The Manga Curmudgeon

Spending too much on comics, then talking too much about them

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Upcoming 5/21/2008

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There wasn’t much room for manga in the April graphic novel sales figures at ICv2. Only eight titles cracked the top 100, and only one (the 10th volume of Path of the Assassin from Dark Horse) cracked the top 50.

There isn’t the metric tonnage of new manga arriving in comic shops this week, which is kind of a relief, to be honest.

My personal highlight is the fourth volume of Yuki Urushibara’s Mushishi (Del Rey). Gorgeous, episodic fantasy stories about a wandering shaman who helps people cope with their environments and the powerful, primordial bugs that share them.

I’m glad I have a vacation coming up, because it means I’ll have time to catch up with series like Yuki Nakaji’s Venus in Love (CMX), which releases its third volume Wednesday. It’s a sweet, low-key romantic comedy about a boy and a girl in love… with the same boy. I think I’m going to fill a whole tote with “wallow manga.”

Skim by Mariko and Jillian Tamaki (Groundwood Books) has gotten some good some good early response, and I must say I’m intrigued by the premise: “Depression, love, sexual identity, crushes, manipulative peers—teen life in all its dramatic complexities is explored in this touching, pitch perfect, literary graphic masterpiece.” Now that’s the high school I remember.

And not to beat an undead horse, but if you must spend money on a comic by Jessica Abel this summer, go for the paperback collection of La Perdida (Pantheon). It’s about a young woman who tries to find herself in Mexico and ends up in dramatically over her head. No vampires, but lots of flesh-and-blood drama.

Where's Waldo?

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Looking through the May Comics Bestsellers at Publishers Weekly, I’m kind of surprised to see that Marvel’s Secret Invasion #1 didn’t even make the honorable mentions that follow the list proper. A look back at the lists for the year so far reveals that only one pamphlet has even gotten the “Take Note” mention, an issue of the Buffy comic.

I’m sure the comic will rank highly on ICv2’s comics list for the month when it comes out, and the eventual collection will fare at least as well as those for Marvel’s Civil War event did. And really, since there are no concrete details on what kind of and how many retail outlets are sampled to compile the list, it’s just a curiosity.

The view from the plateau

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Brian Hibbs covers the 2007 BookScan graphic totals in the latest Tilting at Windmills column at Newsarama. The figures provide an interesting snapshot of the mainstream retail market (chain and independent bookstores, online vendors and some other outlets like Target) for graphic novels, and instinct tells me that they’re as good an overview as one can reasonably expect.

Some immediate questions and reactions:

  • It would be interesting to get a sense of the volume of graphic novels returned by outlets reporting to BookScan. That might provide a useful factor in measuring the overall health of the bookstore market. I have no idea how those numbers might be assessed, but returnability is always cited as a key difference between the general market and the Direct Market.
  • I agree with Hibbs that it would also be valuable to see who’s reporting now, and if the pool has grown since it was first identified. What kind of impact would WalMart have on the final numbers, if it isn’t already there?
  • I wonder if inflation in other areas (fuel prices, food, and so on) has caused a general hit in entertainment/recreation purchases that might account for the slower growth Hibbs notes. Or has the mainstream retail market established itself sufficiently that it’s reached a plateau? And what, if anything, can publishers of graphic novels do to reignite that sector?

    • Hibbs, a Direct Market retailer himself, emphasizes the apparent disparity in graphic novel sales growth in comic shops versus mainstream outlets:

    “What’s most curious about this to me is that the Direct Market is said to have had an 18% growth in 2007 in GN/TP sales – and the DM is a mature and very established marketplace, while the Bookstores really should still be in their ‘honeymoon’ phase with comics material, and should, in my opinion, be seeing greater growth. Obviously, I have no real information of the overall levels of growth in bookstores in general (doing a GN-driven report is difficult enough, thanks), so the book market may still be looking at this as excellent growth, but in relationship against the Direct Market, they’re growing at a significantly slower rate.”

