The fall of the French weekly

[lerichard@free.fr]

Olivier:

>Absolutely. it's hard ot tell they're Disney comics, starting with the
>cover.
>There were non-Disney comics in my youth as well ('74-'80's), but they were
>quality strips: Flash Gordon, Mandrake, the Katzenjammer Kids (well,
>whatever incranation of  them; I know there was a split and the name
>changed; I'm not sure which run it was, but that's of  little concern here),

I think the comics that are in the French weekly aren't that bad.
 The non-Disney ones like l'eleve Ducobu and Kid Paddle, and also the small
and tall monster short stories that you find in Picsou are funny. The Disney
comics (Dutch + the best of Danish & Italian) are good.
The French started producing Donald stories instead of Mickey stories
 because they saw the reader was more interested in Ducks.
So the comics aren't bad, and one can argue there were much worst
periods of time regarding comics. The problem IMO are the non-comics pages,
which show the mepris/disdain of the editors for Disney comics.
Many French comic readers buy non-Disney French comic albums (graphic novels in
the US)
hence the Disney comic books have to attract people who are not that fond of
comics. I mean kids who like puzzle, games, enigm pages and the interview
articles material are part of the target. And this is the stuff kids are
 getting bored of (for good reason). On the other hand, big format comic books
like "Super Picsou Geant" sell well, but since they only consist of
reprint material, they seem a bit unpersonnal. Hachette ought to switch
 to a more "comic-only" if they want to succeed IMO.

>The real main event the issue celebrated was the soccer
>championship! The Donald story featured Donald playing soccer.
>I did not buy that thing. It was an utter disgrace to years and years of
>Disney comics.

I'm not sure what you mean, but I really don't think soccer is the problem.
It's a good subject that Scarpa and Luis Destuet in Argentina used and they did
good stories with it.