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French Cartoonists To Take To The Streets
Last week the French comics authors union met with Claude St. Vincent, president of the powerful Media Participations Group, owners of Dargaud, Dupuis and 40% of the french comic book market in total.
Bleeding Cool has reported extensively (relatively) on the current situation in the Franco-Belgian comics industry, where thousands of comic book albums have been made available by a conglomerate of publishers over two digital comics services, without consulting the authors. It was a fait accompli that threatened to reduce the authors' income considerably, with albums being "rented" online for a couple of weeks for a couple of Euros.
So a compromise was sought. And not found. St. Vincent stated that author's royalty percentage for online comics was to reduce from 17.5% to 8%.
Naturally the union wasn't happy at all. Writer, artist and director Joann Sfar sent a letter indicating the union's displeasure and the the syndicate has called for a day of protest on May the 5th.
Will we see comic book writers and artists take to the streets of Paris with banners and placards? If nothing else, they will be well written and impeccably drawn.