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FRANCE & BELGIUM

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"The Francophone countries of Europe have traditionally enjoyed a great comics culture. But last year saw a drop for the first time in sales and in the number of classic comic books sold in France. This has been caused by growing competition from mangas which come in series that are often published at very short intervals. They now account for 30 per cent of all comics being read in France. Their share of total sales is still only 22 per cent, however, since mangas are generally sold at lower prices than the classic 'bandes dessinées' in hardcover format, for which new instalments are more likely to come onto the market annually. Whilst mangas are becoming increasingly popular and their sales rose by 17.5 per cent in 2005, classic comics had to field a decline of 9.6 per cent. This development has put a great deal of pressure on many of the 203 French comics publishers and those who know the industry expect that the agglomeration process on this segment will continue. Overall, around 40 million comics were sold in France last year, with sales turnover worth 398 million euros. Comics account for 7.2 per cent of new publications, with a share in total sales of 6.5 per cent." (From the Frankfurt Buchmesse Trade Information newsletter, quoting Die Welt as source, Jan '06)

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"Comics, known in France as bandes dessinées (bd), are becoming increasingly popular among book customers and readers. Sales for this segment of the book market are growing disproportionately compared to others. With sales for the French book trade increasing by an average of three per cent in 2004, the figure was 4.5 per cent for comics. New publications or new editions of 2,618 comics titles were published last year. This was 37 per cent more than the previous year, twice as many as in 2000 and four times as many as in 1995. More and more publishing companies are discovering this genre as an attractive addition to their lists – with the groups Hervé de La Martinière and Actes Sud coming on board at the beginning of 2005 alongside traditional literary publishers such as Gallimard, Albin Michel, Le Seuil and Denoël. 122 publishing companies currently have a presence on the French bd-market, compared to only 65 in 2000 and as few as 34 in 1995. There is considerable agglomeration here, however, with two-thirds of bd-sales currently accounted for by only three groups: Glénat, Média participation (with publishing companies Dargaud and Dupuis) and Flammarion (with Casterman and Fluide Glacial). The new publishing companies on the market are above all small, independent businesses specialising in mangas which are growing in popularity in France as well. The mecca for all French comics fans is the bd-festival in Angoulème, held in January this year for what was already the 32nd time and attracting 150,000 visitors." (From the Frankfurt Buchmesse Trade Information newsletter, Sept '05)

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"Fotonovelas are very popular in France, really. They were existing long before my birth, and are still popular. You can find at least 20 different copies [titles] each month." (From a French Ebay seller, Feb '02)

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The bande dessinée (graphic novel comic) Astérix is so popular in France that Astérix et Obelix, the live-action film adaptation, was watched by more viewers (9.9 million) than Star Wars (7 million), taking first place at the French box office in 1999. (From a Jan 2000 edition of Le Petit Bouquet, a French news web site)

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Graphic novel comics featuring France's popular cartoon character Astérix le Gaulois (Astérix, the warrior of ancient Gaul) have sold approximately 200 million copies. (Statement made by a publisher during the "Exploring International Graphic Novels" panel at the Aug '99 Comic Con International in San Diego)

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"[The comic character] Tintin [has turned] 70, and though he has almost outgrown his target audience -- children from 7 to 77 -- his appeal remains timeless. Some [Tintin] volumes... have been published in 58 languages. The... drawings... have inspired artists like Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol. Tintin may be Belgian to the core, but the French have adopted him as their fictive son. The late French President General Charles De Gaulle even once grumbled that 'deep down, my only international rival is Tintin.'" (From a Jan '99 AP Story)

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"Lucky Luke is the coolest cowboy in town - in fact make that Europe. Written by Ren Goscinny, of Asterix fame, and illustrated by the award winning Morris, the Lucky Luke series has been translated into over 30 languages." (From a review in the Scotsman, Apr '98)

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"Anyone familiar with the French book trade is aware of the large numbers of comic books published in France and Belgium. They are also a staple in French public libraries." (From an Overview of Recent Reference Literature on Comics found on the Reference Reviews Europe Online web page, 1997)

