Posted in: Comics, Current News | Tagged: Angoulême, france

Who Wants Some Statistics About French Comics?

We have some statistics from one of the most successful comic book publishing countries in the world,, France.

Published Thu, 08 Feb 2024 08:57:09 -0600

Last updated Fri, 09 Feb 2024 10:39:00 -0600

Article Summary

French comic book market saw massive growth during the pandemic, doubling in sales.
Asterix And The White Iris tops best-selling books in France last year.
Japanese manga dominates with over half of French BD sales, publishers adapting.
France's strong support for bookstores and authors shows unique cultural commitment.

In the wake of the Angouleme Comic Art Festival in France, which hosted around 200,000 attendees and comic book creators, publishers and exhibitions from across the world (but mainly France), we have some statistics from one of the most successful comic book publishing countries in the world, courtesy of the Guardian newspaper. All I needed to do was extract them.

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During the pandemic, from 2019 to 2021, the French market for comic books almost doubled in size from 48.4 million sales a year to 87.2 million.
This was partially due to the French policy of a Culture Pass, which gave teenagers hundreds of euros to spend on cultural products, including comics.
Last year, in 2023, the market contracted but only by 11%.
And one in four books sold in France are now comic books.
The best-selling book last year was Asterix And The White Iris, released at the end of October 2023.
Only 2% of the French comics market is digital.
The amount of titles published in a year has rocketed in recent decades, around 5,000 a year now, up from 700 in the 1990s.
And 53% of French comic book authors, according to a 2014 study, earn less than the minimum wage.
Rachida Dati, the newly appointed culture minister, told Angouleme, "My priority is not the comics but the people who make them. I'm not only going to be the minister for private views, exhibitions and shows – I want to take action."
Japanese manga now accounts for more than half of all BD sales in the country.
But it is the traditional French publishers who generally license, translate and sell manga themselves. It's as if Marvel published One Piece in the US, and DC published Chainsaw Man. American and UK comics publishers really missed out on this. Dark Horse and Titan Comics are stepping up.
France also has 3,500 independent bookstores, as many as the UK and the USA combined, from a population of about 15% the size
This is supported by a 1981 law forbidding discounting practices beyond 5% of a book's cover price. The UK used to have such a thing.