Guest of "L'Equipée sauvage", Thursday, on Europe 1, the cartoonist recalled the difficulties that affect comic book writers in France.

INTERVIEW

In June 2018, along with other writers, Joann Sfar signed an open letter to the government published in Le Parisien . The signatories worried about their social and fiscal system, while the figures concerning comic strip activity are indeed alarming. According to a 2016 survey, 53% of comic book writers earn less than the Smic equivalent and 36% are under the poverty line. More than a year after this rostrum, the Rabbi Cat's cartoonist comes back to this situation.

"It publishes 5,000 albums a year"

"It has never been easy to live comics, but the difficulties are changing," said Joann Sfar. The author, he published his first comic in 1994, at 23 years. "When I started, it was very difficult to get published, but there were only 300 comics a year, so when you were published, you could think that you were professional," recalls he. Today, things are very different. "It publishes 5,000 albums a year, which means that an author who publishes, even for a long time, does not necessarily succeed in living there.There was a lot of protection for the world of the book of implementations in recent years but no protection for the authors, "laments Joann Sfar.

>> READ ALSO: Between growth and great precariousness, comics in full paradox

"It's a very complex subject"

From this platform, and with the creation of the League of Authors in September 2018, the draftsman hopes that things will change. The objectives are simple: to improve the conditions of creation ("social protection, remuneration, copyright, supervision by the labor code, rebalancing the author / publisher relationship", can we read on the site of the collective). "Has anyone been heard Yes, but it's a very complex subject," he concedes. For Joann Sfar, "we must protect this profession". "If we believe the authorities, it's underway," he concludes.