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"When a book called Castafiore's Emerald was published in 1963, certain French critics saw in it something of Proust, and, then again, something of the Marx Brothers. This sounds heavyweight stuff for a cartoon character. But Tintin has become a part of French life... since he first appeared in 1929. How agreeable it has been for sophisticates in France and elsewhere to be enthralled by a comic book, reassured that it was a bit like reading literature... Tintin was created by Georges Remi, a French-speaking Belgian, who used the pen-name Hergé... until Hergé, French comics were fairly static... he created a genre of comic strip or bande dessinée (shortened in French to BD or Bédé) that appealed to the child - or arguably the boy - in grown-ups... For years Tintin was an unchallenged favourite. But in the 1960s, a pugnacious little Gaul, Astérix, took France by storm... the books are popular with children [and] are read by many adults. The adult share of the BD market has steadily expanded in France and Belgium since the 1960s. This is almost certainly due to the combined effects of Castafiore's Emerald and Astérix ... If some French-language authors and readers have been taking the BD a bit too seriously, it may be because some intellectuals decided, in the wake of Castafiore's Emerald, that it was the ninth art form (after cinema and television). Bédéphiles make pilgrimages to festivals in France and Belgium. They even have a mecca, Angouleme's Centre National de la Bande Dessinée. Some 500 new titles are published each year, in hardback volumes costing FFr50-80... [In addition to the large adult readership] children are loyal to Tintin and Astérix - few novelties are created just for kids - and teenagers devour Japanese manga comics." (From The Economist Newspaper, Jun '96)

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"Graphic novels or Les BD (bandes dessinees)! In Europe, they go mad for them! They call it 'the 8th Art.' Every year, a thriving international festival takes place at Angoulme (France) to celebrate graphic novels, a popular art form as well respected as any literary genre. In fact, there are all kinds of BD for both adults and children. They are available everywhere from the village bookshop to the supermarket ... In total, there are over 60 Lucky Luke titles. An amazing success story worldwide for the last 50 years, there are 250 million Lucky Luke books in print in over 26 languages worldwide." (From publicity by the English language publisher of Lucky Luke)

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GREAT BRITAIN

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"As you may have noticed, Japanese comics have gripped the global imagination ... Europe has caught the bug, too. In the United Kingdom, the Catholic Church is using manga to recruit new priests. One British publisher, in an effort to hippify a national franchise, has begun issuing manga versions of Shakespeare's plays, including a Romeo and Juliet that reimagines the Montagues and Capulets as rival yakuza families in Tokyo." (From Wired Magazine, October '07)

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"Sales of mangas have already doubled in the UK in 2004 and even more growth is expected in the coming year. This is to be helped by a large-scale campaign 'Manga Mania' to be launched by the Reading Agency in February in cooperation with libraries. The target group is made up of 13 to 16-year-olds who do not see themselves as book readers. But experts think it would be wrong to reduce the scope of manga consumers to people who don’t otherwise read. Mangas are simply 'in' at the moment, particularly among young people who have grown up with playstations and the Internet. Mangas that read from right to left - like the original Japanese versions - are considered particularly 'cool'. Many publishers who had adjusted the reading line of the comics to western habits, have now gone back to a right-to-left format. In their country of origin Japan, mangas now account for 40 per cent of all titles. Experts estimate that manga sales in the USA reached the 120 million dollar threshold in 2004. Given this development, British publishers and booksellers are getting into gear to ensure that they do not miss out on this profitable boom. (From the Frankfurt Buchmesse Trade Information newsletter, quoting The Bookseller as source, Jan '05)

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The 50th birthday of comic-book hero Dan Dare, Britain's first intergalactic space traveller, was marked with the unveiling of a bronze statue in Southport, home of the comic's creators, the Rev. Marcus Morris and Frank Hampson. Through the pages of the Eagle, the clean-cut pilot instantly won the hearts of the nation's schoolboys when the comic first appeared in April 1950. All 900,000 copies of the first issue were snapped up and it became an all-time bestseller. It continued in its original form until 1970, when it merged with another comic, Lion. (From the web-based Ananova news service, April 2000)

