Paris
Paris is the capital and most populous city of France, with an area of 105 square kilometres and an official estimated population of 2,140,526 residents as of 1 January 2019. Since the 17th century, Paris has been one of Europe's major centres of finance, commerce, fashion and the arts; the City of Paris is the centre and seat of government of the Île-de-France, or Paris Region, which has an estimated official 2019 population of 12,213,364, or about 18 percent of the population of France. The Paris Region had a GDP of €681 billion in 2016, accounting for 31 percent of the GDP of France, was the 5th largest region by GDP in the world. According to the Economist Intelligence Unit Worldwide Cost of Living Survey in 2018, Paris was the second most expensive city in the world, after Singapore, ahead of Zurich, Hong Kong and Geneva. Another source ranked Paris as most expensive, on a par with Singapore and Hong-Kong, in 2018; the city is a major rail and air-transport hub served by two international airports: Paris-Charles de Gaulle and Paris-Orly.
Opened in 1900, the city's subway system, the Paris Métro, serves 5.23 million passengers daily, is the second busiest metro system in Europe after Moscow Metro. Gare du Nord is the 24th busiest railway station in the world, the first located outside Japan, with 262 million passengers in 2015. Paris is known for its museums and architectural landmarks: the Louvre was the most visited art museum in the world in 2018, with 10.2 million visitors. The Musée d'Orsay and Musée de l'Orangerie are noted for their collections of French Impressionist art, the Pompidou Centre Musée National d'Art Moderne has the largest collection of modern and contemporary art in Europe; the historical district along the Seine in the city centre is classified as a UNESCO Heritage Site. Popular landmarks in the centre of the city include the Cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris and the Gothic royal chapel of Sainte-Chapelle, both on the Île de la Cité. Paris received 23 million visitors in 2017, measured by hotel stays, with the largest numbers of foreign visitors coming from the United States, the UK, Germany and China.
It was ranked as the third most visited travel destination in the world in 2017, after Bangkok and London. The football club Paris Saint-Germain and the rugby union club Stade Français are based in Paris; the 80,000-seat Stade de France, built for the 1998 FIFA World Cup, is located just north of Paris in the neighbouring commune of Saint-Denis. Paris hosts the annual French Open Grand Slam tennis tournament on the red clay of Roland Garros. Paris will host the 2024 Summer Olympics; the 1938 and 1998 FIFA World Cups, the 2007 Rugby World Cup, the 1960, 1984, 2016 UEFA European Championships were held in the city and, every July, the Tour de France bicycle race finishes there. The name "Paris" is derived from the Celtic Parisii tribe; the city's name is not related to the Paris of Greek mythology. Paris is referred to as the City of Light, both because of its leading role during the Age of Enlightenment and more because Paris was one of the first large European cities to use gas street lighting on a grand scale on its boulevards and monuments.
Gas lights were installed on the Place du Carousel, Rue de Rivoli and Place Vendome in 1829. By 1857, the Grand boulevards were lit. By the 1860s, the boulevards and streets of Paris were illuminated by 56,000 gas lamps. Since the late 19th century, Paris has been known as Panam in French slang. Inhabitants are known in French as Parisiens, they are pejoratively called Parigots. The Parisii, a sub-tribe of the Celtic Senones, inhabited the Paris area from around the middle of the 3rd century BC. One of the area's major north–south trade routes crossed the Seine on the île de la Cité; the Parisii minted their own coins for that purpose. The Romans began their settlement on Paris' Left Bank; the Roman town was called Lutetia. It became a prosperous city with a forum, temples, an amphitheatre. By the end of the Western Roman Empire, the town was known as Parisius, a Latin name that would become Paris in French. Christianity was introduced in the middle of the 3rd century AD by Saint Denis, the first Bishop of Paris: according to legend, when he refused to renounce his faith before the Roman occupiers, he was beheaded on the hill which became known as Mons Martyrum "Montmartre", from where he walked headless to the north of the city.
