Last updated on 6 April 2024
2020 is the year of the Comic Strip and it starts off quite well with the launch by the Bibliothèque Nationale de France of a new website and free service: the BDnF The factory in BD. It is a completely free creative studio that makes it possible to produce comics or any other multimedia story combining illustrations and text. You'll love it and so will your students.
The BDnF takes the form of an application available free of charge on a computer, tablet and in a simplified form on mobile. It will allow you to start creating several types of Bd from a blank sheet or even better by using images from Gallica, the huge digital library of the BNF.
A tool for creating comics and illustrated stories
The application proposed by the BNF is of high quality. It offers on computer or tablet a simple and playful creative environment accessible to an audience from 7 to 77 years old. Particularly pleasant to use on a tablet, everything is done by dragging and dropping very simply and adapts to all projects, including the most creative ones.
One of BDnF’s ambitions, which targets school audiences (primary and secondary school teachers and students), is to discover the world of the ninth art. The application thus makes it possible to produce comic boards in the ‘classic’ way, but also to explore newer ‘same’ formats, ‘webtoons’ and other ‘stories’.
A great way to revisit heritage
The BNF’s comic book application makes it possible to tell and script a story in one or more bubbles or boxes. You can use your own images or photos by importing them into the application, but the added value is to be able to use visuals from the rich heritage collections of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France. Decorations, old photographs, posters, illuminated medieval manuscripts offer a catalogue of iconographic resources that can be crossed with one’s own drawings or photos. Great.
What to create and discover while having fun. I told you you're going to love, your students are going to love.
Note that the application website also offers a series of pedagogical sheets that aim to give leads to help you organise a comic book pedagogical sequence in the classroom.
The app has just been launched and still smells of fresh paint for a release just in time for the great Angoulême comics festival. A real nice surprise.
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