CBR: Tilting at Windmills - Feb 9, 2011

[CBR News]

The time has arrived for the annual TILTING AT WINDMILLS analysis of the sales numbers for graphic novels in the bookstore market, and the 201 numbers hold a number of surprises as Brian goes more in depth than ever.


Full article here (http://comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=30752).

[Superalec006]

WOW that's a lot of interesting info. Thanks for taking the time to do the research and the analysis. Quite interesting stuff.

[Kid Kyoto]

This is a column I look forward to every year and it was no disappointment. It's nice to see that people are reading comics, American comics even!, and they're not Marvel or DC.

I wonder though, how would the charts look if direct market TPB data was figured in? Usually we see that data in monthly chunks, I wonder what a year-long review would look like.

[Brian Hibbs]

>>>I wonder though, how would the charts look if direct market TPB data was figured in?<<<

Considering that the harshest criticism, in previous years, of this annual survey has been "talking to much about the DM", I'd say that's not likely to happen.

Plusssssssss, that would add like 5000 words to this already too-long slog.

It should be that hard to sort out, however -- just add up the 12 monthly numbers and add them to this....

-B

[Brandon Hanvey]

I also always look forward to the yearly report.

Thanks, Brian.

As for Direct market numbers, Comichron has the 2010 Diamond estimates. Though it is more raw numbers and not categorized by publisher like Brian's.

http://www.comichron.com/monthlycomicssales/2010.html

[ghostplanet]

THANK YOU!

This is always incredibly illuminating and fascinating from a creative and business standpoint.

[RDFozz]

Quick proofreading note:

I think Brian inadvertently overwrote the DC 750 year-to-year total for 2009 with the 2010 numbers, instead of adding them. Means that one of the big years for DC from WATCHMEN sales is actually missing.

Just FYI

[RDFozz]

{Dupe - sorry, it said I wasn't logged in when I tried to post the first time, but I guess it took it anyway.}

[Torsten Adair]

No data for Raina Telgemeier's "Smile"?

TP = 9780545132060
TC = 9780545132053

I heard it sold over 100K.
(Of course, much of that could be via book clubs and libraries, but the TP is currently ranking around 13,000 on BN.com, so it should have made the list.)

[agro23]

Good work Brian! In many industries you could have charged for a report with that much detail and depth. We're lucky to have this information.

[kozmo]

The Big Nate books by Lincoln Peirce are like the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books in being a hybrid of comic and traditional prose book. But there's a stronger comics connection. "Big Nate" is an actual comic strip - that's why the publisher in Andrews McMeel. What Peirce has apparently done is to to take continuities from his strip and turn them into prose with lots of cartoons, sort of the reverse of the usual comic adaptation from another medium. I have enjoyed the comic strip for years - I don't know of any paper that takes it, but it's in my daily comic strip feed from its syndicate.

I have the first prose book and it's a good next book for kids who've devoured the Wimpy Kid books already. But the other day in Wal-mart, I leafed through another of the Big Nate books and it looked like it was mainly strip reprints without the prose - basically a tpb sized version of the paperbacks they used to do of Peanuts and Andy Capp and B.C.

Dav Pilkey also does a hybrid form of comics, but Ook and Gluk, I'm pretty sure, is a graphic novel - it is the second of a series of graphic novels supposedly created by the two main characters from the Captain Underpants books.

I always pay attention to what graphic novels are available at the Scholastic book fairs and book order forms from my children's school. As you'd expect, the Graphix books show up regularly, but beyond that, there's usually one or two of the Marvel digests and then literary adaptations like the Tokyopop Warriors books. Of course, there's a smattering of babymouse and Lunch Lady and Wimpy Kid books that are hybrid prose/comics too. Nothing in those sales that are going to make direct market fans happy - it's mainly books that they ignore in the first place.

Thank you for wading through all of this data every year. Yes, it is not complete in any way, but we need this sort of information to counter-act the publisher PR pieces which are the only other information that we get about the bookstore market sales.