Comic-Con International has been growing every year, and this year's convention—held in San Diego, Calif., July 21—25—was the biggest yet, with attendance estimated at over 87,000, according to CCI officials. CCI is the annual gathering of the comics and graphic novel industry, attracting comics fans, science fiction and movie buffs—indeed the pop culture industry in general, from anime to gaming to blockbuster films. Lucasfilm, for instance, had a huge booth and announced the title (that's right, just the title) of the next Star Wars movie, Revenge of the Sith. Pulitzer Prize— winning author Michael Chabon (The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay) was the keynote speaker for the Will Eisner Comics Industry Awards.
Much like BookExpo America, publishers come to CCI to promote their upcoming releases. Unlike BEA, all but the biggest mainstream comics publishers (DC and Marvel) come to sell as many books as they can. DC Comics was promoting its forthcoming CMX manga line and its copublishing venture with U.K. publisher Rebellion and French house Humanoids that will offer U.S. editions of French and British graphic novels. Marvel had a constant parade of booth appearances by star writers and artists, including Chris Claremont and Brian Michael Bendis.
Disney is usually represented at CCI by its licensees, but this year, Disney Worldwide Publishing unveiled a huge booth to promote its W.I.T.C.H. series, which offers both comics and prose and has sold more than 100 million copies around the world. The series has just been released in the U.S. and at a panel, Disney emphasized it is on the lookout for new artists and projects. Brenda Bowen, v-p and editor-in-chief of Hyperion Books for Children, told PW that Hyperion was under the same mandate. "But we're not going to start a whole imprint," said Bowen. "We're going to integrate graphic novels into everything we do." And CCI, Bowen noted, is a great place to look for new talent. "All the best people are right here. And it's fresh; no one here is from traditional children's book illustration."
Sales on the floor, most exhibitors reported, were better than ever, especially for manga. Tokyopop—now publishing upward of 450 titles a year—uses Waldenbooks to sell out of its booth and said sales were up more than 80%. They even had to pull books from the Tokyopop office and local Waldenbooks' stores just to keep books on the shelves at CCI. Tokyopop also reported excitement for Courtney Love's new manga series, Princess Ai, and the forthcoming Tokyo Tribes, a much anticipated hip-hop manga by Santa Inoue. Viz, currently publishing about 20 books a month, noted demand for its Naruto, Hot Gimmick and Bleach titles, and lots of talk about sports manga like Prince of Tennis and Whistle.
Bandai, a Japanese video, gaming and entertainment company, announced plans for its own U.S.—based manga publishing program, beginning in March 2005. Bandai joins firms like ADV (which also owns the Anime Network) and CPM, which are principally anime distributor/producers, to offer manga titles. Other manga publishers included Broccoli Books, Antarctic Press (with Rod Espinosa's Neotopia) and Digital Manga, a new firm offering a variety of nonfiction manga. There was also a large booth promoting Korean comics (called manwha), sponsored by the Korean Content and Culture Agency. And while the Del Rey Manga list is small, director Dallas Middaugh told PW its first six series have sold very well (third printings for three titles), and said Del Rey plans to expand to 12 series next year.
Small Press
Small publishers and self-publishers have become increasingly important to Comic-Con.
Over the course of the convention, almost every indie cartoonist with a book of quality seemed to be contacted by either a publishing house or a Hollywood studio.
There were long lines for signed copies of the 1,300-page single-volume edition of Jeff Smith's Bone, self-published since 1995 by his own Cartoon Books. By Saturday afternoon, CB had sold 400 copies of the $40 paperback and 144 copies of the $125 hardcover. Scholastic will reprint Bone beginning next year, as the centerpiece of its new Graphix line of graphic novels. Meanwhile, Terry Moore, creator and self-publisher of the much-loved series Strangers in Paradise, announced that HarperCollins will be bringing out a new trade paperback edition (in color) of the series in October.
Top Shelf debuted eight titles, most notably James Kochalka's American Elfand Craig Thompson's Carnet de Voyage, a book of travel sketches and vignettes. Thompson also won two Eisner Awards for his acclaimed graphic novel Blankets—best graphic novel and best writer/artist—to little surprise. NBM held signings by Tristan Crane (How Loathsome) and Rick Geary (who has a book on the Lincoln assassination due out). The house also hosted a signing for Crown's political satire Birth of a Nation, featuring creators Reginald Hudlin, Aaron McGruder and Kyle Baker (who was hawking his self-published book Cartoonist at his own booth).
Fantagraphics did well with Gary Panter's deluxe Jimbo in Purgatory; Drawn and Quarterly's Adrian Tomine (Scrapbook) was a featured guest of the convention. Other notable debuts included Michelle Tea and Laurenn McCubbin's Rent Girl (Last Gasp), an unusual illustrated book about the life in the sex industry; Ian and Tyson Smith's Emily and the Intergalactic Lemonade Stand (Slave Labor Graphics); and Carla Speed McNeil's Finder: Mystery Date (Lightspeed Press).
New York trade book publishers are beginning to show up at CCI in greater numbers. Houses like Del Rey and Houghton Mifflin (Lord of the Rings) have been coming for years. Scholastic was on hand this year to hype its new Graphix imprint. Watson-Guptill, with an extensive line of comics artbooks and how-to titles, had a booth for the first time. Senior editor Jacqueline Ching, noted that CCI was very different from BEA. "BEA is about business," she explained. "Comic-Con is all about the fans and their passion for your authors." Byron Preiss was showing off his growing line of ibooks graphic novels. He also announced a new deal with the legendary Stan Lee, Marvel Comics chairman emeritus, to hype a online subscription venture that will offer serials of ibooks graphic novels through Komikwerks.com, a Web comics site acquired by ibooks last year. PW ran into a couple of St. Martin's editors, Michael Homler and Marc Resnick, prowling the convention floor on the lookout for graphic novel projects.
The biggest buzz of the convention was for a gorgeous, full-color anthology by a group of largely unknown cartoonists. The artists behind Flight, Volume 1 (Image) met through Internet comics circles, and they're very young—one contributor, Dylan Meconis, nominated for a Friends of Lulu award (FOL supports women's efforts to get into the comics industry), was too young to enter the bar where the awards ceremony was held. The group sold more than 450 copies of the softcover. Scott McCloud of Understanding Comics fame (who's just signed a deal with HarperCollins to publish a new book, Making Comics, and to reprint his backlist), wrote an intro for Flight that hyped its impressive crew of artists.
In addition, a Friends of Lulu award was presented to Lark Pien for best new talent. And Eisner Awards went to Neil Gaiman (Endless Nights) for best anthology; Derek Kirk Kim (Same Difference) for best new talent; Vertical Publishing (Buddha by Osamu Tezuka) for best edition of foreign material; Paul Dini (Batman Adventures) for best reprint; and Alan Moore (The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen) for best writer.