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The Graphic Bible, produced by Lion Publishing in England, has had outstanding success since publication in 1998. Sales have topped 110,000 copies and it has already been translated into in 17 languages (UK sales of 16,000 copies, worldwide sales of 94,000 copies). The Graphic Bible was created by (comics) artist Jeff Anderson. It took 5 years to make. In January 2000, at the annual Festival International de la Bande Dessinée d'Angouleme (the Graphic Novel's equivalent of the Oscars - in France), the Lion Graphic Bible won the annual Prix de la Bande Dessinée Chrétienne. It also won Norway's Christian Bookseller's Best Youth Book of the Year. (From a Lion press release, January 2000)

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"A recent survey in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland showed that the Beano was still the most popular comic among eleven year olds. If a similar survey was carried out among comic collectors, I am sure that the results would be the same - with Beano at the top of the list, closely followed by Dandy. Both comics began just before the Second World War... At their peak in the mid 1950s their circulation was said to be over two million copies per week each. If each copy was read only by two or three children, the total readership was staggering... They were, and still are, published by the Scottish firm of D.C. Thomson [which] produces more than 200 million magazines, newspapers and comics each year." (From the Official Beano-D.C. Thomson & Co. Ltd web site, 2000)

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"Saddle up and say hello to madcap Lucky Luke - the comic strip character who can shoot faster than his own shadow. He's a hero of the Wild West and he patrols the prairies protecting people from the villainous antics of rogues like Billy the Kid and Jesse James. From the author of Asterix, Lucky Luke is a big hit all around the world, and now he's riding into town to delight British readers."(From a review in the Sunday Times, April '98)

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In 1950 the adventure comic Eagle debuted in Britain. It's clerical editor, the Rev. Marcus Morris, designed it to have a high moral stance, to counteract the influence of the American horror comics flooding the British comic market. The feature comic strip was Dan Dare, Pilot of the Future, a character closely modelled on the archetypal British war hero. He did not drink or swear, he only fired in self defence and always told the truth... In the 1960s Eagle also featured a back page strip based on the life of Christ... Eagle's peak circulation was 750,000 copies a week... The Dan Dare strip was published as Daan Durf in a Dutch magazine called Arend. It was also popular in Croatia where it appeared as Den Deri in the youth magazine Plavi Vjesnik ("Blue Messenger"). The magazine sold out regularly, often within one day, at the kiosks in Zagreb. When publication of Den Deri ceased in Plavi Vjesnik, the magazine itself ended shortly thereafter. (Complied from several internet web sites dated '96-'99)

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GERMANY

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"The German government has published a comic book designed to dissuade Muslims from turning to Islamist extremism ... The comic was issued by the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia that seeks to educate young people about the differences between Islam and Islamic extremism and danger posed by Islamic terrorism. The comic book was produced by the regional Interior Ministry a year ago and is done in the popular Japanese-origin manga style. It is the first official European product of its type seeking to dissuade youth not to become Islamist terrorists." (From the World Tribune website, November 2008)

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"The Micky Maus [Mickey Mouse] comic magazine is published weekly in Germany by Ehapa Verlag, part of the Egmont Group. Launched in September 1951, Micky Maus magazine maintains its market leadership with strong editorials on topics such as the environment and with innovative premiums. The magazine has reached the one-million mark several times ... Average Sales are 666,000 copies and Average Readership is 1,650,000." (From the Disney Comics Worldwide web site, 2001)

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"For the past 30 years the fun and entertaining Donald Duck Pocket Books have been one of the absolute favorites for German pocket book readers. With the latest edition no. 273 of the Donald Duck Pocket Book sales have reached 200 million copies in Germany." (From the Egmont web site, 2001)

