Comments on: Who has time to read 3,300 graphic novels?

By: Torsten Adair

Torsten Adair — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 02:20:22 +0000

ask this question to the GN buyers of Barnes & Noble, and Borders. Generally speaking, any book which is ordered into the store has three months to sell, and most of the sales are usually within that time frame. Those which do not sell are returned to make room on the shelves and in the budgets.
Stores can also order titles, and if a title has consistent sales, it is modeled and reordered on a regular basis.
How does this number compare to other categories? Romance? Science Fiction? Cookbooks? Fine Art?
I want to see a graphic novel for every subject! Pottery! Dancing! Dentistry! The Boer War! So far this month I’ve read eight graphic novels (True Story…, Incognegro, Best Of Spider-Man 3, HowToons, Fantastic Four Visionaries 7, ClanDestine Classic, Astro City Local Heroes, Kampung Boy). The ninth is Ten Cent Plague, which is history, and takes longer. Quality, not quantity, is the question.

By: Tommy Raiko

Tommy Raiko — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 19:41:56 +0000

> What’s “Sturgeon’s Law”?

Attributed to science-fiction writer Theodore Sturgeon, it’s a bit of wisdom that’s usually given as “90% of everything is crap.” The exact percentage, the specific expletive, and bits of vary from time to time, but the gist is that most examples of any particular thing (books, science fiction, movies, comics, etc.) are awful; only a bit of any particular thing is actually good.

By: Jesse Post

Jesse Post — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 18:58:19 +0000

What’s “Sturgeon’s Law”?

By: groonk

groonk — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 15:56:19 +0000

that’s insignificant compared to Japan’s manga production. i say bring it on, just stop the double dipping(variant covers or waiting forever for softcovers bs)

By: Pedro Bouça

Pedro Bouça — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 10:57:27 +0000

You think that is much? In France there were over four thousand! Of course, no one would want to read all that! Each person’s taste is unique and one may find uninteresting even works that everybody seems to love. Not to mention that probably 90% of all that is garbage anyway!

The GOOD part is that there is stuff for everybody’s tastes now avaliable, while in the past only a few genres were avaliable in comics. Studies in France say that almost everyone in the country has read at least SOME comics. Maybe someday that will be true of the United States also!

Best,
Hunter (Pedro Bouça)

By: Adam

Adam — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 22:37:19 +0000

And the distinction can be made to dvd movies as well or video games…. stores can only hold so much inventory regardless of what the actual product line is.

So I say who cares….if they’re good, they’ll find an audience and a way to the readers.

By: Joe Field

Joe Field — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 20:51:35 +0000

Three thousand new graphic novel titles is only a glut if they don’t sell through.

And the proliferation of new GNs forces the hand of many retailers, particularly those without accounts that feature some built-in returnability, to specialize within their range of sales knowledge.

Like all “is this many too many?” questions, the market will decide.

By: Bryan

Bryan — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 20:31:00 +0000

I thank Tao for the Comics Journal.

By: ~chris

~chris — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 19:28:15 +0000

Sturgeon’s Law is in effect, so one needs only time for 331.4. The difficulty is in determining which 331.4.

By: Mike Thompson

Mike Thompson — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 19:23:51 +0000

Does a distinction need to be made between trade paperbacks and original graphic novels?

By: Jim Sheridan

Jim Sheridan — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 18:41:31 +0000

For me, the problem is representation. At my local comics store as well as at the nearby Borders, the vast majority – like a good 80% – of the “graphic novels” there are superhero titles. Some are fun, some are excellent, some are lousy, but the fact is that the non-superhero graphic novels are underrepresented on the bookshelves.

By: Rick Lowell

Rick Lowell — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 16:05:51 +0000

Manga books are periodicals in most cases. They are sequentially numbered and come out on a regular basis. The reality is that is the way some of this material needs to be ordered. You would not expect a store to keep other periodicals in stock indefinitely. Most stores have a finite amount of display space available and choices need to be made based upon demand.

By: Dani Atkinson

Dani Atkinson — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 16:03:57 +0000

(Nods in puzzled agreement with Eric and Brian) Nobody ever asks if there are too many prose novels.

By: Katherine F.

Katherine F. — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 15:12:59 +0000

*whips out calculator* That’s nine a day. I could probably manage that, actually, but only if I didn’t have to work and somebody else took care of my housework. I read the first nine volumes of Transmetropolitan in one day. It… didn’t do the series any favours.

By: Brian Jacoby from Secret Headquarters Tallahassee, Florida

Brian Jacoby from Secret Headquarters Tallahassee, Florida — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 14:55:01 +0000

Eric beat me to it.

As a former Waldenbooks manager, I often had people who were actually surprised that I didn’t read everything new that came into our store.