Clovis the Frank, the first king of the Merovingian dynasty, made the city his capital from 508. As the Frankish domination of Gaul began, there was a gradual immigration by the Franks to Paris and the Parisian Francien dialects were born. Fortification of the Île-de-la-Citie failed to avert sacking by Vikings in 845, but Paris' strategic importance—with its bridges prevent
Blueberry (comics)
Blueberry is Western comic series created in the Franco-Belgian bandes dessinées tradition by the Belgian scriptwriter Jean-Michel Charlier and French comics artist Jean "Mœbius" Giraud. It chronicles the adventures of Mike Blueberry on his travels through the American Old West. Blueberry is an atypical western hero. In any situation, he sees what he thinks needs doing, he does it; the series spawned out of the 1963 Fort Navajo comics series intended as an ensemble narrative, but which gravitated around the breakout character "Blueberry" as the main and central character after the first two stories, causing the series to continue under his name on. The older stories, released under the Fort Navajo moniker, were reissued under the name Blueberry as well in reprint runs. Two spin-offs series, La Jeunesse de Blueberry and Marshal Blueberry, were created pursuant the main series reaching its peak in popularity in the early 1980s, it has been remarked that during the 1960s, Blueberry "was as much a staple in French comics as, The Avengers or The Flash here."
Born on 30 October 1843 on Redwood Plantation near Augusta, Michael Steven Donovan is the son of a rich Southern planter and starts out life as a decided racist. On the brink of the American Civil War, Donovan is forced to flee north after being framed for the murder of his fiancée Harriet Tucker's father, a plantation owner. On his flight toward the Kentucky border, he is saved by Long Sam, a fugitive African-American slave from his father's estate, who paid with his life for his act of altruism. Inspired when he sees a blueberry bush, Donovan chooses the surname "Blueberry" as an alias when rescued from his Southern pursuers by a Union cavalry patrol. After enlisting in the Union Army, he becomes an enemy of discrimination of all kinds, fighting against the Confederates trying to protect the rights of Native Americans, he starts his adventures in the Far West as a lieutenant in the United States Cavalry shortly after the war. On his many travels in the West, Blueberry is accompanied by his trusted companions, the hard-drinking deputy Jimmy McClure, also by "Red Neck" Wooley, a rugged pioneer and army scout.
In his youth, Giraud had been a passionate fan of American Westerns and Blueberry has its roots in his earlier Western-themed works such as the Frank et Jeremie shorts, which were drawn for Far West magazine when he was only 18 – having been his first sales as free-lancer –, the Western short stories he created for the magazines from French publisher Fleurus, his collaboration with Joseph "Jijé" Gillain on an episode of the latter's Jerry Spring series in 1960, which appeared in the Belgian comics magazine Spirou, aside from his subsequent Western contributions to Benoit Gillian's short-lived comic magazine Bonux-Boy. Directly before he started his apprenticeship at Jijé, Jean Giraud had approached Jean-Michel Charlier on his own accord, asking him if he was interested in writing scripts for a new western series for publication in Pilote, the just by Charlier co-launched legendary French comic magazine. Charlier refused on that occasion, claiming he never felt much empathy for the genre.
Biographer fr:Gilles Ratier though, has noted that Charlier, when he felt he was preaching to the choir, had the tendency to "take liberties" with actual events for dramatic effect. Charlier had in effect written several Westerns, both comics and illustrated short prose stories, in the period 1949-1959 for various previous magazines. One such short entailed the text comic "Cochise" in Jeannot magazine, July 1957, dealing with the historical "Bascom Affair", which six years would become the apotheosis of the first Blueberry story, "Fort Navajo". Furthermore, Charlier had visited the South-West of the United States in 1960, resulting in several Native-American themed educational Pilote editorials. In 1962, the magazine sent Charlier on a reporting assignment around the world for its editorials, one of his last 1963 ports of call was Edwards Airforce Base in the Mojave Desert, California, he took the opportunity to discover the American West, returning to France with a strong urge to write a western.
