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February 26, 2007

NYCC: ICV2 Graphics Novel Conference Wrap-up

Posted by Devin

This year’s second annual conference on Graphic novels was more focused on the printed word as the talk on anime licensing was shelved. I’ll go through each panel individually, discussing key stats:

ICv2 White Paper–Graphic Novels: Growth and Change
Quite a few bloggers, Mangablog, and Comics212 for stats. I’m going to pick at a couple of them and calculate some numbers based on what was presented:

Total US sales were $330 mil for 2006, with between $170 and $220 mil coming from manga. So now we can say 51% and 66% of total graphic novel sales were manga. In 2005, ICV2 presented a figure of $145 million generated in 2005 manga sales from a market size of $295 mil, a percentage of 49% of the total market. The market for manga has grown between 14% and 34% in one year. Wow, is that big: manga is out pacing the growth of the the rest of graphic novels by 2 to 1.

Diamond tracks 10,500+ graphic novel titles, 46% manga/54% non manga. Manga, not having a significant history of more than 5 years, had an upshot of 120 releases (1088 vs. 1208), or almost 10% number releases growth. This confirms growth isn’t just more titles, but the selling of more copies. Just so you know its not only the Naruto effect. What I’d love to measure is the long tail number, but I don’t think we have enough stats yet.

Non-Fiction — The Real World of Graphic Storytelling
I do have to admit for being out of the loop on this one: I was surprised to hear how positive growth is and will be for this part of the graphic novel business. Also, a majority of non-fiction books in Japanese are manga-style. On the panel from this view: Glenn Kardy, Pres/CEO of Japanime Co. has been publishing in the international market for a number of years including the releasing of hit series, How to Draw Manga. His translated/localized series are translated to up to 12 languages. I do have to wonder if there are other licensing opportunities available for manga non-fiction work to be translated and released here.

Manga Ratings, Redactions, and Freedom of Speech
Tokyopop’s new rating scale for 2007 was passed out the audience members. Panelists and audience member supported their new approach to rating manga, even if it did mean becoming objective to the manga’s various content. When a librarian questioned the panel about a universal-friendly rating scale for all manga and how most manga falls into the T/Teen category, the panelists replied with no-comment or their self-policing rating systems were in reply to concerned parents. As long as self-policing policies like ratings and shrink-wrapping of mature publications take place, the industry shouldn’t have too many freedom of speech problems that have plagued comic books in the past. Is there a chance that someone who sees this as ‘universal cartoon art’ that hasn’t seen the umpteenth NYT article that comics aren’t for kids anymore? Sure–

Buyers Panel — Graphic Novels, the Next Three Years
More Yaoi. More all-ages books. There were a couple of differencing opinions from the panel on what works and what doesn’t. I think one consensus was for more single volume or short-series sets. A manga series that runs 5, 10 or 15+ books is a lot of $$ for someone to sink into a series at an average cost of $10 a book. One quoted book was Tokyopop’s single volume Kingdom of Hearts manga supported by $5.8 mil in video game sales. More pop-star licensed manga will drive traditional non-manga buyers into the market.