[HN Gopher] Topo magazine uses comics to tell the news to French...
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Topo magazine uses comics to tell the news to French teens
Author : giuliomagnifico
Score : 121 points
Date : 2023-11-24 14:02 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.niemanlab.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.niemanlab.org)
| CppPro wrote:
| Topo = Mouse
| giuliomagnifico wrote:
| Oh thanks! Also in Italian topo means mouse.
| fsckboy wrote:
| actually, in french mouse is souris (and bat is "shaved
| mouse", chauve souris)
|
| i think the french just know the italian word. i think there
| have been other celebrity topi, like Topo Gigio. i wrote a
| little script tool to explore/confirm my network topology,
| and i call it gigio :) it's based on testing ad hoc knowledge
| of my network topology so it's not generally useful.
| benterris wrote:
| Bat is actually "bald mouse", not "shaved", which makes
| sense somehow !
| FoeNyx wrote:
| The etymology of "chauve" (bald) in "chauve-souris" (bat)
| is debated, but I've often read that it could be a
| deformation of a word designating an owl or a crow (it
| would be a cognate with the late Latin "cavannus" (tawny
| owl), for example).
|
| On a similar note, the "cerf" (deer) in "un cerf-volant"
| (a kite toy) probably derive from occitan serp (snake) as
| a reference to dragon-shaped kites from Asia.
| throw_pm23 wrote:
| Interesting, probably a cognate of latin serpens, also
| English serpent (=snake), the other is also from latin
| cervus (=deer).
| frostburg wrote:
| Souris seems related to the Italian synonym / pejorative
| sorcio (for mouse) but I haven't checked.
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| But it is "place" in Greek, funny that it is different
| userbinator wrote:
| In Italian. But in French,
| https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/topo#Noun_3 sketch/rundown/short
| report/rough outline seems more likely the meaning in context
| here.
| mocamoca wrote:
| Maybe in an other language. But in French (and in this context)
| a "topo" is a summary or a synopsys.
|
| I guess it comes from "topographie", a sort of map.
| galaxyLogic wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topolino .
|
| Perhaps this is a connection to comics too.
| Broussebar wrote:
| A little bit off topic but there's a new wave of bande dessinee
| (french comics) artists in France i can really recommend anyone
| understanding french to have a look at anything published by the
| Label 619[1][2] especially the one shot Shangri La[3]. There's
| also the beautiful Saint Elme[4] that is definitely worth a read.
|
| [1] https://www.ankama-shop.com/en/13-label619 [2]
| https://www.editions-ruedesevres.fr/univers/label-619 [3]
| https://www.ankama-shop.com/en/label619/813-shangri-la-compl...
| [4] https://www.editions-delcourt.fr/bd/series/serie-saint-
| elme/...
| passwordoops wrote:
| Thanks so much! My kid needs to learn French (Montreal) but the
| way they teach it here is awful and I'm afraid turning her off
| the language. The only thing she really liked so far was a
| bande dessinee called "Lou". I'll give these others a try
| before the education system turns her off la belle langue
| forever
| bionsystem wrote:
| Depending on their ages and tastes here are a few of my
| favorites :
|
| - Manu Larcenet : has many great series suitable for kids. If
| you want to check one a bit more for adults I recommend
| "Blast" which is pretty much my favorite comic ever.
|
| - Lewis Trondheim has a great series around his character
| "Lapinot" (his Donjon series is amazing too ; be careful one
| or two of the albums can be a bit scary if the kid is too
| young, for instance I remember a scene of rape, not visual
| but it is clear what happens ; but a good chunk of the series
| is light-hearted especially potron-minet and parade)
|
| - Joan Sfar : actually co-author of Donjon but has entire
| work of his own, quite introspective with his jewish culture
|
| If you would like to teach with songs I also recommend Renaud
| (the albums from the 80s, not the recent ones), Brel, Iam
| (french 90s rap group but a lot of the lyrics are non-violent
| ; their most famous piece is about star wars actually).
| Broussebar wrote:
| Great recommendations, my favorite bd serie is Ralph
| Azham[1] from Lewis Trondheim. It's great for readers of
| all ages. Boulet[2] is also a nice writer with the same
| kind of humor as the ones suggested here.
|
| For teenagers there's also a lot of good sagas published by
| Soleil[3] especially during the 90-00.
