In the Licorne bookstore in Valence, since the beginning of December the sometimes narrow shelves are always full. Sometimes you have to wait to grab a comic that another has already started leafing through. Behind the window, the batteries are draining quickly and readers go directly to works targeting topical issues, such as the climate emergency mentioned in “The endless world” by Christophe Blain and Jean-Marc Jancovici or even towards “the Cordoba Bibliomule”, which evokes resistance to the autodafé that has occurred in the Andalusian city.
The pass-culture was renamed the pass-manga by the booksellers
For Laure Petrissans, bookseller at La Licorne de Valence, restrictions related to the health crisis brought new readers to his shop: “The year 2020 was a turning point for all bookstores, it freed up a windfall of customers. Not only are people buying more but above all we have plenty of new customers, whom we had never seen before and who today ‘ They walk through the door of the bookstore. Comics attract a lot, moreover the pass-culture offered by the government has been renamed the pass-manga because you only see that going through the cash register. “
A few steps from Place des Clercs de Valence, in the Notre Temps bookstore, Gwendal Rebillard, the seller, explains that comics represent a quarter of sales for the end of 2021. According to him, this craze is due to the evolution and modernization of comics: “Little by little we left the traditional comic strip, with a very classic format, Asterix style, Largo Winch: today we are on graphic novels, that appeals a lot. Everything that is documentary comics works very well, like that of journalist Benoit Collombat, “The choice of unemployment”, it is in great demand. “
According to the French bookstore union, among the best-selling books for the holidays, we find the comic book by Riad Sattouf for “The young actor”, Christophe Blain for “The endless world”, Pénélope Bagieu for “The strata”.