Four things I learned about French geek culture at the Toulouse Game Show

TOULOUSE, France — Last week, a friend suggested I check out the 8th annual Toulouse Game Show, a convention for comics, video games and web-based dramatic series. A much larger version of this, the Paris Games Week, focuses a bit more on video games.

Still, the two-day Toulouse event wasn’t far from my apartment. And since I used to take the kids to WonderCon (San Diego Comic-Con’s little sister show) back when it occurred in San Francisco, I figured Toulouse would be a fun little event to check out with them.

Little, turns out to the wrong word. When I arrived Saturday, the line to get into the exhibition hall was 5 kilometers (nearly 2.5 miles) long!

Once inside, we spent several hours jostling among the crowds to check out the games and comics. By the end of the day, I had learned a few lessons about geek culture in my new homeland:

The French love their comics and video games

Toulouse is France’s fourth largest city, and it’s five hours by train from Paris. It’s not easy to get to, and yet this year, the show drew 50,000 attendees, up from 44,000 last year. The amount of exhibition space had increased 33 percent this year, and it still was jam-packed.

In general, comics (or graphic novels, as the French prefer to call them) are considered to be a high form of culture here, widely available in libraries and something that cultural critics discuss and dissect. And they have become a rich source of stories for French animators and video game designers.

Above: The line to get into the Toulouse Game Show.

Japanese culture fascinates the French

This year, the main theme of the show was Japanese culture, with a high density of manga artists as well as booths about how to make and drink sake, how to wear a kimono, and even a performance by J-pop band Pink Babies.

Above: Pink Babies fans at the Toulouse Game Show

Image Credit: Twitter/Pink Babies

Cosplay is crazy here

Of course, dressing up in costumes at such gatherings has become a regular part of the events. And at gatherings like WonderCon, we certainly saw our share of great costumes. But on Saturday, we definitely felt like we were the only people not wearing some kind of costume. Indeed, inside, a large percentage of the booths were actually costume booths, with several devoted to just wigs or just swords or other specialty items.

Web series are blowing up

Thanks to the big success of a web series called Le Visiteur du Futur produced by Ankama Studios in northeast France, the number of online series being produced is exploding. At TGS, there was a whole section dedicated to new web series, as well as a web series awards show.

We met the cast and crew from one such new series that debuts next year, called L’Emissaire Des Etoiles. They produced the show, which will be on YouTube, for just a few thousands dollars that they raised through a crowdsourcing campaign.