The French Comics Market In 2011

[Rich Johnston]

In the French comic book market, it's been another year of growth, with 5327 comic book volumes published over 5165 last year. These are typically 48-72 page colour hardcover volumes.

While there are 310 comic book publishers in France, four of them, Media Participations, Delcourt, Glenat and Flammarion take almost half the business, with Delcourt at number one after the purchase of rival publisher Le Soleil.

The best selling title was the long awaited XIII volume 20 by Yves Sente and Your Jigounov, with a print run of half a million. Without the likes of Asterix or Titeuf to challenge it this year, it ruled the roost, while its companion series XIII Mystery volume 4 by Alcante and François Boucq came in at number 6 in the non-manga charts with a 200,000 print run. Kid Paddle vol 12 by Midam had a 360,000 print run, Boule et Bill vol 33 by Laurent Verron had 254,000 and both Thorgal vol 33 by Grzegorz Rosinskiif Lucky by Achdé took 220,000. At seventh place, the Tintin movie comic only had a 160,000 print run. In the Manga charts, Naruto had print runs of 250,000 for each volume, while One Piece has 100,000 - the market is still vast, enough to require its own chart, but ten books make up half the sales.

The Simpsons Comics, while maxing at around 150,000 a volume, took places 13-16 on the charts with, appropriately volumes 13-16 as a whole sold over a million copies with Peter Bagge's Treehouse Of Horrors taking 80,000 alone. The other major US success is The Walking Dead, the volumes of which ran from 55,000 to 85,000 sales each.

The outlook seems to be similar to the US is some degree, a tightening of experimentation, a reliance on big names for sales with a retraction of the long tail market. But in France, the market is so vast and diverse, it's still one of the most mature in the world.

There were also more comics festivals, conventions and exhibitions this year in France than ever before, a total of 455.

Thanks to ACBDF and Comics Place

[Maniacmatt]

That's awesome. Hopefully the US market learns from their successes. Glad to see a positive story about the industry once in a while.

[Marvelbunny]

Are any of these translated to English ? I would to try a few of them

[Fysh]

Are any of these translated to English ? I would to try a few of them

Cinebook in the UK have been doing sterling work translating a whole bunch of French comics, though they're nowhere near current on stuff like XIII. That said, with something like XIII or Thorgal you might be better off starting at the beginning and working from there. (They are also translating more recent stuff like Orbital, Crusades and Long John Silver, which are great and well worth reading).

[Maniacmatt]

Cinebook in the UK have been doing sterling work translating a whole bunch of French comics, though they're nowhere near current on stuff like XIII. That said, with something like XIII or Thorgal you might be better off starting at the beginning and working from there. (They are also translating more recent stuff like Orbital, Crusades and Long John Silver, which are great and well worth reading).

Blacksad was originally French as well, yes? And there's also the Terry Dodson book that's being released in English as Muse.

[Fysh]

Blacksad was originally French as well, yes? And there's also the Terry Dodson book that's being released in English as Muse.

RE: Blacksad - Yep, though I'm not sure who's doing the English translations. I think Dark Horse have republished it in the US but I don't know if they've got exclusive rights for it across the world.

[fredmanson]

We are the #1 in the World for the comics sales!!!!!!!


Our comics cost from the lower ones at 9.00 Euros, the medium ones are at 13.50 Euros, and the expensive ones start at 17.50 Euros. From 48 to 72 (and more!!) full color, oversized pages, strong quality paper, and with a hardcover in 98%.

"Only" 364 titles from the USA were translated in French. And like Rich said, the Simpsons (all the titles) are the most published in France: for 2011, it is a global amount of 1,080,000 books sold!!!! I do not know what are the sales in the USA...

As I have said before in many of my posts, Asian titles are more and more present, and I do not speak of mangas. I am speaking of real new stories from new Asian comics markets.

Oh, yeah, we are "only" the second market of mangas in the World, just behind Japan, with a "low" 1520 new titles only for this year... What a shame...

