A government initiative in has led to an unexpected boom in sales of comics, manga, and graphic novels, which leaves some calling it a failure. But why have French youth turned to sequential art specifically, and is this really as much of a condemnation of youth culture as critics would have the world believe?
As part of a campaign promise from French President Emmanuel Macron, an app called the Culture was launched in May of 2021, providing every eighteen-year-old in the country with up to 300 Euros (approx. $350) to be spent on arts and culture-related expenses. These can range from art supplies and musical instruments to concerts, books, and yes, comics and manga as well.
manga is often produced by an individual with a small team of assistants.
While critics who would have preferred to drive teenagers towards the classics of theatre and music have been quick to dismiss the program as a failure, that's hardly a fair assessment of the situation. The current situation made manga the most prominent and available form of media being actively released, but it goes beyond that. There's an inherent dismissal underlying these criticisms, an implication that mass media like comics can never truly be a vehicle for culture. In fact, the opposite couldn't be more true: these manga and comics are popular because they are embodying the culture of today, and often doing far better at it than other, more critically "respected" forms of media. This goes beyond the slice-of-life style stories, which obviously address elements of everyday life, but also to fantasy and action series, where the anxieties of today tend to be made manifest in a more metaphorical style.
Manga and comics are a key basis of modern culture around the world, serving as the source material for blockbuster film adaptations and streaming series. The sequential art media is evolving as a consequence of global sharing and influence, and this French Culture initiative is only revealing how truly successful it's become. While the results may be decades away, it's likely that Culture could have a much greater impact on manga and graphic novels than even its ers could have expected.
