Interview with Jean-Pierre Petit in 1981
The 1901-law association Savoir sans Frontieres was created in 2005 by Jean-Pierre Petit and Gilles d'Agostini. Les Editions Belin had long since lost interest in the Adventures of Anselme Lanturlu collection, and having recovered the rights to its albums, the author, Jean-Pierre Petit, decided to make them available as free downloadable PDFs, both the works in French and those that had been translated into various languages.
It was decided to offer internet users the chance to finance translations, and the translators' fee was set at 150 euros (180 euros today). In accordance with the statutes, the association was to make no profit and sell nothing, with all the money collected going to the translators.
Gilles d'Agostini agreed to take on the role of treasurer on a voluntary basis.
Donations poured in immediately. To date (October 2020), donations exceeding 100,000 euros have made it possible to secure 565 translations, in 40 languages. All these donations, generally modest, come from private individuals. The association has received no funding from any institutional body. But thanks to the generosity of internet users, it all works. Many donors keep an eye on the "finance barometer." When it drops, they make a donation.
There is something magical about all this, because anonymous people enable other anonymous people, located everywhere, in the four corners of the globe, to benefit from this knowledge, distilled in the form of comic strips.
What I regret is not having the time to create other albums. I am too taken up by my research in cosmology and mathematical physics, and by the various battles I wage. Yet ideas are not lacking.
The emergence of "digital publishing" has created anxiety in the world of "paper publishing." But its advantage is that it ensures the permanence of the works. Without this site and without the internet, and above all without the generous help of internet users, this collection would simply have disappeared.
Jean-Pierre Petit