Litterature for Has-Beens

First, what's a "Has-Been"? 

It's someone who trying anything to stays hip or relevant to an audience who don't longer reflect him or her, or someone when its work went to Auto-Pilot or a culture we thinking to be gone forever but now, is aimed for a smart-aleck elite.

The BDs is one of them, no question.

Judging by the late boycott of authors for the upcoming Angoulême festival and by the elite that still kiss it, this is likely the end of the line of a long decline of a formidable artwork, that have never survived well in the Digital transition, to the increasing Mangas popularity, neither to the popularity of streaming platforms.

This is like the Arcade Fire band finally. For an Indie rock band that had surprising everyone at that time and by all the hooplah of sexual harassment against one of their crew, the band is now aimed for an elite when most of their tunes are just strange and unappealing to listening on - no mention to the way they looking on to average people with dimsay and obliviouseness. This is what we have from the current BDs of now.

For have working on a Puppet show for years at school that had to related about a comics-obsesser little girl (In 2002? No one became that as I know.) who went to a dreamlike universe when all the heroes teach her about recycling, I known that even for a lousy story, we have to worked hard and together for stays in prime on each representation. If the same thing would happening today, surely that this same girl would become a wannabe Influencer. That would be ten times more inspiring than what we played all our part to, but social media and smartphones didn't enslaved our lives, yet.

But what about BDs now? Is many kids still read that or the climbing sales and receptions to the medias are just an illusion to an artform that went woke by treated anything like "Infomercials"?

Back in the '10s, Julien Neel by his sixth LOU!'s volume "The Age of Cristal", having predated the 2020s Coronavirus, at something we tent to forget it for good measures. However, at that time, it was seen like the return of stories that likely act like a bland Saturday Morning TV cartoon from the past. Neel seems to be more busy to get his paychecks than actually respond to criticism. The same author rear its ugly head when his "Infomercial" schtik has ruined the ending of one of the biggest 21th century artform efforts. That went to ask if a Sonata follow-up was necessary especially when the graphic novel industry is more hostile to the reaction of average fans than its smarmy elite who help them to fund a revenue there.

No need to tell how much trees are chopped for make their narratives arrived to bookstores. The whole artform looks to me very out-of-style with the complex issues of our current world.

We known very well that Art is an essential service for all people, but it's likely less the case as far we are concerned of their privileges and abuses. Reading and worked on a BD are two worlds. The former is less attractive than it was for the latter. Because that ask lots of hours of hard work, sacrifices and made tons of changes in order the story flow out naturally. Aside of that, most of the series of the past twenty years have a horrendous sense to cover dialogues, with grammar mistakes became more egregious than others. Are they "checked" the dialogues to book editors before to launch it on a book? I don't think so anymore.

This is not to says that it was better before, but simply that newer forms of dialogues have to be in touch with what people actually says in the street, but to me, it's been lazy by wrote everything like a retarded teenager who fails his basic vocabulary on the Cégep. We cannot afford to be oblivious that many people out there suffers of illiteracy, don't know to read, write or get something simple. The inclusive writing is also complicit of this pattern.

Because yeah, reading a BD is something that went like a Has-Been performer who try to be cool again. It don't made sense that conventions for this could exists, when more and more people are busy with the next Netflix or Disney+ thing. Besides that there is still problems of mysoginy, racism or verbal violence in most of the narratives. They laugh of that when in the logical purposes of the real world, it turned on at stupid, by put the right conclusion that this is a litterature for old people or the "Has-Been" ones who never quit its era of fame. Like the way old fans still are attracted to Elvis Presley, even almost a mid-century he passed away.