Paris (AFP)

Space exploration, Homo sapiens or even quantum physics: nothing escapes the comics of popular science, whose emblematic designer Marion Montaigne is this year godmother of the festival of science.

"When I tried to edit Volume 1 of" You'll die less stupid ", in 2009/2010, the editors said but + who asks questions like that? +, + It'll be a small niche thing, geek, "tells AFP Marion Montaigne.

Since then, his album "Dans la combi by Thomas Pesquet" (Dargaud) has placed 4th BD of the top of sales 2018, the collection "Hubert Reeves explains us" (The Lombard) of the famous astrophysicist accumulates 60.000 sales in only two volumes, and "The mystery of the quantum world" by Thibault Damour, on the physics of the same name, has sold more than 56,000 copies.

"Nobody would have imagined that we touch as many people with this book, rather pointed!", Recognizes Pauline Mermet, director of collection at Dargaud, publisher of the book. The science comic book was "a fairly virgin ground until recently, which has been developing for 5/6 years by finding a fairly wide audience".

Because finally, to popularize difficult topics, the 9th Art does not miss assets.

Starting with drawing: the visual representation of concepts is often not too much. In "The mystery of the quantum world", the Belgian artist Mathieu Burniat allows us to understand the oscillation with a girl on a swing.

Without limit, or almost. "I can go into the future and the past, into the infinitely small and the infinitely big, even inside the human body," explains Marion Montaigne, winner of the Audience / Cultura award at the Angoulême 2018 festival.

And if everything is spiced with a little humor, science goes better. "An astronaut who is electrocuted on a machine, filming is hard, drawing is funny," adds Marion Montaigne.

- "It reassures" -

Even scientists find their account: "In comics, we are limited in place, we must be more synthetic in his head, in his words.That allows to be more impactful", Judge Antoine Balzeau, author of "Homo sapiens" from the collection "the little library of knowledge" (The Lombard). "

For the paleoanthropologist of the Museum of Natural History, getting into the comics makes it possible to reach a new audience: "The books are interesting but we are talking to an audience already acquired about it, we do not really contribute to the expansion of knowledge ".

He admits to having found a way to go beyond his discipline to address certain issues of society, such as the place of man or the destruction of the environment. "It was a happiness, a real happiness," he smiles.

"Propose these topics in comics, it reassures, we say that it is accessible," adds Pauline Mermet.

But the didactic comics did not boil all alone, it surfs on the good general form of the sector. While the book market is declining and the reading time of the French is decreasing, the BD has experienced, in 2018, a growth of 2% (in turnover and volume), according to the National Union of the edition (SNE).

"Comics today is decompartmentalized ever more and takes all subjects, all genres," says Pauline Mermet for whom "there is more snobbery" towards this genre.

"Marion Montaigne, Hubert Reeves, Thibault Damour or Leo Grasset have shown us the path to rush," notes the National Union of Publishing (SNE) presenting "Science bubbles", a mini album edited especially for the party of science and offered for any purchase of two scientific books.

The 28th edition of the Science Festival, which runs from Saturday until 13 October in Metropolitan France and from 9 to 17 November in overseas territories and abroad, will offer more than 6,000 free events.

© 2019 AFP