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"Journalists on a high-brow German newspaper supplement have confessed to littering the paper with quotes from Donald Duck comic strips for ten years. The arts supplement of the daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung is seen as an authoritative read. But in one recent edition, ten headlines and photo captions contained lines from the speech bubbles in Disney's popular strips. [The two journalists] admitted to having slipped 'Donaldisms' into stories on everything from classical Greek theatre to Chopin. They were exposed when reporters from the weekly news magazine, Der Spiegel, launched an investigation and published the results." (From an Ananova news service article, April 2000)

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"Berlin's 'House of Cultures of the World' [is] preparing an extensive exhibition of Japanese manga [comics] art which is scheduled to open in early 2000." (From a September '99 article in Lufthansa Magazin)

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Ehapa Publishing Co., the leader of the German comic book market, was founded in Stuttgart in 1951 as a subsidiary of the Egmont Group, an international media enterprise group consisting of approximately 100 companies in 29 different countries. Ehapa concentrates its business activities on comic magazines and has become a market leader in Germany with cult figures as Mickey Mouse, Astérix and Obelix and Lucky Luke, claiming approximately 90 percent of a market with an estimated revenue of DM 250 million. (From a Business Wire Release, Sept '98)

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"In West Germany... approximately 144 million comic books are sold annually." (From the book Comics: Anatomy of a Mass Medium, '71)

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Northern Germany was won for the Reformation, in part, through tracts and cartoons. (From a biography of Martin Luther)

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NORWAY, SWEDEN, FINLAND, DENMARK

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"Comics have become an increasingly literary book market genre that has to be taken seriously. The Swedish comics market has also changed a great deal thanks to mangas [Japanese comics]. Alongside Mickey Mouse, they are now the biggest selling comics in Sweden. Altogether 187 comics titles were published in 2004, 57 of Swedish origin. Generally speaking, Swedish comics have also developed into an art form with contents, quality and design that are clearly different from their predecessors. New readers have been won over and, as in other countries, the book trade has opened up to the genre. There are now about 50 specialized comics shops in Sweden but the publishers make the majority of sales from comics sold through bookshops." (From the Publishers Weekly, April 2005)

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The Donald Duck comic is one of the most popular periodicals in all of the Nordic countries, and the publisher has claimed that one in four Norwegians reads Donald Duck every week. It is reported that "The comics industry in Norway (and Scandinavia in general) is thriving ... Donald Duck is phenomenally popular, selling more copies each month than the top five in the US combined! After that come pulp-era heroes, such as The Phantom and Conan. Children's comics do very well, with Spider-Man and Spawn, both relatively recent introductions, trailing towards the bottom. The most popular titles are Western imports, as noted above, but there are plenty of homegrown comics in Norway ... EVERYBODY reads comics in Norway; there is no stigma against adults reading Donald Duck comics on the train on the way to work. In fact, Norway is the second biggest comics-reading country after Japan." (From a web site about the Norwegian Comics festival "Raptus", 2001)

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Kalle Anka (Donald Duck) is still popular and has survived the Internet competition in Sweden. The publisher reports they have actually increased the Donald Duck readers' group by nine per cent. Now 434,000 Swedes read Donald Duck. It continues to be the most popular magazine on the market. (From an article on the Mediatrender web site, Sept 2001)

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"Donald Duck has become a clear favorite in Finland. A comic book series about Donald Duck's adventures continues to sell 270 000 copies a year in Finland, even though the comic was discontinued in the US a year and a half ago ...The images in Aku Ankka, as Donald Duck is known in Finland, are created in Denmark by a licensed company, Egmont ... Three editors first decide on the gist of the translation and primary vocabulary, after which a group of ten freelancer translators finish the text." (From a Finnish web site about Donald Duck, 2001)

