Since mid-December, the shock hit local weather disaster graphic novel World Without End (‘Le Monde Sans Fin’) has been the victim of a weird different information marketing campaign by anti-nuclear activists taking benefit of the busy pre-Christmas gross sales interval. Claiming to be representatives of the e book’s writer, Dargaud, activists have been contacting French bookstores requesting so as to add a sheet of corrections to the e book. Dargaud’s proprietor Média Participations has implied it would search authorized motion.
World Without End (‘Le Monde Sans Fin’), pitched as a discourse between cartoonist Christophe Blain, and vitality and local weather knowledgeable Jean-Marc Jancovici, has been the publishing phenomenon of 2022. Since its launch in October 2021 it has offered over half 1,000,000 copies (over 540,000 and counting) and has resolutely clung to the French comics charts – usually being one of the one bande dessinée nonetheless current in a given month regardless of wave after wave of sizzling new manga releases. It was even in competition for the Eco-Fauve (a prize for ecological themed books) at this yr’s Angoulême Festival. In June 2022 an English language version was launched digitally by Europe Comics. Unfortunately the e book has proved controversial to some for co-author Jancovici’s pro-nuclear stance.
The current stunt by activists concerned the manufacturing of a two-page anti-nuclear and anti-Jancovici message disguised as an erratum or correction sheet utilizing the writer’s emblem within the header. While it’s apparently not unusual for correction sheets to be positioned in titles after publication in France, the tone of the content material raised suspicions sufficient for some retailers to contact the writer.
The faux corrections sheet started [translated by DeepL],
“The wildfires of this summer have created a renewed concern in the team of our publishing house and have pushed us to requestion our publishing line. The book Le Monde Sans Fin, by Jean-Marc Jancovici and Christophe Blain, published in 2021, is a great success in bookstores and libraries, and we thank you for that. However, we regret to have to publish an erratum and to draw your attention to some important points.”
It then instantly goes after one of the e book’s authors,
“Jean-Marc Jancovici has repeatedly demonstrated his formidable talent for popularising science. Nevertheless we must recognise his flagrant lack of competence in the human sciences. This shortcoming makes him reduce any social and economic reading to his engineer’s point of view, whereas technological development is not everything.”
Also saying:
“The general orientation of the book, despite its apparent critique of growth, is liberal and rather authoritarian, as you will surely have noticed.”
The first reported incident of somebody requesting to insert faux correction notes into copies of the e book, in keeping with the Ouest France newspaper, occurred in mid-December:
“The Ryst bookstore, in Cherbourg-en-Cotentin [in the Manche area on the coast of Normandy], was the first to report the arrival of a forger on Wednesday, December 14, 2022. A woman, posing as a representative of the publisher, asked to photocopy and insert an erratum with very political overtones in copies of the book”
Similar incidents have been reported to the writer from bookstores in Paris, Bordeaux and the Toulouse area. This then escalated additional with a December 22 electronic mail claiming to be from the writer despatched to retailers requesting the correction sheets to be printed out and positioned in retailer copies. Initially believed to be a collection of seemingly remoted instances, as extra got here within the writer seen a sample.
Stéphane Aznar, normal supervisor of Dargaud, stated to Libération’s CheckNews fact-checking service:
“Three days ago, we received a referral from a bookseller who received such a visit. She found the situation a bit strange and turned to our sales team to find out more. It occurred in the Manche, in the vicinity of Flamanville [where a power plant is located and where an EPR-type reactor is being built].”
They continued:
“We thought the subject was very localized. But very quickly, we had similar feedback from a bookstore in the Toulouse area, then in Bordeaux, in Paris… We realized that there was likely a coordinated action and we reacted immediately. We wrote a press release that we sent to all our customers in the territory to explain to them that it was a crude fake and that, of course, Dargaud editions would never have been at the origin of a leaflet discrediting an author that we publish. Some booksellers, fortunately, did not fall into the trap and reacted immediately. Others, in a period like Christmas when they are very busy, were fooled and inserted the document in the book…”
Dargaud proprietor Média Participations (which additionally owns US writer Abrams) has implied authorized motion is on the desk, quoted in information journal Marianne, that they “strongly condemn this defamatory action and will initiate the necessary legal proceedings”
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