Tag: Books
What were the top selling graphic novels of 2010?
It’s one of The Beat’s favorite times of year: Brian Hibbs’ annual BookScan analyses! Not only has he broken down reported sell-through for the graphic novel category, he’s made the raw data available for us all to have fun with. In past years Hibbs used this data to talk about the importance/supremacy of the direct sales market for comics material, and I had cause to disgaree with some of his conclusions. This time, all he does is analyze the numbers, because they kind of speak for themselves. And he's done an amazing job. I urge you all just to go to the link and read the whole damn long thing. But for those who have pressing matters, here’s my own edited take on a few conclusions: (And a lot are similar to what I said last year! And also to what I said about the Diamond year-end figures.) But it bears repeating:
Amazon says ebooks outselling paperbacks
MEANWHILE, over at Amazon, some notable statistics emerged from this week's Digital Book World conference. Perhaps most strikingly, Amazon says that Kindle book sales now outpace paperbacks:
In reporting its latest earnings, Amazon
HABIBI drops September 20, 2011
Craig Thompson is the Terence Malick of comics. Eight years after BLANKETS pretty much set off the whole literary graphic novel goes mainstream movement, HABIBI, his 600-page exploration of Islamic culture, will finally be released on September 20th.
New Shanower comic in CLASSICS AND COMICS
Get an exclusive peak at a new comic by Eric Shanower.
DC's 75th anniversary marked by huge tome
We had a few moments to stop by a signing for 75 Years of DC Comics: The Art of Modern Mythmaking last night, and snapped a picture of author Paul Levitz, DC's Steve Korte, and Taschen Art Director Josh Baker. I have seen a lot of books about comics, but I have never seen a more beautiful one than this -- the reproductions are incredibly crisp and vibrant, and there are double page pull-outs, charts and even a chromium insert to mark the "modern age." With the text, Levitz proves that if knowing everything there is to know about a company's history qualifies you to run that company, he was the best qualified president in history.
Kochman promoted at Abrams
Via email, word that Charles Kochman, whose Abrams ComicArts imprint has been putting out high quality books of comics and comics history for several...
Essex County named to Essential Top 10 Canadian Novels of the Decade
Via email from Jeff Lemire, the exciting news that "ESSEX COUNTY BECOMES THE FIRST GRAPHIC NOVEL TO BE NAMED ONE OF THE TOP TEN ESSENTIAL CANADIAN BOOKS OF THE DECADE!"
The selection comes as part of Canada Reads, a yearly literacy campaign aimed at spotlighting the best in Canadian literature. Voting was open to the public, and comics types have supported a vote for ESSEX COUNTY as a vote for comics legitimacy, but it's certainly a deserved honor. Lemire's bleak, spare tales of rural Canadian life and coming of age are timeless and powerfully told.
PW's Best Books of 2010
Continuing on with the end of year announcements, PW's annual Best Books issues is out, and it includes 10 graphic novels, as follows:
Coming Soon: Motel Art Improvement Service
Jason Little's second Bee book is coming soon from Dark Horse. Want!
Behind the comics best sellers
Every Friday, The New York Times presents its "graphic books" best seller list. It's compiled from BookScan, Diamond, and, as far as we can tell, magic juju algorithms of some kind. It is, like all best seller lists, probably a little subjective and magical, but it certainly reflects a stable metric of what books are selling briskly that week. Given all that we've talked about this week in terms of superheroes and literary comics and manga and what not...let's see exactly what is selling THIS week in American comics, with my own commentary.
UNEMPLOYED MAN employs many artists
You'd think a graphic novel drawn by Ramona Fradon, Rick Veitch, Michael Netzer and Terry Beatty would have gotten some attention, and it has, but not in comics circles. The Adventures of Unemployed Man by Erich Origen and Gan Golan, authors of the best-selling Goodnight, Bush. As you might guess, the topic at hand is an explanation (from one point of view) of why jobs are scarcer than a mint copy of CHEW #1. As a preview at Huffington Post shows, the story is a didactic allegory using superhero tropes to illustrate income disparity and the decoupling of profit from employment and...also how people turn into the Hulk from being exposed to too many Fox News rays.
NYCC 10: Abrams Comics Arts
Abrams ComicArts, an imprint of ABRAMS, returns to New York Comic Con to showcase the 2010 line up of high-quality comics related titles.