|
| [1] https://www.goodreads.com/series/347300-ralph-azham
|
| [2] https://bouletcorp.com/
|
| [3] https://www.editions-soleil.fr/
|
| Edit: Formatting
| dmbche wrote:
| The Paul series (Paul au parc for example) is quite good and
| is mtl based if you want to look at it.
|
| Edit0: As mentionned somewhere else, chatting with a
| librarian could be a good idea to find more - the BANQ in mtl
| is a great place to chat with one!
| jfim wrote:
| If you're in Montreal, keep in mind the library system has a
| ton of them, so you can see if there's something that she
| likes.
| charcircuit wrote:
| I don't understand why they are not making their characters
| attractive by default like is done in manga. People want to see
| cute characters and I imagine most artists want to draw cute
| characters.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| Except for Musk, everyone seems stylistically fairly cute. The
| textile workers all are simply drawn but cute, and the cover
| with the reclined man is odd but he's still attractive. So I'm
| guessing the artist isn't a huge fan of Musk.
| userbinator wrote:
| As much as the French consume manga and other Japanese culture
| including anime, I think this is a more typical Western style,
| audiences of which may find normal Japanese cuteness to be
| over-the-top.
| guil177 wrote:
| I feel like historically french and belgium comic has a lot to
| do with caricature.
|
| I remember reading a lot of comic where every character was
| actually ugly. The only exceptions were tintin and blake et
| mortimer (from my childhood comic selection obviously)
| dopidopHN wrote:
| Not caricature. More like ... realistic? Characters have
| flaws, like in the real worlds. Their body are tired and they
| experience real human emotions. It's just more adult in
| general
| guil177 wrote:
| In the topo magazine yes, it has a more realistic style,
| but still I feel like history is very different from manga,
| and it still have influence even on those realistic style
| sometime.
|
| Like all comics like achille talon, asterix obelix, gaston
| lagaffe, boule et bill, cedric... Every character is
| exaggerated and not in flattering manner.
| master-lincoln wrote:
| I am fed up with cute characters and similarly beautiful
| looking people. Give me characters with flaws, that's how most
| humans are
| vdsk wrote:
| People in France who buy Comics/BD have a completely different
| aesthetic sense than manga buyers. There is almost no overlap,
| and manga buyers I know do not even register Comics/BD as an
| option. Comic artists are also usually very much against the
| manga aesthetics and seem to go for (imho) ugly designs to
| differentiate themselves.
| pjerem wrote:
| I know a lot of people who read both, it's not some sort of
| mutually exclusive tastes. It's just that they are really
| different products that only share the fact that they are a
| succession of drawings arranged to tell a story. Basically
| everything else is different.
| charcircuit wrote:
| Even assuming that is true, I believe that comics could be
| more successful if they changed their character designs to
| make them more appealing to look at.
| hhh wrote:
| I could never find flawlessness interesting in this kind of
| art.
| pjerem wrote:
| It's the style of European comics (bandes dessinees). To be
| even more precise, it's a French-Belgium style. Those two
| countries have an awesome culture and history of "bandes
| dessinees" which is hardly comparable to manga or US comics.
| It's much more fine humor and hidden criticism than heroes and
| incredible adventures.
|
| Also, here it's a magazine which will sometimes talk about hard
| or sad topics so I don't think you want something too bright, a
| neutral style like shown here seems to be the most sensible
| choice.
| xrd wrote:
| You should take a look at the book Understanding Comics by
| Scott McCloud. It's a fascinating book about how our brains
| interpret imagery through the study of comics. One of the best
| parts is when he explains how humans connect better with
| abstract imagery. For example, villains are often close to
| photorealistic while the characters the author wants us to
| identify with is often abstract. It's very counterintuitive and
| fascinating.
| lupusreal wrote:
| The "everybody is cute" art style that modern manga and anime
| converged on is very ugly. It tracks with the degeneration of
| the audience; there used to be content made for all sorts of
| audiences but now it's all made for weirdo manchildren. This
| has been a trend starting with Japan's economic stagnation and
| getting worse every year. Investing time and money in an anime
| or manga production is risky and the safest bet is to pander to
| the most reliable audience (the manchildren.)
| dopidopHN wrote:
| Dept of characters?
| devnonymous wrote:
| Reminds of The Nib ( https://thenib.com/ ). Some of the best
| English language non fiction artists contributed to it. Was
| saddened when they decided to discontinue.