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"On 13 March 2001 Finland Post issued a five-stamp miniature sheet dedicated to Donald Duck and reading. The magazine is celebrating its 50th anniversary in Finland this year. Until recently, Donald Duck has been the most popular weekly magazine in Finland. It entertains over a million readers every week and is educational too, in teaching now a third generation of Finnish children to read and use good Finnish. The Donald Duck magazine advocates the use of correct and eloquent Finnish language and promotes reading and writing in general. It has been a candidate for the Finnish Agricola literature prize and has the whole-hearted support of Finnish teachers."(From the Filahome.com web site, 2001)

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OTHER EUROPEAN COUNTRIES

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"The Republic of Yakutia - a region of Russia almost five times the size of Texas and more than twice that of Alaska - did not have a known Yakut-language Christian book until 1994. 'The first Christian publication in Yakut was [Cook's] illustrated Life of Jesus [NT Picture Bible, in comics form]," reports a Yakutia-based InterAct missionary. A mission-sponsored effort made it possible to print and distribute 50,000 copies of the book." (From Publishing Frontiers: A Cook Communications Ministries International E-Newsletter, June 2002)

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A comic book featuring Superman will be distributed to about 500,000 children in and near Kosovo to help teach them to spot and avoid land mines. The book is aimed at ethnic Albanian refugees and the dialogue is in Albanian. A similar Superman comic was distributed in Bosnia after the war ended there in 1995, and another version has been used in Central America. (From an August '99 AP Story)

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Concerned that many people under 40 seem to know little about Portugal's "Carnation Revolution" of 1974, authorities are producing CD-ROMs and comic books on the revolution to make the history more accessible and kindle interest among the young. (From an April '99 AP Story)

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"Yugoslavia has suffered several wars in the past few years that have resulted in partitions of its territory and the death of many of its citizens. Despite this, Yugoslavia remains one of the strongest comics-producing countries in eastern Europe. Although many of its writers and artists now work in other countries (particularly France), Yugoslavia still has a lot of creative people working in Yugoslavia today." (From the "Mars Import" web site)

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MULTIPLE EUROPEAN COUNTRIES

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"The seemingly inexorable spread of manga is having a positive effect on domestic comic markets around the world ... [including] France and Belgium, according to Didier Pasamonik of ActuaBD. 'Thanks to manga, the market has enlarged,' he said, in spite of there being no interaction between the manga market and France's established bandes dessinées market. Pasamonik reported that the number of comics produced in France has more than doubled in recent years. Rafa Martinez of leading Spanish comic publishers Norma Editorial SA noted one of the reasons for the expansion was the appeal of manga to girls, who have traditionally been immune to the appeal of the comic. About 70 per cent of comics in Spain are now sold through bookshops, emphasising its increasing importance to the book trade." (From Frankfurt Book Fair's "Newsletter Daily," October '06)

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"In the Astérix comic books, all of Gaul is under the rule of the Romans. All of Gaul except for one tiny coastal village [where] the villagers, championed by a diminutive warrior Astérix ... defy Caesar's legions ...The 30 Astérix books have been whopping international hits ... by the end of 1996 some 280 million copies had been sold around the world. Most Astérix fans are to be found in France, where 95 million copies have been bought, closely followed by Germany, which has perused 87 million. Ironically, Italy has bought just 5 million copies -- possibly because Caesar and his soldiers almost always end up taking a bashing." (From an article in Variety, Feb '99)

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"Graphic novels are full length books whose stories are told in full color comic strip form some 64 or more pages in length. While some are intended for children, many are sophisticated enough for adults in terms of art and narrative quality. Series like Astérix and Tintin have been sold in the neighborhood of 100 million copies each throughout the world. Hundreds of new titles each year are published in Europe." (From the Meriden, CT Record-Journal, Aug '83)

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"Japan's comics, or manga, business accounts for nearly 40 percent of all the books and magazines published in Japan each year, with sales approaching the equivalent of $7 billion. And they're not just for kids...comics cater to children, teens, young adults - and even middle-aged men, who are often seen reading (them) on commuter trains... [They] are increasingly popular in the United States and Europe... Proponents predict the country's comic books and animation styles will form the backbone of 21st century world pop culture... [and]...will challenge Western pop culture." (From a July '97 AP story)