First he asked Jijé to draw the series, but Jijé, a lifelong friend and collaborator of Charlier, thought there would be a conflict of interest, since he was a tenured artist at Spirou, a competing comic magazine, which published his own Western comic Jerry Spring, in which he was much invested. In his stead, Jijé proposed his protégé Giraud as the artist. A happy coincidence was that Giraud was intimately familiar with the landscapes that had inspired Charlier, as he had been on an extended stay of nine months in Mexico in 1956, where the endless blue skies and unending flat plains of Mexico's northern deserts had "cracked open his mind". Note: English titles in parentheses where they exist and when first mentioned, original titles only where none are availableBlueberry was first published in the October 31, 1963 issue of Pilote magazine – hence Charlier's corresponding October 30 birth-date for his fictional character, when the magazine was printed and ready for dissemination. Titled "Fort Navajo", the story grew into 46 pages over the
Comics artist
A comics artist is a person working within the comics medium on comic strips, comic books, or graphic novels. The term may refer to any number of artists who contribute to produce a work in the comics form, from those who oversee all aspects of the work to those who contribute only a part. Within the comic strip format, it is typical for one creator to produce the whole strip. However, it is not uncommon for the writing of the strip and the drawing of the art to be carried out by two different people, a writer and an artist. In some cases, one artist might draw key figures. Many strips were the work of two people. Shortly after Frank Willard began Moon Mullins in 1923, he hired Ferd Johnson as his assistant. For decades, Johnson received no credit. Willard and Johnson traveled about Florida, Los Angeles and Mexico, drawing the strip while living in hotels and farmhouses. At its peak of popularity during the 1940s and 1950s, the strip ran in 350 newspapers. According to Johnson, he had been doing the strip solo for at least a decade before Willard's death in 1958: "They put my name on it then.
I had been doing it about 10 years before that because Willard had heart attacks and strokes and all that stuff. The minute my name went on that his name went off, 25 papers dropped the strip; that shows you that, although I had been doing it ten years, the name means a lot." With regards to the comic book format, the work can be split in many different ways. The writing and the creation of the art can be split between two people, an example being From Hell, written by Alan Moore and drawn by Eddie Campbell; the writing of a comic book story can sometimes be shared between two people, with one person writing the plot and another the script. The artistic work is subdivided on work produced for the larger comic book publishers, with four people working on the art: a penciller, an inker, a colorist and a letterer. Sometimes this combination of four artists is augmented by a breakdown artist. However, this occurs only when an artist fails to meet a deadline or when a writer, sometimes referred to as a scripter, produces breakdown art.
Breakdown art is where the story has been laid out roughly in pencils to indicate panel layouts and character positions within panels but with no details. Such roughs are sometimes referred to as "layouts." The norm of four artists is sometimes reduced to three if the penciller inks his own work being credited within the book as a penciller/inker. John Byrne and Walt Simonson are artists; that these roles are interchangeable, many artists can fulfill different roles. Stan Sakai is a regarded letterer of comic books who creates his own series, Usagi Yojimbo. Producing his autobiographical works, Eddie Campbell has created both scripts and art, plus teaming with his daughter on the coloring. On Cerebus, for the majority of the run, Dave Sim created everything except the backgrounds, which were drawn by Gerhard. Glossary of comics terminology Daily comic strip Mangaka Sunday comics Sunday strip Comic Creators at Curlie
National Library of the Czech Republic
The National Library of the Czech Republic is the central library of the Czech Republic. It is directed by the Ministry of Culture; the library's main building is located in the historical Clementinum building in Prague, where half of its books are kept. The other half of the collection is stored in the district of Hostivař; the National Library is the biggest library in the Czech Republic, in its funds there are around 6 million documents. The library has around 60,000 registered readers; as well as Czech texts, the library stores older material from Turkey and India. The library houses books for Charles University in Prague; the library won international recognition in 2005 as it received the inaugural Jikji Prize from UNESCO via the Memory of the World Programme for its efforts in digitising old texts. The project, which commenced in 1992, involved the digitisation of 1,700 documents in its first 13 years; the most precious medieval manuscripts preserved in the National Library are the Codex Vyssegradensis and the Passional of Abbes Kunigunde.
In 2006 the Czech parliament approved funding for the construction of a new library building on Letna plain, between Hradčanská metro station and Sparta Prague's football ground, Letná stadium. In March 2007, following a request for tender, Czech architect Jan Kaplický was selected by a jury to undertake the project, with a projected completion date of 2011. In 2007 the project was delayed following objections regarding its proposed location from government officials including Prague Mayor Pavel Bém and President Václav Klaus. Plans for the building had still not been decided in February 2008, with the matter being referred to the Office for the Protection of Competition in order to determine if the tender had been won fairly. In 2008, Minister of Culture Václav Jehlička announced the end of the project, following a ruling from the European Commission that the tender process had not been carried out legally; the library was affected by the 2002 European floods, with some documents moved to upper levels to avoid the excess water.