    I’m deeply suspicious about the comparisons here, which seem less like apples and oranges than maybe grapes and beef. For one, I wonder about the plateau question earlier, and an associated question is whether the Direct Market is just investing more in graphic novels and trade paperbacks to compete with the bookstore market. One person’s “mature and very established marketplace” could easily be perceived as another person’s ocean liner… steady and seaworthy but incredibly slow to change direction. From my anecdotal observation, there do seem to be more specialty comic shops investing in the trade end of the market, but is that a response to their wider availability in other outlets or just a reflection of the fact that there’s much more of this kind of product than there used to be? Again, I don’t know, but I don’t think the 18% growth in the DM compares quite as simply to the 5.27% growth in the bookstore arena. (There are also questions of volume, selection, casual-versus-dedicated consumers, and tons of others that I haven’t thought of yet. And according to this source, graphic novel sales in the Direct Market where fairly static when comparing 2005 — $45.84 million – and 2006 — $48.45 million.)

    Manga numbers are intriguing. The number of placing volumes in the top 750 are identical for 2006 and 2007, and while nobody could complain about owning abut 77% of those slots, the relatively stagnant numbers of units sold, dollars earned, and properties represented is maybe troubling when you consider the volume of new titles that came out in 2007. (I wish I could find a source, but I swear I saw one that compared the number of volumes shipped between the two years.)

    It’s not surprising to me that Marvel and DC’s best-selling books in the mainstream retail market aren’t based on any of their super-hero properties, or that the best-selling book in the Direct Market was from that niche. As much as I might wish I could find every comic I wanted in every DM shop, specialization is an advantage when you’re competing with generalists.

    And really, Hibbs can’t be blamed for crowing about the apparent strength of GN sales in the DM:

    “And, as noted above, we’re virtually always selling more copies of ‘Western’ comics, often by factors of 3 to 5 times larger, with well below half of the number of venues that report to BookScan.”

    Still, I would find this argument more persuasive if there were better numbers from all quarters. The Direct Market sold $57.15 million worth of the top 100 graphic novels and trade paperbacks in 2007 (about a 15% growth from 2006), compared to $95.17 million worth of the top 750 graphic novels in venues that report to BookScan. I’d be very interested to see the numbers for the top 750 graphic novels distributed to comic shops via Diamond, because it would probably close the gap even more.

    In the shops

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    ICv2 has posted it’s list of the top 100 graphic novels for November, and even Naruto can’t trump the draw of Fruits Baskets (as usual), the only manga title to crack the graphic novel top ten. The fourth volume of Bryan Lee O’Malley’s delightful Scott Pilgrim series managed to beat two of that month’s Naruto releases as well, landing in 14th place. Of course, all three of that month’s Naruto releases cracked the top 20, so Viz has nothing to complain about.

    In fact, Viz had a great month overall, with a reasonable sprinkling of Shonen Jump titles joining Naruto in the mix. With the exception of the seventh volume of Loveless, the list is largely boys’-love free, though vampires, game tie-ins and Muppets all make a strong showing.

    And Kimmie66 continued the trend of respectable Direct Market showings for DC’s Minx line, coming in at 37th place. A total of 21 manga titles made the top 100.

    Listings after the cut.

    (9) – 1 – FRUITS BASKET VOL 18 GN (Of 22) – TKP
    (11) – 2 – NARUTO VOL 24 TP – VIZ
    (15) – 3 – NARUTO VOL 23 TP – VIZ
    (17) – 4 – NARUTO VOL 22 TP – VIZ
    (18) – 5 – BERSERK VOL 20 TP (MR) – DAR
    (31) – 6 – HIDEYUKI KIKUCHIS VAMPIRE HUNTER D VOL 1 GN (MR) – DIG
    (38) – 7 – LOVELESS VOL 7 GN (Of 7) (TKP) (MR) – TKP
    (39) – 8 – LEGENDS O/DARK CRYSTAL VOL 1 GARTHIM WARS GN (OF 3) – TKP
    (49) – 9 – STREET FIGHTER VOL 4 BONUS STAGE TP – UDO
    (52) – 10 – NARUTO VOL 19 TP – VIZ
    (57) – 11 – YU GI OH GX VOL 1 GN – VIZ
    (59) – 12 – CHIBI VAMPIRE VOL 6 GN (Of 11) (MR) – TKP
    (65) – 13 – MPD PSYCHO VOL 3 TP (MR) – DAR
    (67) – 14 – ONE PIECE VOL 16 TP – VIZ
    (74) – 15 – TRINITY BLOOD VOL 4 GN (Of 8) (MR) – TKP
    (81) – 16 – GUNSLINGER GIRL MANGA TP VOL 06 – ADV
    (85) – 17 – SAMURAI DEEPER KYO VOL 25 GN (Of 38) (MR) – TKP
    (94) – 18 – D GRAY MAN VOL 7 GN – VIZ
    (95) – 19 – BLACK CAT VOL 11 TP – VIZ
    (98) – 20 – TENJHO TENGE VOL 16 (MR) – DC
    (100) – 21 – STREET FIGHTER SAKURA GANBARU VOL 2 GN – UDO

