Comic Industry Run Down?

Let’s face it: You don’t get most of your news from here, and you’re certainly not coming here to get the latest scoops on New York Comic Con three days later. You can go almost anywhere else to learn that attendance was up about 10 thousand from last year, and the total hovered in the 77 thousand range. Certainly show manager Lance Fensterman’s blog at www.MediuAtLarge.net can give way more insight into the inner workings of the con than I can. And any number of comic book news sources can give general run downs of the show. All I can offer is my perspective, but I have decent perspective, and perhaps some perspective you might be interested in.

Just to get it out of the way, I obviously bought a lot of art, toys and comics. The dealers selling $5 trade paperbacks took quite a bit of my money, but for what I got, it was completely worth it.

I also spent plenty of time in panels, including those for Watchmen, Friday the 13^th, and Terminator 4, Fringe, JustSomeRandomGuy, and my personal favorite, Chuck. However, the one that might be of most interest to you was hosted by Publishers Weekly, and gave me a lot of insight into the business of comics, and books in general.

The panel included members of the publishing community covering almost every aspect, including a distributor (from Diamond Book Distributors), a retailer (a buyer from Barnes and Noble), a few publishers (from DC Comics, Viz Media and Tokyopop), and a literary agent just to round off the group. Obviously, the discussion revolved mostly around comics, graphic novels and Manga, and not too much new information was revealed: DC is doing well on the “Watchmen” hype, others are trying to capitalize as well; publishers, agents, and retailers all still believe that a good product will still sell well, and are taking more precautions with their new material; and Diamond revealed that—surprise!!—sales are down about 10% worldwide.

But, some stuff was news to me, and it wasn’t all bad news either. I didn’t realize that not only was demand really high for graphic novels in small markets like Australia and Sweden, but supply was surprisingly low. Now, thanks to Diamond, it’s not so low. So sales are actually up quite a bit…in these places. As a not-so-big fan of Manga, I didn’t realize that its series format is hurting its sales. With mid list titles being the lowest sellers of all during this financial downturn, most series are hurting because people aren’t latching onto the earlier books, but those that they have latched onto have a built in audience with built in sales.

Perhaps the most important piece of information to both Combined Book Exhibit’s and my crusade to give independently published books a bigger voice in the world came from someone decidedly not independent (at least based on his corporate connection). The graphic novel buyer from Barnes and Noble (shame on me for not catching his name) said the following in regard to small presses, which really rang in my ears for a while: “How do you market aside from selling through Barnes and Noble?” It never occurred to me that it mattered. I thought that “a good book is a good book,” but even Barnes and Noble wants to make sure you’re doing your part to get it off their shelf. It’s almost refreshing to know that even with a juggernaut like B&N, your hard work just might pay off!

This panel took place at the way beginning of New York Comic Con 2009, before my feet started killing me, my wallet became empty, and I fell in love with Yvonne Strahovski. The fact that all of this happened in the same place proves that the comic and pop culture industries are not only big money makers, and important shapers in the general book industry, but that they both kick ass! Again, my immense thanks and props to the NYCC team!

Posted by : Seth | 02/11/2009 02:02 PM

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