Over 4,000 books were removed from the library in July 2011 following flooding in parts of the main building. There was a fire at the library in December 2012. List of national and state libraries Official website
Tintin (magazine)
Tintin was a weekly Franco-Belgian comics magazine of the second half of the 20th century. Subtitled "The Magazine for the Youth from 7 to 77", it was one of the major publications of the Franco-Belgian comics scene and published such notable series as Blake and Mortimer and the principal title The Adventures of Tintin. Published by Le Lombard, the first issue was released in 1946, it ceased publication in 1993. Tintin magazine was part of an elaborate publishing scheme; the magazine's primary content focused on a new page or two from several forthcoming comic albums that had yet to be published as a whole, thus drawing weekly readers who could not bear to wait for entire albums. There were several ongoing stories at any given time. Tintin was available bound as a hardcover or softcover collection; the content always included filler material, some of, of considerable interest to fans, for example alternate versions of pages of the Tintin stories, interviews with authors and artists. Not every comic appearing in Tintin was put into book form, another incentive to subscribe to the magazine.
If the quality of Tintin printing was high compared to American comic books through the 1970s, the quality of the albums was superb, utilizing expensive paper and printing processes. Raymond Leblanc and his partners had started a small publishing house after World War II, decided to create an illustrated youth magazine, they decided that Tintin would be the perfect hero, as he was very well known. Business partner André Sinave went to see Tintin author Hergé, proposed creating the magazine. Hergé, who had worked for Le Soir during the war, was being prosecuted for having collaborated with the Germans, thus was without a publisher. After consulting with his friend Edgar Pierre Jacobs, Hergé agreed; the first issue, published on 26 September 1946, was in French. It featured Hergé, Paul Cuvelier and Jacques Laudy as artists, with their mutual friend Jacques Van Melkebeke serving as editor. A Dutch edition, entitled Kuifje, was published simultaneously. 40,000 copies were released in French, 20,000 in Dutch.
For Kuifje, a separate editor-in-chief was appointed, Karel Van Milleghem. He invented the famous slogan "The magazine for the youth from 7 to 77". In 1948, when the magazine grew from 12 to 20 pages and a version for France was created, a group of new young artists joined the team: the French Étienne Le Rallic and Jacques Martin, Dino Attanasio and the Flemish Willy Vandersteen. For decades, Hergé had artistic control over the magazine though he was sometimes absent for long periods and new work of his became rarer, his influence is evident in Vandersteen's Suske en Wiske for which Hergé imposed a stronger attention to the stories, a change of art style. In order to keep its readership loyal, Tintin magazine created a sort of fidelity passport, called the "Chèque Tintin" in France and "Timbre Tintin" in Belgium, offered with every issue of the magazine, in every comic album by Le Lombard, on many food products as well; these stamps could be exchanged for various gifts not available in commercial establishments.
Other brands from food companies, affiliated themselves with the Tintin voucher system: they could be found on flour, semolina boxes, etc. A Tintin soda existed, Tintin shoes; the French Railways Company went as far as to propose 100 km of railway transportation for 800 stamps. Among the gifts, there were original art. At the time the vouchers were initiated, the magazine was selling 80,000 copies in Belgium and only 70,000 in France. Due to the success of the vouchers, the circulation in France rose to 300,000 a week; the vouchers disappeared by the end of the 1960s. In the 1950s new artists and series showed up: Tibet with his humorous western Chick Bill and his detective series Ric Hochet Raymond Macherot, with his fantasy series Chlorophylle and detective series Clifton Maurice Maréchal - Prudence Petitpas. Jean Graton with Michel Vaillant Albert Uderzo and René Goscinny with Oumpah-pahThe magazine became more and more international and successful: at one time, there were separate versions for France, Canada and the Netherlands, with about 600,000 copies a week.
The magazine had increased to 32 pages, a cheaper version was created as well: Chez Nous / Ons Volkske, printed on cheaper paper and featuring reprints from Tintin magazine, plus some new series by Tibet and Studio Vandersteen. In the 1960s the magazine kept on attracting new artists; the editorial line was bent towards humor, with Greg, Jo-El Azara and Dupa. Other authors joined the magazine, like William Hermann. In the 1970s the comics scene in France and Belgium went through important changes; the mood for magazines had declined in favor of albums in the la
Système universitaire de documentation
The système universitaire de documentation or SUDOC is a system used by the libraries of French universities and higher education establishments to identify and manage the documents in their possession. The catalog, which contains more than 10 million references, allows students and researcher to search for bibliographical and location information in over 3,400 documentation centers, it is maintained by the Bibliographic Agency for Higher Education. Official website