    Newsstand linkblogging

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    At Blog@Newsarama, Kevin Melrose points to a piece in USA Today about declining manga sales in Japan:

    “Sales of manga fell 4% in Japan last year to 481 billion yen ($4.1 billion) — the fifth straight annual drop, according to the Tokyo-based Research Institute for Publications. Manga magazine sales have tumbled from a peak of 1.34 billion copies in 1995 to 745 million last year.”

    It’s interesting to me mostly for the fact that it truncates the customary introductory element of most mainstream media articles on manga (“Big eyes and speed lines!” “Kids love it!”), favoring market trends instead. On the other hand, I would have appreciated more detail on the distinctions between sales of manga on paper and consumption overall, though those might not be readily available.

    As Icarus Publishing’s Simon Jones notes at his not-safe-for-work blog, falling pulp sales are less a new development than a continuing trend, and he suggests that this is less worrying than it might seem:

    “Continually slipping sales is always a concern, but personally I don’t see why a distinction should be made between manga printed on paper, and digital manga delivered via cell phones, or manga delivered in the form of a videogame spin-off. Manga isn’t going away because the Japanese love manga more than ever… the art form is simply becoming divorced from its traditional medium of paper. Reports of its waning influence seem greatly exaggerated.”

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    The New York Times also does a little trend-spotting, looking at the recent wave of comics created in part by pop stars like Gerard Wray, who’s writing the appealing Umbrella Academy for Dark Horse. Longtime comics reviewer and retailer Randy Lander is quoted in the story:

    “Certainly the comics industry benefits from the press that the crossovers sometimes generate. ‘It brings in people from outside the medium and people who haven’t been to a comic store since they were a kid,’ said Mr. Lander, who also owns the Rogues Gallery, a comic store in Round Rock, Tex. ‘Every entry point we can get is a good one.’”

    I’m surprised it isn’t part of a series, with follow-ups on TV and film creative types and prose authors who’ve broken in lately. But something tells me the Times has already done those articles, though the details have faded from my memory.

    Anyway, I enjoyed the second issue of Umbrella Academy almost as much as the first, though I found I missed the kid versions of the characters. At The Savage Critic, Jog reviews it with his customary skill:

    “…but there’s a sort of trust at work here between words and visuals that isn’t always seen in superhero comics.”

    True, but who wouldn’t trust Gabriel Bá?

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    Sigh. I love a lot of magazines, but Wired generally isn’t one of them. But the promise of ten pages written by Jason Thompson is worth the price of admission.

    Welcome to the DM

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    September’s Direct Market sales figures follow the familiar pattern – perennial sellers, strong performances for Dark Horse and Digital Manga’s boys’-love books, and just a couple of surprising items. (Are items still surprising if you can predict that they’ll crop up, even if you don’t know precisely how they’ll surprise you?)

    There’s further evidence that Viz’s Naruto Nation strategy is paying off, with all three of September’s volumes in the top 10 overall and leading the manga entries in the top 100 graphic novel list. Then comes the chunk of the list where Dark Horse dominates, interrupted by the second volume of Tokyopop’s Start Trek manga (no surprise there, though perhaps I’m stereotyping the comic shop customer demographic) and the Fruits Basket Fan Book. (If Fruits Basket ships, it sells. It sometimes doesn’t even need to ship.)

    I personally found the first volume of I Luv Halloween (Tokyopop) really mean-spirited and nihilistic, but I’m apparently in the minority, as new volumes keep showing strong sales. This isn’t really surprising, partly owing to writer Keith Giffen’s popularity in the Direct Market. (I feel like I should mention something here about objections to his adaptation of Battle Royale, but I can’t figure out how to make it fit.)

    Another slightly surprising appearance on the list is made by the first volume of Death Note (Viz – Shonen Jump Advanced). The entire series is available, but news of the imminent arrival of the anime on Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim programming block (I think the first episode airs this Saturday at midnight) has clearly given it a boost and is bringing in new readers.

    And there’s probably something to be made of the strong performances of both Tokyopop’s Welcome to the NHK (a scathing parody of fanboys) and He Is My Master (Seven Seas), which proudly waves its fan-service flag. My socio-analytical powers are weak this morning, though.

