According to Milton Griepp, founder of the comics and pop culture trade news site ICv2, the graphic novel market is continuing to grow in both the bookstore and comics specialty store channels—although he's been hearing reports that the number of manga titles is increasing faster than the market is expanding.
"There's some pressure on sales per title, especially at the bottom of the list, and in general it's more difficult to get shelf space." Part of the squeeze comes from the number of strong backlist properties continuing to compete for space on retailers' racks; manga evergreen sellers like Tokyopop's Love Hina and Chobits continue to sell solid numbers.
ICv2 has yet to calculate its figures for the bookstore channel, but Griepp says that there are more and more book retailers carrying graphic novels and manga. Meanwhile, graphic novel sales in the comics store channel continue to grow in the high single digits or low double digits. (Manga-based graphic novel publishers are doing especially well: Tokyopop's sales through comics stores increased 65% between October 2003 and October 2004, partly thanks to a special promotion.) DC Comics' CMX line, Griepp notes, has not yet been turning up on manga bestseller lists, although ADV and Del Rey's manga lines are strong so far.
As Marvel has more films based on its properties, Griepp noted, they've been "doing what successful graphic novel publishers do: bringing classic material back into print, reprinting titles faster and putting out trade editions faster for titles that sold well in comic format—that's probably good for the business." And literary graphic novels have been doing well in bookstores, too: Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis 2 sold briskly, and Art Spiegelman's In the Shadow of No Towers was "at the top of the graphic novel list for at least a couple of weeks."
ICv2 hopes to have a more complete breakdown of graphic novel sales trends by mid-2005.
