Friday, February 06, 2004
Dirk and I will just have to agree to disagree:
First, comics are a small part of the overall makeup of total product on offer, which means that publishers don't have the means to "flood" the market the way Marvel or DC can in comics shops.
They can and have flooded the graphic novel shelves. I've seen only one store that had a great selection of graphic novels that mixed everything and didn't have that many superhero reprints. The usual thing I've seen is Manga is seperated from everything else because the store has the many volumes of reprinted material, then smaller or independent publishers are stuck among the many superhero reprints.
Consequently, the Barnes & Nobles of the marketplace are turning out to be a secondary market for indy publishers
And Dirk forgets to mention that the small marketplace is being co-opted by the larger chains, so that the small market will continue to just get smaller. Barbara's bookstore in Oak Park is a case in point. They started a sister store in Chicago, and now it looks like the sister store will survive but not the original.
There was never a serious likelihood that books like The Doofus Omnibus or Clumsy were ever going to get Chobits-level shelfspace, but that doesn't mean the jig is up by any stretch of the imagination.
See, you're just not getting my point. Chobits and Marvel and DC all have multiple volumes of material that take up a lot of space. "Golem's Mighty Swing" is ONE book, lost among all those reprints.
Fine, stick it in the graphic novel section. But if you paid attention to the content, you might see a better opportunity exits on some other shelf: like sports, or religious studies or just plain fiction. (And yes, some kind of promotion is desperately needed - book tours by the author and signings.)
You're talking about selling to people who buy comics - I think everybody already BUYS comics - on TV with the Simpsons, in the newspaper where the comics pages are still immensely popular, and in the bookstores where those same newspaper comics enjoy far better sales than anything else. But THEY'RE not on the graphic novel shelfs, are they? They're listed as HUMOR! I can pick up Al Franken's book and then reach down and pick up a Get Fuzzy collection!
On the graphic novel shelves, you're talking about someone who picked a Batman reprint and hoping that they'll consider Persepolis.
Or the teen who buys Ranma 1/2 somehow wading into that mess on the shelf NEXT to them, seeing THROUGH the superhero reprints that they've ALREADY DECIDED TO REJECT and find the small, independently produced pearl that might appeal to them.
But that's not going to happen if you insist on shelving manga with manga and graphic novels with graphic novels. Romance books look the same as biographics, they use the same technology to produce them, but they are not the same content.
Readers aren't rejecting cartoons or comics, they're rejecting the subject matter.
First, comics are a small part of the overall makeup of total product on offer, which means that publishers don't have the means to "flood" the market the way Marvel or DC can in comics shops.
They can and have flooded the graphic novel shelves. I've seen only one store that had a great selection of graphic novels that mixed everything and didn't have that many superhero reprints. The usual thing I've seen is Manga is seperated from everything else because the store has the many volumes of reprinted material, then smaller or independent publishers are stuck among the many superhero reprints.
Consequently, the Barnes & Nobles of the marketplace are turning out to be a secondary market for indy publishers
And Dirk forgets to mention that the small marketplace is being co-opted by the larger chains, so that the small market will continue to just get smaller. Barbara's bookstore in Oak Park is a case in point. They started a sister store in Chicago, and now it looks like the sister store will survive but not the original.
There was never a serious likelihood that books like The Doofus Omnibus or Clumsy were ever going to get Chobits-level shelfspace, but that doesn't mean the jig is up by any stretch of the imagination.
See, you're just not getting my point. Chobits and Marvel and DC all have multiple volumes of material that take up a lot of space. "Golem's Mighty Swing" is ONE book, lost among all those reprints.
Fine, stick it in the graphic novel section. But if you paid attention to the content, you might see a better opportunity exits on some other shelf: like sports, or religious studies or just plain fiction. (And yes, some kind of promotion is desperately needed - book tours by the author and signings.)
You're talking about selling to people who buy comics - I think everybody already BUYS comics - on TV with the Simpsons, in the newspaper where the comics pages are still immensely popular, and in the bookstores where those same newspaper comics enjoy far better sales than anything else. But THEY'RE not on the graphic novel shelfs, are they? They're listed as HUMOR! I can pick up Al Franken's book and then reach down and pick up a Get Fuzzy collection!
On the graphic novel shelves, you're talking about someone who picked a Batman reprint and hoping that they'll consider Persepolis.
Or the teen who buys Ranma 1/2 somehow wading into that mess on the shelf NEXT to them, seeing THROUGH the superhero reprints that they've ALREADY DECIDED TO REJECT and find the small, independently produced pearl that might appeal to them.
But that's not going to happen if you insist on shelving manga with manga and graphic novels with graphic novels. Romance books look the same as biographics, they use the same technology to produce them, but they are not the same content.
Readers aren't rejecting cartoons or comics, they're rejecting the subject matter.
Thursday, February 05, 2004
Oh Foul! Hair ref hair!
My favorite comics blogger Dirk does me wrong:
Tim Broderick thinks that recent news of manga's growth only proves his point that bookstore shelves are lost to independent publishers. I maintain that the bookstore market is not the Direct Market -- it's much bigger and more diverse, for one thing -- and there thus doesn't need to be a crossover effect between manga and Western comics for the latter to make a place for themselves in bookstores.
Bookstore shelves? No! Graphic novel shelves? Yes! Manga publishers are only doing what superhero publishers did and still do: flood the shelves with product. That's good for those publishers, but not the creators that don't fit within their scope. Personally, I don't do superheroes and I don't live in a place with a thriving comics-buying community where my work can be cheaply reprinted overseas.
Which doesn't mean I think either of those genres should go away. OK? They have a right to exist, but that doesn't mean I don't dispute the details of their existance.