    The list of manga entries is after the jump.

    Apologies for the formatting. Someday I’ll figure out how to format tables.

    Overall Rank – Manga Rank – Title – Pub
    7 – 1 – NARUTO VOL 18 TP – VIZ
    8 – 2 – NARUTO VOL 17 TP – VIZ
    9 – 3 – NARUTO VOL 16 TP – VIZ
    16 – 4 – BERSERK VOL 19 TP (MR) – DAR
    25- 5 – PATH O/ASSASSIN VOL 7 TP (MR) – DAR
    54 – 6 – STAR TREK MANGA VOL 2 GN – TKP
    63 – 7 – FRUITS BASKET FAN BOOK NEKO CAT GN – TKP
    67 – 8 – GUNSMITH CATS OMNIBUS VOL 3 TP – DAR
    68 – 9 – MPD PSYCHO VOL 2 TP (MR) – DAR
    73 – 10 – I LUV HALLOWEEN VOL 3 GN (Of 3) (MR) – TKP
    74 – 11 – SAMURAI DEEPER KYO VOL 24 GN (Of 38) (MR) – TKP
    75 – 12 – OH MY GODDESS VOL 6 TP RTL – DAR
    81 – 13 – DEATH NOTE VOL 1 TP – VIZ
    83 – 14 – BLACK CAT VOL 10 TP – VIZ
    84 – 15 – WELCOME TO NHK VOL 4 GN (Of 6) (MR) – TKP
    89 – 16 – INVISIBLE BOY VOL 1 GN – DIG
    90 – 17 – KUROHIME VOL 1 TP – VIZ
    93 – 18 – ORDINARY CRUSH VOL 1 GN – DIG
    96 – 19 – FREEFALL ROMANCE GN – DIG
    97 – 20 – HE IS MY MASTER VOL 2 GN (MR) – SEV
    99 – 21 – SHAMAN KING VOL 13 TP – VIZ

    Scanning

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    ICv2 looks at recent BookScan numbers, and they find a whole lot of manga with a hefty dose of ninja in the mix:

    1. Naruto 16
    2. Naruto 17
    3. Naruto 18
    4. Fruits Basket Fan Book
    5. Fruits Basket 17
    6. Naruto Anime Profiles
    7. Negima 15
    8. Naruto 1
    9. Naruto 15
    10. Bleach 20
    11. Death Note 1

    The imminent arrival of the Death Note anime on Adult Swim is obviously giving that series some new legs, and Viz must be happy with the placement of the first volume of Naruto. It looks like the massive roll-out strategy is working quite nicely, particularly if you can draw a direct line from the multiple new releases to the renewed interest in the beginning of the series. (I’m not entirely sure you can, but it’s at least a dotted line.)

    Perennials

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    The top-ranking manga in the latest graphic novel figures from ICv2 (for August) is the 17th volume of Fruits Basket (Tokyopop), which comes in at 3rd place. Impressive as that is, the 15th volume actually ranked higher (at 2nd) in December 2006.

    Next to show up are the 14th volume of Fullmetal Alchemist (Viz) in 12th place and the 15th volume of Negima (Del Rey) in 23rd. The 15th volume of Naruto (Viz) doesn’t show up until 26th place, which is explained by its 10th place ranking in July. It’s not the only series to pull off the consecutive-month trick; I’m pretty sure both Fullmetal and Bleach (Viz) have pulled it off as well.

    No-ruto

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    Feast your eyes on the latest bestseller list at Publishers Weekly Comics Week, because I’m guessing it’s going to get a little monotonous in the coming months.

    There are some interesting entries on the roster. I’m a little surprised that Absolute Boyfriend 4 beat Fullmetal Alchemist 14, given the anime support for the latter. The former did come out earlier in the month, so maybe that was a factor. We’ll see if either of them show up next month as well. It’s happened with Fullmetal before.

    Diary of a Wimpy Kid shows up for the second month running in the same slot (third place), which makes me think I should read it. Have I missed a bunch of glowing reviews?

    In spite of a lengthy span with no new volumes, Hellsing apparently hasn’t lost its audience. I’m not sure if that’s a good message for publishers.

    This month’s consolation prize goes to the second volume of DC’s 52. It came in second for the month in the Direct Market, where “such characters as Booster Gold, Inifinity Inc and Black Adam that have since spun off their own series or miniseries” hold more coin.