| xrd wrote:
| Yeah, I came here to post this. I still have all my back
| issues. They are great, and my kids understand the world a
| little better because it is accessible to them.
| mp05 wrote:
| If you're letting "kids" read this, you're robbing them of
| their childhood. Minds that have not been fully developed
| should not be ingesting propaganda.
| isametry wrote:
| Seems very heavily... leaning for sure. And interestingly, you
| can tell at first glance without reading any of the contents --
| it's the artstyles. I'm not sure what it is exactly, I wish I
| could put a finger on it, but there's just _something_ about
| most political cartoons which makes them give away their
| alignment instantly (either way).
|
| It's especially obvious if you look at the Authors page [0]. I
| don't think anyone can be in doubt as to where most of these
| artists stand. As a group for sure, but even the individual
| avatars when viewed isolated. This is somehow fascinating to
| me.
|
| [0] https://thenib.com/authors/
| romwell wrote:
| Reject tradition (comics), embrace modernity (memes).
|
| /r/NCD[1] uses memes to tell the news to American adults (and
| fight misinformation along the way).
|
| _Disclaimer: I 'm an unashamed contributor and a NAFO[1] member_
|
| [1] https://old.reddit.com/r/NonCredibleDefense
|
| [2]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/NAFO_(meme)
| RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote:
| This strikes me more as propaganda than the news.
|
| Cartooning involves a lot more ability to editorialize. Even if
| the words are the same, subtle alterations in depictions can
| convey what the cartoonist wants.
|
| In addition, in a world of StableDifffusion and AI generated
| graphics, are we really wanting to train teens to get their news
| via (human for now) generated depictions of current events?
| ses1984 wrote:
| Unless you're physically present for an event, literally all
| news you can possibly get about that event is a generated
| depiction of it.
| k__ wrote:
| I once visited a photography exhibition about propaganda in
| Nazi Germany.
|
| Photos look much realer than most drawings/paintings so people
| assume what they're depicting must be real. Since the
| technology was new, most people just believed it, and so the
| Nazis could sell them anything as the truth.
| badsaga wrote:
| In Spain we also have a magazine like this called "El Jueves"
| which is also very left-leaning like this one.
|
| I suppose such magazines exist in every country?
| dopidopHN wrote:
| Cartooning does involve editing reality and giving it a
| personal interpretation, yes.
|
| Like writing, framing a picture, or whatever that is not being
| there.
| nemo44x wrote:
| Of course it is and people recognize it as such and therefore
| their circulation is very low. So naturally they're trying to
| get public funds to put it into schools and into defenseless
| kids heads through subversion.
| vitalurk wrote:
| Yes, why don't we continue letting them watch Fox News/CNN
| instead, right? Or some cartoon that will teach them to
| consume.
| nemo44x wrote:
| Or letting their parents determine these things?
| zdragnar wrote:
| They admit as much in the article, by stating that they want to
| strike a tone that is not too positive and not too depressing.
| It isn't a journalist's job to do either of those things.
|
| A charitable take is that they want to be honest without
| disillusioning kids. They want kids to feel included in
| understanding current events, without making the world seem
| utterly hopeless (and thus inflicting a nihilistic world view).
|
| An uncharitable take is that they are grooming activists. They
| don't want it to be too positive so kids feel an urge to right
| some wrong, and they don't want it too depressing so they think
| there's still some agency to be advocated for.
| TheAceOfHearts wrote:
| Buying physical magazines in this era seems a bit archaic. One
| aspect that I like about the slow release schedule is that it
| forces the editors to only include things which are really
| important or relevant, rather than having to pad with news that
| will be forgotten in a couple days.
|
| I think Washington Post is doing the best job at reaching younger
| audiences with their TikTok shorts. They make short sketches of
| current events, which the viewer can follow up on if the story
| catches their interest. You have to meet young people where
| they're at while respecting the medium.
|
| Maybe a fun remix would be to make short and silly animations
| detailing current events.
|
| Another attempt at reaching younger audiences: there are some
| egirls that act really over the top anime kawaii uwu while
| dropping political facts. It's a bit cringe inducing, but appears
| to be effective at getting people's attention. Admittedly I'm not
| sure if this form of informational dissemination will remain
| viable in the long term or if it'll lose potency once the novelty
| wears off.
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(page generated 2023-11-25 23:02 UTC)