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Weekly free French BDs from Izneo

 Language Learning Forum : Books, Literature & Reading Post Reply


emk
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 Message 1 of 7
23 November 2014 at 3:44pm | IP Logged 
BDs, or bandes dessinées, are French graphic novels. Traditionally, they're published as hardcover volumes with about 48 pages per volume. This is a huge market in France, with something for almost every taste, including fantasy, police thrillers, science fiction, humor, children's stories, social commentary, autobiographies, histories of major wars, and so on.

Izneo is a joint project by several French publishing houses which provides inexpensive and legal online access to thousands of BDs. And unlike most digital media in French, I've never had any problem accessing it from the United States. I think geoffw was the first HTLALer to recommend Izneo, for which I am massively grateful.

Izneo also had a a unlimited subscription plan for 9.90€/month which provides access to a library of about 1,500 BDs at a time. And every week or so, Izneo releases one BD for free. To find out about it, you need to create an account and subscribe to their newsletter. Yes, they'll spam you a couple of times per week with awesome things to read in French. Is this really a problem?

I intend to use this thread for posting the weekly free BD from Izneo, assuming I have time. But please feel free to post it yourself if you wish. :-)

This week's free BD



Complainte des landes perdues - cycle 1 tome 1

Quote:
Rosinski, dessinateur de Thorgal, et Dufaux, l'un des meilleurs scénaristes actuels, nous font découvrir l'univers de Sioban, princesse sans royaume mais animée d'une extraordinaire soif de vengeance et de reconquête ! Complainte des landes perdues possède la force des récits fantastiques et la magie des légendes celtiques. En quatre albums, cette série fait déjà partie des indispensables.

Rosinksi, illustrator of Thorgal and Dufaux, one of the best current scenarists, introduces us to the universe of Sioban, a princess without a kingdom, but animated by an extraordinary thirst for vengeance and reconquest! Complainte des landes perdues possess the force of fantastic stories and the magic of Celtic legends. In four volumes, this series is already one of the indispensables.

This one looks like reasonable intermediate reading, with a bit of specialized vocabulary. There are 6 more volumes available in this series for 1.99€ each, and the 8th is available for 9.99€. You can read the first five pages of any volume for free without creating an account. And US credit cards will work fine.

Typically, most French BDs average around 150 words per page. Mass-market US paperbacks average around 250 to 350 words per page. So for Super Challenge purposes, you can could count every 5 pages of a BD as 2 or 3 pages of an ordinary book (unless there's been a rule change, but that's what I did last time). This means that the 8-volume series mentioned above probably offers at least 160 pages towards the Super Challenge for under 22€, and it's all illustrated.

Almost every week, Izneo will announce a new deal like this: The first volume in a series will be free, and the rest will be available at a sharp discount. Obviously I'm a fan of this deal, and I recommend it highly to students of French. :-)

Edited by emk on 23 November 2014 at 11:07pm

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emk
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2615 posts - 8806 votes 
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 Message 2 of 7
07 December 2014 at 2:26pm | IP Logged 
If you want lots of free reading material, watch the front page of Izneo this month! From now until Christmas, they're offering a new free BD every day.

Here's the BD for today.
7 persons have voted this message useful



Darklight1216
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 Message 3 of 7
07 December 2014 at 9:17pm | IP Logged 
emk wrote:
If you want lots of free reading material, watch the front page of Izneo
this month! From now until Christmas, they're offering a new free BD every day.

Here's the BD for
today
.

Thanks for the heads up. I missed out on that last year, I think.


1 person has voted this message useful



redflag
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 Message 4 of 7
08 December 2014 at 8:05am | IP Logged 
Thanks emk. I definitely will be going back each day.
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geoffw
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 Message 5 of 7
08 December 2014 at 1:03pm | IP Logged 
Huh. They don't mention anything about free BDs in the newsletters I've been getting, from what I can remember. I
had been aware that they have a free section, though.

And when I checked right now, the first issue of Blake and Mortimer was free!
1 person has voted this message useful



Mohave
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 Message 6 of 7
08 December 2014 at 10:30pm | IP Logged 
geoffw wrote:
Huh. They don't mention anything about free BDs in the newsletters I've been getting, from
what I can remember. I
had been aware that they have a free section, though.

And when I checked right now, the first issue of Blake and Mortimer was free!


gepffw Great find! Thanks so much for posting about Blake et Mortimer T1!! I didn't see that one for free
earlier.


1 person has voted this message useful



kanewai
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 Message 7 of 7
09 December 2014 at 10:27am | IP Logged 
emk wrote:
If you want lots of free reading material, watch the front page of Izneo this month! From now
until Christmas, they're offering a new free BD every day.


Don't do it! It's a vicious trap! I downloaded La Balade de Yaya, read all 97 pages of T1 in a single night, and
all it was was a gateway drug that will leave you wanting more. At €5.99 a dose.

I'm bummed I missed Dofus Monster. My download stalled, and it was too late when I noticed - it was a new
day and a new b.d.   But Yaya is pretty cool - it's a story of a street kid and a rich runaway lost in the streets
of Shanghai in 1937, right as war erupts. The graphics are cool, and the language very easy to follow.

Largo Winch, Millenium (based on the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo), and Blake & Mortimer are also free. Not
sure which ones are the daily specials, and which will be around for awhile.

I have the Izneo app, but this is the first time I've really used it. It sucked on my 1st Gen iPad, but now I have
a shiny almost-new mini, and it's great for reading graphic novels. Thanks for the heads-up!

Note: Yaya averages only ten to fifteen words per page, so it won't get you far in the Super Challenge.



Edited by kanewai on 09 December 2014 at 10:32am



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