BD Now on the Newsstands

I'm currently in France and just popped into the local Intermarche get an idea of the local comics (BD) scene as it stands right now. Note, this is not what you'd see in a specialist shop or your giant FNAC in Paris, but rather what locals in the countryside have access to in their local supermarket.

Unsurprisingly a LOT of what's available for the younger readers are licensed brand titles like Mickey Mouse, Lego, Pokemon and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles with tons of free bits of plastic all wrapped up in a big plastic bag, just like the UK:

And the Americans have made quiet an impact with both Marvel and DC comics translations on the shelves with X-Men, Suicide Squad, Inhumans, Gotham Girls, etc taking a sizeable chuck of the slightly older reader market:

And of course the ubiquitous Les Simpsons has been running on French TV for almost as long as it has in the UK so it was unsurprising to see the comic albums alongside the essential TinTin, Cedric, and Zep's Titeuf (which has also been made into an animated series in France):

Also similar to WH Smith's in the UK, graphic novel partworks are very popular here. While it's mostly Hachette who rule this market in the UK, it's Eaglemoss in France, with a partwork of Boule & Bill (currently translated in the UK by CineBooks) for younger readers, and The Legend of Batman for their older siblings/parents—kicking off with Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo's Zero Year saga.

National newspaper, Le Monde also have a partwork series of BD adaptations of classic literature including Jules Verne's Around the Moon. Obviously Luc Besson's Valerian film has made a big splash here and there's a new partwork reprinting the classic adventures.

Paris Match have even released a Valerian special edition interviewing the creators, Pierre Christin and Jean-Claude Mezieres, looking behind the scenes of the film and how the comics inspired Hollywood Sci-Fi films, etc:

Finally, Manga seems to have a lot less of a grip on the newsstand market as it once did with One Piece being the only dominant series...

...and a couple of manga/anime magazines including Coyote. As for other anthology magazines, it appears long gone are the days of A Suivre, l'Echo des Savanes, Metal Hurlant, et al. Sadly the only anthologies I saw were the regular edition and a summer bumper reprint edition of the adult humour title Fluide Glacial and a summer special of the kid's long running series, Spirou (essentially France's Beano/Dandy) — which I bought!

And there you have it, a quick snapshot of what comics you can buy on the French newsstands today!