CBR: Tilting at Windmills - Feb 11, 2010

[CBR News]

The time has arrived for the annual TILTING AT WINDMILLS analysis of the sales numbers for 2009 graphic novels in the bookstore market, and this year, Brian Hibbs looks at them in more depth than ever before.


Full article here.

[another_version]

Wow. I'm going to print this out and read it in bed.

Be back to post my response in the next couple days.

[Brandon Hanvey]

Thanks for doing this analysis, Brian. I always look forward to your yearly BookScan reports.

[giapet]

Just skimmed the manga section, and it looks brilliant as always. Did notice one thing: discussion of TOKYOPOP's recent decline. It's an important distinction that manga, unlike comics created by people in America, has an additional layer of business to be dealt with: the original licensors in Japan. TOKYOPOP's biggest problem has been that their deals with publishers in Japan have fallen off, specifically Kodansha, Japan's biggest manga publisher.

In late August of '09, if I remember correctly, it was announced that Tpop would no longer be publishing Kodansha titles, but at the time they had relatively few Kodansha titles left, meaning that those licenses have been falling off for some time. Those licenses are instead going to Del Rey Manga, and potentially to Kodansha's much-touted but rarely-seen manga publishing project in North America.

From my observation, TOKYOPOP continues to push forward with more and more of its original works (especially franchised works like Warcraft/Starcraft, CSI, Shutter Island, etc), as well as licensing from whoever they still can-- Hakusensha, which seems to mostly split between TPOP and VIZ, Gentousha, Square Enix, etc. Though now most Square Enix titles seem to be going to Yen instead...Tpop is quickly becoming a smaller fish in the pond of manga licenses from Japan, and they haven't had any real break-out hits that were popular with the mainstream AND with manga readers a la Yen's Maximum Ride.

Oh, they also have their toes in Hollywood's pool, with the Tpop-brokered Hollywood film based on the Korean manhwa "Priest" coming out this summer. For their sake, I hope it doesn't flop!

[TommyRaiko]

#3 on the BookScan charts is Robert Crumb’s adaptation of the "Book of Genesis," with 68,442 copies sold. This, actually, is also a pretty incredible number, if not for the least reason that the book wasn’t even released until late October, and went nearly-immediately out-of-print from the publisher, making it very difficult for non-chain stores to stock to its full potential.

I don't usually gossip, honest, but I did hear a rumor that one of the reasons that the GENESIS book was out-of-stock for so long was that the specific paper stock used on the book is uncommon/specialized that when they needed to reprint, there actually wasn't any of that paper available. Instead of substituting some other paper stock, they waited until the paper mill had manufactured enough of that stock available to do the reprint.

Which might be a completely fabricated story, but I kinda like it, so I thought I'd share...

[JeffF]

The Barnes & Noble version of Dark Tower probably picked up sales after going from the regular graphic novel section to bargain for $7 at some point during the year.

[NoCheesecake]

I don't usually gossip, honest, but I did hear a rumor that one of the reasons that the GENESIS book was out-of-stock for so long was that the specific paper stock used on the book is uncommon/specialized that when they needed to reprint, there actually wasn't any of that paper available. Instead of substituting some other paper stock, they waited until the paper mill had manufactured enough of that stock available to do the reprint.

Which might be a completely fabricated story, but I kinda like it, so I thought I'd share...

This isn't an unheard event, so I wouldn't be surprised if its true. I know the guys from Atomic Robo, where complaining about a similar problem, only few months ago.

[Rick Worley]

Having worked at a corporate bookstore, I can probably offer insight into why the first volume of Maus outsells the second: a large number of the people that come for that book are the type that head directly to the information desk with their required reading list from a class in hand, mispronounce the title, say something along the lines of, "I think it's, like, a comic book or something," with the assumption that I might need that added information to find such a bizarre item and then, when I show them the book, giggle a bit because the cover has a cat with a Hitler mustache. Basically, they're people that are not exactly big comics readers and are only buying the book because a class is making them, and when I show them the collected edition and explain that the two volumes are one story, they nod a bit and take both in their hands, but almost always only buy the first volume as it's all that's required by their class and they don't want to spend the extra $10 or whatever the difference amounts to.

[NoCheesecake]

True, it might affect the sales of Maus to a certain degree, but I feel that also a lot of people might buy the first one, as they heard praises about it... but end up not liking it up enough to go on with the second.
In my opinion its a good comic... but still overrated.