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

nytimes.com

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

#61

Post by bsder »

mcguire wrote: post #48
mtts wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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.)

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)

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

#63

Post by prof-dr-ir »

nagrom wrote: post #42
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…

It's not just France - the way that the NYT treats the UK has become a running joke e.g: https://londonist.com/london/food-and-drink/until-recently-l... https://unherd.com/2020/01/what-has-the-new-york-times-got-a... This weird inability to reflect reality I see day-to-day coupled with the insistence on anti-patterns of behaviour for those cancelling their subscriptions has prevented me from taking out a sub to the N…

The second reference you gave lists four opinion pieces, one culinary review whose tongue-in-cheek comment it misinterprets, and one actual news article about the impact of austerity in Britain.

That one news article was a subject of intense discussion at the time which quickly became politicized. A decent overview of the discussion can be found at

https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/business/prescot-makes-...

For what it's worth, I wholly subscribe to the OP's viewpoint that the NY times' reports from France have been subpar in recent months - in my view they have been too Americo-Centric and do not sufficiently recognize the different value system in France. But I have often been positively surprised by the paper's reporting on UK issues (and on Brexit in particular).

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

#64

Post by forinti »

jacquesm wrote: post #58
forinti wrote: post #40

My brother got a question right on his college entrance exam because of Asterix. Let the kids read what they want. If they are reading, it's a win!

Now I'm curious as to what the question was!

Which Roman Emperor conquered Gaul.

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

#65

Post by cududa »

mcguire wrote: post #51
nagrom wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just France - the way that the NYT treats the UK has become a running joke e.g: https://londonist.com/london/food-and-drink/until-recently-l... https://unherd.com/2020/01/what-has-the-new-york-times-got-a... This weird inability to reflect reality I see day-to-day coupled with the insistence on anti-patterns of behaviour for those cancelling their subscriptions has prevented me from taking out a sub to the N…

You have to admit that Great Britain has a long-term reputation for boiling food to death. And their sporting culture seems even more Leroy Jenkins than that in the US.

Our Scottish and US families have long running jokes about one another’s cultures, and the food part was a long one. Until the matriarch on the Scottish side was here with a larger amount of the family and said “well our food is kind of pish in comparison”

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

#66

Post by bsder »

asdff wrote: post #56
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…

LA Times has even parodied how NYT tends to cover Los Angeles. https://www.latimes.com/food/la-fo-nyc-restaurant-scene-apri...

That was brilliant. Thanks for sharing it.

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

#67

Post by tonyedgecombe »

mcguire wrote: post #51
nagrom wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just France - the way that the NYT treats the UK has become a running joke e.g: https://londonist.com/london/food-and-drink/until-recently-l... https://unherd.com/2020/01/what-has-the-new-york-times-got-a... This weird inability to reflect reality I see day-to-day coupled with the insistence on anti-patterns of behaviour for those cancelling their subscriptions has prevented me from taking out a sub to the N…

You have to admit that Great Britain has a long-term reputation for boiling food to death. And their sporting culture seems even more Leroy Jenkins than that in the US.

>You have to admit that Great Britain has a long-term reputation for boiling food to death.

Not for a long time.

>And their sporting culture seems even more Leroy Jenkins than that in the US.

Currently 6th in the medal table for the Olympics.

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

#68

Post by touisteur »

This NYT story/title has been mocked to death on French Twitter. The kids are reading. Manga, so what ? AND they're using culture-money to PAY the artists they like, even though they get their manga off the Internet for free. Isn't the greatest outcome possible? Sure, French artists might have wanted that money flowing back to French artists... But if they like it and when given a choice will pay for it... Maybe there's not enough market (want) for French BD or culture as it is today...

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

#69

Post by rchaud »

imperio59 wrote: post #27
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 Gaulo…

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.

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

#70

Post by jsilence »

edhelas wrote: post #23
jsilence wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

His stuff is simply mind blowing. And as others mentioned, Hergé (BE) and Moebius are giants of the comic olympus.
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