    May numbers

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    ICv2 has posted Diamond’s graphic novel figures for May, and… wait, where the hell is all the manga? A piddling 13 books cracked the top 100 graphic novels this time around:

    QtyRank – Manga Rank – Title – Pub – Est.Qty
    19 – 1 – NARUTO VOL 14 TP – VIZ – 5,857
    28 – 2 – BLEACH VOL 19 TP – VIZ – 3,758
    33 – 3 – BERSERK VOL 17 TP (MR) – DAR – 3,581
    42 – 4 – MEGATOKYO VOL 5 – DC – 2,868
    43 – 5 – LOVELESS VOL 5 GN (Of 7) (TKP) (MR) – TKP – 2,812
    50 – 6 – GUNSMITH CATS BURST VOL 1 TP – DAR – 2,492
    56 – 7 – NEON GENESIS EVANGELION ANGELIC DAYS VOL 5 – ADV – 2,267
    58 – 8 – NEGIMA VOL 14 GN (MR) – RAN – 2,107
    66 – 9 – STREET FIGHTER ALPHA VOL 1 GN (Of 2) – UDO – 1,987
    76 – 10 – SAMURAI DEEPER KYO VOL 22 GN (Of 38) (MR) – TKP – 1,779
    96 – 11 – GUNSMITH CATS OMNIBUS VOL 2 TP – DAR – 1,330
    97 – 12 – INITIAL D VOL 26 GN (Of 32) – TKP – 1,314
    99 – 13 – LOVE MODE VOL 5 GN (Of 11) (MR) – TKP – 1,266

    Though manga seems to be winning the war in terms of sales in general in places like bookstores, it lost this month’s Direct Market skirmish to Marvel’s Civil War crossover. Collections of the comics event scored 16 spots on the top 100 chart:

    QtyRank – Title – Est.Qty
    3 – CIVIL WAR CAPTAIN AMERICA TP – 10,023
    4 – CIVIL WAR WOLVERINE TP – 8,853
    6 – CIVIL WAR TP – 8,589
    7 – CIVIL WAR FRONT LINE BOOK 2 TP – 8,156
    9 – CIVIL WAR PETER PARKER SPIDER-MAN TP – 7,572
    11 – CIVIL WAR YOUNG AVENGERS & RUNAWAYS TP – 6,955
    13 – CIVIL WAR X-MEN UNIVERSE TP – 6,842
    14 – CIVIL WAR WAR CRIMES TP – 6,426
    16 – CIVIL WAR COMPANION TP – 6,161
    17 – BLACK PANTHER CIVIL WAR TP – 6,073
    35 – CIVIL WAR AMAZING SPIDER-MAN TP – 3,557
    52 – CIVIL WAR FRONT LINE BOOK 1 TP – 2,436
    60 – CIVIL WAR X-MEN TP – 2,099
    69 – CIVIL WAR ROAD TO CIVIL WAR TP – 1,891
    79 – CIVIL WAR FANTASTIC FOUR TP – 1,651
    98 – CIVIL WAR THUNDERBOLTS TP – 1,306

    I have to say that if I ran a comic shop, even one that conscientiously tried to have a wide selection, I would have ordered a whole bunch of Civil War trades. It was big, it was successful, and it the core audience for that sort of thing (which must constitute a healthy chunk of just about any comic shop’s clientele) ate it up.

    One mini-trend that I noticed in May’s list was the success of what I’d call “library books”:

    QtyRank – Title – Pub – Est.Qty
    8 – MOUSE GUARD VOL 1 FALL 1152 HC – ARS – 7,604
    18 – PLAIN JANES – DC – 6,049
    32 – RUNAWAYS VOL 3 HC – MAR – 3,614
    65 – KORGI VOL 1 TP – TOP – 2,011
    84 – RUNAWAYS VOL 3 GOOD DIE YOUNG DIGEST TP MAR 1,602

    The success of Mouse Guard’s handsome collection indicates that interest hasn’t waned in the sleeper hit (and it can’t be a sleeper hit any longer, can it?), boding well for the sequel which is just about to drop.

    DC must be happy that its returnability retailer outreach for The Plain Janes had a happy ending. I was surprised to see the shop in my area order shelf copies, since it’s not the kind of book they’d usually over-order. Runaways continues to do really well in collection, and the very pretty Korgi makes an extremely respectable showing.