I've got to deal with the realities of what I do and where I do it. I recommend other creators who don't fit into those cultures do the same. You can say those readers will cross over, but as we've learned the hard way in other places, hope is not a plan.
It strikes me that it may be too early to discuss this kind of thing - people are too sensitive, too territorial, too freaked by change. I understand the confusion, I'm just ahead of my time. Feel free to continue to debate the fad thing - I'll wait for you to catch up.
My favorite comics blogger Dirk does me wrong:
Tim Broderick thinks that recent news of manga's growth only proves his point that bookstore shelves are lost to independent publishers. I maintain that the bookstore market is not the Direct Market -- it's much bigger and more diverse, for one thing -- and there thus doesn't need to be a crossover effect between manga and Western comics for the latter to make a place for themselves in bookstores.
Bookstore shelves? No! Graphic novel shelves? Yes! Manga publishers are only doing what superhero publishers did and still do: flood the shelves with product. That's good for those publishers, but not the creators that don't fit within their scope. Personally, I don't do superheroes and I don't live in a place with a thriving comics-buying community where my work can be cheaply reprinted overseas.
Which doesn't mean I think either of those genres should go away. OK? They have a right to exist, but that doesn't mean I don't dispute the details of their existance.
I've got to deal with the realities of what I do and where I do it. I recommend other creators who don't fit into those cultures do the same. You can say those readers will cross over, but as we've learned the hard way in other places, hope is not a plan.
It strikes me that it may be too early to discuss this kind of thing - people are too sensitive, too territorial, too freaked by change. I understand the confusion, I'm just ahead of my time. Feel free to continue to debate the fad thing - I'll wait for you to catch up.
Wednesday, February 04, 2004
From ¡Journalista!:
"This is somewhere between 75% to 100% growth in just one year. To put it all in perspective, last year the same source estimated the entire graphic-novel market as being worth that same $100 million in 2002. Still think manga's a fad, kids?"
Geez, Dirk. That's fine and all, but I still haven't heard a good answer to this guy's concerns, which mirror my own often stated ones (from the Financial Times article):
"...As it is not at all clear to us that readers of manga go on to buy francophone bandes dessinées the manga phenomenon represents a grave threat to the whole European industry."
No one has ever given me hard numbers to dispute this, and frankly it's a real concern. Again, the FT story:
"Pocket-sized and printed in black and white on cheap paper, they cost less to produce than the lavish, all-colour hardback albums produced in France and Belgium. Margins on manga are also higher because it is much cheaper to pay a licence fee to translate an existing series than to commission an original work from a European artist."
And this...
"Titeuf, a sex- obsessed 10-year-old, will have to work harder for shelf space. Some new stores in Paris only stock manga."
Look, anyone who reads Dirk's blog or this one probably is more likely to cross over and read non-manga independent comics. So you're not the ones that need to be tracked. How likely are they to purchase non-manga? No one knows, but since people who are buying manga HAVE ALREADY shown an aversion to puchasing things in the direct market we have a hint. It's not like Fantagraphics hasn't been publishing for years.
And stop all the talk about fads - it's not about fads, that's a question that's confusing the real issue. How much did people make on pet rocks? Or beanie babies? You don't know if something is truely just a fad until it runs out of steam.
So regardless, once again I doggedly make the point that independent creators need to say goodbye to the graphic novel shelves. I said before that manga was a big business enterprise, that to a small, independent creator the rise of manga is not good news because there's no evidence that they're crossing over to read non-imported works - or even that they can find anything among the flood of superhero reprints.
Those shelves have been co-opted by large industries with lots of money and cheap product to flood the market. Independent creators need to seek out the readers who will be open to their creations.
That's why I'm going the route of traditional publishing, aiming for the mystery shelves. It might not work out for me, but it's a start.
Tell me what you think
"This is somewhere between 75% to 100% growth in just one year. To put it all in perspective, last year the same source estimated the entire graphic-novel market as being worth that same $100 million in 2002. Still think manga's a fad, kids?"
Geez, Dirk. That's fine and all, but I still haven't heard a good answer to this guy's concerns, which mirror my own often stated ones (from the Financial Times article):
"...As it is not at all clear to us that readers of manga go on to buy francophone bandes dessinées the manga phenomenon represents a grave threat to the whole European industry."
No one has ever given me hard numbers to dispute this, and frankly it's a real concern. Again, the FT story:
"Pocket-sized and printed in black and white on cheap paper, they cost less to produce than the lavish, all-colour hardback albums produced in France and Belgium. Margins on manga are also higher because it is much cheaper to pay a licence fee to translate an existing series than to commission an original work from a European artist."
And this...
"Titeuf, a sex- obsessed 10-year-old, will have to work harder for shelf space. Some new stores in Paris only stock manga."
Look, anyone who reads Dirk's blog or this one probably is more likely to cross over and read non-manga independent comics. So you're not the ones that need to be tracked. How likely are they to purchase non-manga? No one knows, but since people who are buying manga HAVE ALREADY shown an aversion to puchasing things in the direct market we have a hint. It's not like Fantagraphics hasn't been publishing for years.
And stop all the talk about fads - it's not about fads, that's a question that's confusing the real issue. How much did people make on pet rocks? Or beanie babies? You don't know if something is truely just a fad until it runs out of steam.
So regardless, once again I doggedly make the point that independent creators need to say goodbye to the graphic novel shelves. I said before that manga was a big business enterprise, that to a small, independent creator the rise of manga is not good news because there's no evidence that they're crossing over to read non-imported works - or even that they can find anything among the flood of superhero reprints.
Those shelves have been co-opted by large industries with lots of money and cheap product to flood the market. Independent creators need to seek out the readers who will be open to their creations.
That's why I'm going the route of traditional publishing, aiming for the mystery shelves. It might not work out for me, but it's a start.
Tell me what you think
