Since the late 1990s, American sales of licensed Japanese comics in English translation, better known as manga, have grown at such a phenomenal rate that they are transforming the landscape of American comics publishing. As traditional comics publishers focus ever more intently on publishing in book formats for the general book trade, rather than targeting the comics specialty market, manga has emerged as the most popular comics category. Sales of manga graphic novels are driving sales of all graphic novels in the bookstore market. This remarkable boom in interest is changing the prevailing understanding of who reads book-length comics and transforming publishing strategies about how to produce, market and sell comics.
But the 1997 founding of Tokyopop by Stuart Levy has been instrumental in changing the U.S. comics market.
Levy is a American multimedia entrepreneur who spent time working in Japan where comics are a $4-billion market, and his formula for success was to violate every previous publishing rule about manga publishing in the U.S. market. Tokyopop published its books in the original Japanese right to left format (generally art was always reversed for U.S. audiences) in a 5"×7" paperback format in black and white, that many publishers are beginning to call "the manga format." Tokyopop titles are all priced at less than $10. "We tried a few sizes and took an ideal size that was portable," Levy says. "But mostly we went with our instincts about the market," he says. "This is about passion, not testing. It's about content and timing."
Levy tells PW he embraced manga while working in the multimedia industry in Japan and realized it had the capacity to attract men and women. "Manga was like watching a movie, and the artwork offered a connection to video games," he says. "I had no idea that this kind of content was available in comics. A long time ago, American comics were more like manga, but they have since narrowed and are now dominated by the superhero category."
Manga is popular among American teenagers of both genders, but it's the only type of comic book that's more popular with girls and women than boys and men. Indeed, girls and women are going to bookstores to buy manga in numbers that are unheard of in the U.S. comics industry. American girls and women generally do not go to comics shops and generally do not read traditional American comics featuring superheroes or extreme violence. While American comics generally have been produced by men for teenage boys, manga's diverse subject matter—from adventure to science fiction to romance and sports—is luring girls and boys as well as adults into bookstores. And very often they are visiting the major chain bookstores at the expense of both comics shops and independent bookstores, which continue to lag behind the chains in acceptance of graphic novels.
Despite the recent surge in popularity, English-language manga publishing isn't new. Hardcore American manga fans have always sought out the original Japanese-language material, often translating it themselves. Publishers such as Viz and Dark Horse (which will now publish collections of the popular Web comic Megatokyo) and smaller companies like Antarctic Press have been publishing manga since at least the 1980s.
Levy says Tokyopop's manga titles offer "dramatic stories about relationships and love—Sex and the City—type stories. They're like chick lit for comics," he said. The result is an American audience that is about 60% female. But boys read Tokyopop titles as well, and Levy estimates a market of $150 million in the U.S. "From the numbers I see, it couldn't be any less and it can grow even more. Teenagers will help this market grow and penetrate the culture over the next 10 years." Levy adds, "Some people want to call manga a fad. But it's a fad like film, TV and video games are fads."
Selling Manga to America
Tokyopop has big plans. The house is publishing more than 500 titles next year and is looking to expand its kids' comics publishing. Tokyopop's top-selling titles (Chobits, Love Hina, Sailor Moon and many others) can sell in the 100,000-copy range. But some titles have sold 250,000 copies with the assistance of book clubs or TV or DVD releases of anime, the animated film version of manga titles. Levy said he expects to get "a non-media—assisted 250,000-copy book hit in the very near future." Over at Viz, director of sales and marketing Lisa Coppola tells PW, "Every day retailers are coming to us for help to sell manga." Viz is probably publishing more than 200 titles a year (the house declined to give exact figures) across many multivolume manga series. Viz uses Shonen Jump, a monthly anthology periodical of comics, to test and promote the popularity of different titles.
Coppola says the house is also packaging its titles with the anime releases. Among its releases are Ranma ½, a gender-bending comic series; the very popular Yu-Gi-Oh!, about a teenage master puzzle solver; and One-piece, a comic saga of a boy who wants to be a pirate, all for kids and teens. "Stores are devoting more space and libraries tell us they buy as much as they can, but manga doesn't stay in the stacks very long," said Coppola.
John O'Donnell, managing director of New York City—based Central Park Media, an anime distributor and publisher of manga, tells PW that CPM published about 50 manga graphic novels in 2003 and will publish more than 60 in 2004. He readily admits the books will be in the "Tokyopop format, size and price."
He's also quick to credit manga's rapid sales growth to being "girl-friendly. Plus, manga artwork looks like video games and there's also the popularity of anime on DVD and broadcast on TV." Antarctic Press has been publishing manga-style works by American-born artists since the mid 1980s. The small San Antonio, Tex.—based house publishes such artists as Fred Perry (Golddiggers) and Joe Wright (Twilight X), pioneers of American manga. The press's founder, Ben Dunne, told PW that the steady rise in popularity of manga-style comics has forced him to focus on the book market.
"Manga is different, and everything I was taught about how to sell comics is reversed in the book market," Dunne says. AP is moving up quickly from four books a year to 25 or 30 next year, though it's a "scary time" for traditional comics publishers. "Sales in the comics shops are declining—people want trade paperbacks—and so many new companies are jumping on the manga bandwagon."
"But we're just babies at selling this stuff," says Dunne, "and we're excited about the future."
While all of these publishers are optimistic about the continued growth in the manga market, they also acknowledge that they are wary about the number of new titles being published. Manga's popularity has led to the entry of many new players and an increase in production by the traditional ones. Many publishers are concerned about a glut of titles.
But they also point to differences between the bookstore market and the traditional comics shop market, which has been flooded by overproduction several times in the past. "The bookstore market is different," O'Donnell says. "Good books flush out the bad and raise the bar. The market is intelligent— you can't fool the audience. It's not like buying a toaster. Once you've read one book, you need to get a new one."
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