We have 76 publications which are doing pre-publications.

The best one is the new monthly "L'Immanquable" (L'Immanquable N°12 - La BD en avant-première) which is a 148 FC pages oversized magazine format with near 120 FC pages of stories, a lot of interviews of the authors, very few ads (from the comics publishers only!!). It is sold at 6.50 Euros in newssagents shops, in some newstands of supermarkets and in the comic shops too. An international subscription is available for a very low price of 65.00 Euros/year. It is printed at 35,000 copies per issue (and a lot of them are sold out!!!! Fortunately, I have them all!! )

We also have reprints of your comic books in newsstands and comic shops. The lower price is around 3.90 Euros for a 48 FC pages, comic sized, cardstock cover, and to 4.60 Euros for a 96 FC pages, comic sized, cardstock cover too. I forget: AND WITHOUT ADS IN THEM!!!!

It seems that each of the 13 Panini (near) monthly reprint comic books is printed at 20,000 copies per issue. With near 4 different comic books in a copy, that is a not so bad 80,000 "singles" printed each month, for an issue only. You multiplie by 13 and you have the result.
(I have not taken the specials titles, which are from 2 to 5 a month and that contain between 4 "singles" in one issue to "n" "singles" in one big issue - and no, they are counted as trade paperbacks!!!).

The DC Comics titles, the New 52, will be published in the same format but at higher price, under the colors of Urban Comics - a "joint-venture" between DC Comics and Dargaud Editions. The to come Green Lantern title, which will reprint each month the 4 GL US series, will be sold at 5.60 Euros.

As the US mainstream comic book market is really annoying (despite the DC New 52), I have dropped more than 80% titles of my monthly purchase list. I only have mostly kept indies and UK titles (humm... 2000 AD and THE JD Meg!!! I want Commando too, but it is very expensive with the shipping fees...), despite sometimes their cover price. I prefer QUALITY and PLEASURE IN READING than QUANTITY and BORING STORIES...

So, you know what you need to do: learn the French language!!! We will be very happy to send you our comics!!!!

[Xavier Guilbert]

The best selling title was the long awaited XIII volume 20 by Yves Sente and Your Jigounov, with a print run of half a million. Without the likes of Asterix or Titeuf to challenge it this year, it ruled the roost, while its companion series XIII Mystery volume 4 by Alcante and François Boucq came in at number 6 in the non-manga charts with a 200,000 print run. Kid Paddle vol 12 by Midam had a 360,000 print run, Boule et Bill vol 33 by Laurent Verron had 254,000 and both Thorgal vol 33 by Grzegorz Rosinskiif Lucky by Achdé took 220,000. At seventh place, the Tintin movie comic only had a 160,000 print run. In the Manga charts, Naruto had print runs of 250,000 for each volume, while One Piece has 100,000 - the market is still vast, enough to require its own chart, but ten books make up half the sales.

Note that the ACBD report only lists print runs, and NOT sale figures. The above paragraph should read only as a listing of the largest print runs, with sales being accounted for by mid-January by one of the two main panels, Ipsos and GfK. Considering the way prominent franchises have fared over the past years (see here for instance), the largest print runs don't always come out on top. Just another reason to make sure that the different figures are not mixed up.

[bottleHeD]

Cinebooks is great, it was pretty much my first introduction to European comics, having read Largo Winch, Aldebaran and others through their translated copies. I believe the only change Cinebooks makes is to cover up the nudity in the original comics, with the creator's permission.

[Hollow]

I believe the only change Cinebooks makes is to cover up the nudity in the original comics, with the creator's permission.

The also publish the French volumes completely at random, sometimes starting with French vol. 9 or something like that as their first volume. IIRC "Thorgal" is published out of order (which is a great deal) and with "Yoko Tsuno" they are obviously leaving out all adventures that take place in space and publish only the earth-bound volumes without the Vineans (an alien-race) which make up roughly half of the series.