Krypton Comics, in my hometown of Omaha, NE, does everything well. Trades, back issues, toys, Saturday drawing sessions, major celebrities for Free Comic Book Day, a special space for young readers…

My nostalgic comicbook store, The Dragon’s Lair, is not as modern, but stocks trades as well, and has a great discount section. They’ve stocked graphic novels ever since I was shopping there, which would be … 1984. Of course, back then, they were graphic ALBUMS, like the Marvel Specials and the DC science fiction line.

Getting back to Marvel, if they don’t care about bookstore sales, then why publish titles which have anemic direct market sales, such as the literary authors and classics? Why does Spider-Girl stay in print for over 100 issues if those issues don’t sell to comicbook fans?

Marvel could be treating the comics division as just another line of merchandise. If they are, and if the bookstore trade isn’t making any money, then why continue?

Kids don’t read comics like they used to and the comic industry as a whole sucks. How we change it is hard to say. The Babymen would have to go for sure and a major refocus and revamping of the whole industry is due to get some fresh young blood in there buying books. To a large portion of kids I see and know, the movie version of Spider-Man is ALL they know. They know nothing of the dynamics of the comics and the relationships therein and unfortunately they aren’t inspired enough to go seek it out.

I really doubt that Iron Man sales in comics have gone up greatly after the movie. The only boom I ever saw was in 1989 when Batman came out and that was driving people to read Batman comics. Maybe someone can prove me wrong but these films don’t sell more comics…

Scott

Dirk *is* right, too. Marvel, when talking about them as a company, is focused on their future, as a movie production/ merchandise licensing company. They don’t care about bookstore sales because there’s almost no reason to.

As for comic book stores and trades, you’re wrong. The vast majority of comic book stores still only sell floppies. The only direct market stores I’ve seen shift their focus to trades and graphic novels have been stores in major cities or stores in small towns with a large college student population.

At least that’s my memory of the numbers — am I thinking of the wrong numbers?

I never understand either side when you and Dirk argue this stuff.

Now, that advance is slowing down. The market is saturated in some areas, mature in others. There may be some retrenchment, some losses, but graphic novels will not disappear from bookstore shelves.

The market has had numerous booms and busts throughout its history (including one bookstore bust) as it discovers, exploits, and then recovers from various opportunities.

The variety of Diamond accounts really doesn’t matter; a sale is a sale is a sale. What matters is if that number increases or decreases. Will comicbook stores remain viable in the coming years, or just become another marginalized genre bookstore, like the various mystery, cooking, and fine art bookstores in this country?

Yes, manga sells nicely. But at my former bookstore (B&N-Lincoln Center), last year we sold a lot of Persepolis, Bone, Heroes, Black Dossier, Civil War, and Dark Tower. We’re going to sell a lot of Spiegelman’s Breakdowns.

Here’s another way of looking at popularity of titles: According to OCLC’s WorldCat, which serves as a central database for libraries in the United States and other countries, here is a sampling, by publisher, of how many titles are in 500 or more library systems. (This does not account for the number of actual COPIES, just the number of systems.)
Marvel: 4 (+2 “How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way”)
DC: 14
Viz: 18
Tokyopop: 13
“Bone”: 6
Fantagraphics: 4 (“Peanuts” sometimes cataloged as a series)
Dark Horse: 7
Image: 0 (Leave It To Chance: 429)
Scholastic Graphix: 9 (includes “Bone”)
Top Shelf: 3
Drawn & Quarterly: 4
First Second: 7

If I remember correctly from the panel, that number quoted referred to the number of direct market stores worldwide.