

#23

Post by edhelas » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 5:31 PM UTC

jsilence wrote: post #14

jacquesm wrote: post #3

Comic books are culture. Whether you like that or not is a matter of taste. Personally I absolutely love 'Gaston' and 'Asterix', but also like some other old school ones. The newer stuff I don't feel much connection with.

Also the works of Marc-Antoine Mathieu are highly recommended! It IS culture.

I'm French and I'd never have though to read this author name on Hacker News one day :D

Re: France Gave Teenagers $350 for Culture. They’re Buying Comic Books

#24

Post by mhh__ » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 5:32 PM UTC

Not real culture it seems

Re: France Gave Teenagers $350 for Culture. They’re Buying Comic Books

#25

Post by cwizou » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 5:34 PM UTC

As an aside, it's been a bit surprising to see the disconnect on so many topics regarding France in the NYT in the last few months.

This seems like just the latest (and fairly mild) episode of this, but it's still a bit puzzling to me as a former (sort of) journalist to see so much editorialising, and in this case, an utter lack of facts and context.

There's not much on the goals behind that pass, the impact of covid on many of the other options, or any background on the local "bd" culture that would explain the difference to the US comics culture to the reader. The title certainly doesn't help.

At that point I don't know if I'm just getting more picky with time, but the fact to editorialising ratio in the NYT seem to have shifted to, at least to me, a fairly uncomfortable level pretty much every time I stumble onto one of their articles.

Re: France Gave Teenagers $350 for Culture. They’re Buying Comic Books

#26

Post by SilasX » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 5:35 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #3

Comic books are culture. Whether you like that or not is a matter of taste. Personally I absolutely love 'Gaston' and 'Asterix', but also like some other old school ones. The newer stuff I don't feel much connection with.

Regardless of what you consider "culture", the French government had some conception of what kinds of things they wanted the teens to engage in, and this isn't it (even if it's worthwhile in its own right). I think that's the article's point, and the program may respond by restricting the funds' usage in the future.

Re: France Gave Teenagers $350 for Culture. They’re Buying Comic Books

#27

Post by imperio59 » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 5:36 PM UTC

jgrahamc wrote: post #20

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.

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.

Re: France Gave Teenagers $350 for Culture. They’re Buying Comic Books

#28

Post by swalls » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 5:37 PM UTC

echelon wrote: post #7

I feel like this behavior could have been predicted. I'm not going to say whether or not purchases of manga are bad, but to think students would consume high brow art and then to be disappointed is after the fact is pretty poor foresight. Can we start to use the vast number of cultural experiments we've conducted to infer which will succeed in producing the desired outcomes? Can we start trying new experiments? I'd l…

Are you implying this wasn't intentional? France (alongside Belgium) practically invented the comic industry, but in recent years I'd imagine that's been getting decimated by east Asian manga. If you want to inspire a generation to revitalise your comic industry, this doesn't seem like a bad way.

Re: France Gave Teenagers $350 for Culture. They’re Buying Comic Books

#29

Post by mtts » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 5:38 PM UTC

jgrahamc wrote: post #20

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.

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

Re: France Gave Teenagers $350 for Culture. They’re Buying Comic Books

#30

Post by not_exactly__ » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 5:39 PM UTC

cwizou wrote: post #25

As an aside, it's been a bit surprising to see the disconnect on so many topics regarding France in the NYT in the last few months. This seems like just the latest (and fairly mild) episode of this, but it's still a bit puzzling to me as a former (sort of) journalist to see so much editorialising, and in this case, an utter lack of facts and context. There's not much on the goals behind that pass, the impact of covid…

I’ve personally stopped reading NYT specifically because of this editorializing vs just reporting issue. It’s really frustrating to see in individual articles; in the greater scheme of things, it’s sad to observe. NYT has always had blunders (eg 2003 war in Iraq), but this is something else altogether.