Graphic novel publishers at this year's BEA found that one of the problems plaguing the industry for decades has become an unexpected strength. The audience for comics historically skews young and very male. As it turns out, that's just what libraries love about carrying graphic novels--they reel in boys, who are otherwise too often absent from the stacks.

Distributors are taking notice, too. Ingram Book Group senior product manager Nancy Stewart told PW, "Our graphic novel supplement was so popular that we're doing another one. But I don't think booksellers have reached out far enough to those consumers." And Koen's Sally Lindsay agreed that graphic novels have been "trending way up, and more of our accounts are buying them. The books appeal to an age group that now has money to buy books, but they want nontraditional ones."

Publishers from Dark Horse to Tokyopop to DC Comics reported that they'd received stronger interest than ever before from librarians and library buyers interested in attracting young, male readers with titles such as Star Wars: Attack of the Clones, the Cowboy Bebop manga and the Justice League of America collections, respectively.

BEA coincided with comics publishers' biggest outreach to younger readers in years. That same weekend, the Spider-Man movie had the biggest opening ever--but Marvel Comics, curiously, skipped BEA, though several Marvel execs hung out at Diamond Distribution's booth, which was heavy on Spider-Man tie-ins, including several new, oversized hardcover graphic novels. Marvel's trade paperback publishing schedule has finally ramped up the way it has long promised, and the upcoming X-Men and Hulk movies will be accompanied by a similar blitz of product in bookstores. And, on Saturday, May 4, comics pub- lishers held a massive nationwide sampling event, Free Comic Book Day. (Marvel's contribution was the first chapter of its first Ultimate Spider-Man graphic novel.) The event was a huge hit, though it's not yet clear how many readers will be back.

The tidal wave of manga shows no signs of having crested, though its biggest successes are still linked to TV and anime-video tie-ins. Viz Communications and Tokyopop were both psyched about titles that will be appearing on TV this summer and fall, especially Viz's new cute creature series Hamutaru, which Viz is hoping will be the next Pokémon. (Manga titles are particularly popular with librarians and their patrons, too.). Renee Solberg, marketing manager at Viz, said she had spoken with "a lot of booksellers and librarians, even more this year," and she noted that all of Viz's graphic novels have "seen an increase in bookstore sales." She pointed to popular titles such as Dragonball Z, Ranma ½ and Gundam Wing.

John Parker, president of Tokyopop, the U.S. unit of Japan ese media firm Mixx Entertainment, talked to PW about an aggressive manga graphic novel publishing program aimed at teenagers. "Our business is teenagers. Girls read. Boys will read our action material, but they're really interested in the anime tie-ins," he said. Tokyopop will publish 200 manga titles this year (most with anime tie-ins) and expects to double that in 2003. The books are in Walden, Borders, B&N, Books-a-million (LPC is the distributor), and the DVD anime are sold through even more outlets. "We're seeing real momentum in the bookstores," said Parker.

Multimedia properties are also doing well for publishers, especially DC. Batman: The Dark Knight Strikes Again, Frank Miller's sequel to his bestselling The Dark Knight Returns, will appear as a hardcover graphic novel in time for the holiday season, and Neil Gaiman returns to his enormously popular Sandman graphic novel series with Sandman: Endless Nights (to be illustrated by seven legendary European cartoonists), slated to appear in late 2002--and there's enormous excitement around it. Rich Johnson, director of DC Comics book sales, noted that DC has had "double-digit growth in the book market over the last five years." He said April was its best month, citing DK2, the Green Arrow hardcover and the house's 9/11 benefit books as big sellers. Other DC and Vertigo projects are still in the early stages, but look promising, including Alan (From Hell) Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Vol. 2 and Grant (JLA: Earth-2) Morrison's The Filth.

Smaller graphic-novel companies that have found a niche can keep working it for decades. More than 20 years after its inception, Warp Graphics still has a steady audience for its Elfquest graphic novels; the latest, In All but Blood, debuted at BEA. And the longstanding San Francisco publisher/distributor Last Gasp was excited about both BEA ("much better," said Erick Gilbert, an editor at LG. "We took naps in the booth last year") and upcoming facsimile editions of Belgian comics master Hergé's early Tintin books, which have never been published in America. Most anticipated are Tin Tintin in the Congo (1930) and Tintin in the Land of the Soviets (1929), which were done by the 21-year-old Hergé under the influence of a fascist-sympathizing editor and reflect attitudes of the period toward Africa and the Congo, then a Belgian colony. Gilbert said Last Gasp will also publish facsimile editions of five of the first Tintin adventures, including In America (1931), Cigars of the Pharaoh (1933) and The Blue Lotus (1934).

The Dark Side

The only thing that cast a shadow over graphic novel publishers' elation at their sales peaks of the last year was LPC's bankruptcy. Although most of its publishers are adopting a wait-and-see attitude, there were some quietly chattering teeth. But most LPC clients contacted by PW, particularly the larger houses, praised LPC's ability to get their books in general bookstores. Tokyopop's Parker told PW, "LPC has done a wonderful job of getting this category [manga] out there." LPC president David Wilk was at the LPC booth, hail and hearty, greeting everyone and dismissing any gloomy concerns.

Several LPC-distributed companies have upcoming sure-thing titles, though, especially Dark Horse's Star Wars line (and the ongoing Akira and Lone Wolf & Cub manga titles). Tokyopop is hyped about its "authentic manga" series, translations from Japanese comics that read right to left and back to front (the floor dump is doing exceptionally well). CrossGen's Chris Oarr wanted to talk about their glossy, ambitious Forge and Edge anthologies, which collect CrossGen periodical series in monthly $9.95 trade paperbacks, in an effort to replicate for general bookstores the recurring customer patterns of comics specialty stores (comics store customers show up like clockwork every Wednesday or Thursday when new comics arrive). Oarr also talked up CrossGen's new Comicsonthe web.com site, an online effort to market its print comics that offers subscription access to CrossGen comics ($1 a month) and has partnerships with Web portals like Lycos, Tripod and Angelfire to link and funnel traffic. The online comics themselves are organized into gorgeous two-page spreads with animated word balloons that enlarge for easier reading.

Artist Colleen Doran was at the Image booth, signing copies of her A Distant Soil collections. Image president James Valentino was giddy over the attention from librarians, and talked about interest in such successful graphic novels series as Telos, Age of Bronze and Powers. Much-admired Drawn & Quarterly publisher Chris Oliveros said, "We're evolving from periodicals to book publishing," releasing about 10 titles this year. "All of our focus is on book titles," he said, citing an upcoming collection of Frank King's Gasoline Alley strips from the 1920s, designed by Chris Ware. He also has big expectations for Adrian Tomine's Summer Blonde, a gorgeous new hardcover collection of short stories; and Road to America, a drop-dead beautiful and poignant story of boxing and the 1950s Algerian revolution by the Algerian cartoonist Baru.

Still, a few LPC publishers cast a wistful eye in the direction of Fantagraphics Books, whose booth was safely parked in distributor W.W. Norton's territory. Norton's done wonders for Fantagraphics' distribution to the book trade, and the booth was bustling. Over the course of the BEA weekend, the company won Firecracker Alternative Book Awards for best graphic novel (Joe Sacco's Palestine) and for the best indie publisher, and hosted a signing by Ho Che Anderson for King Volume Two, the long-awaited second book in his acclaimed, three-volume graphic novel biography of Martin Luther King Jr.