The genre's success has carved out new bookshelf space in bookstores, and caused Hollywood to come calling: In addition to Miller's Sin City and 300, recent movies such as V for Vendetta, Road to Perdition, and A History of Violence began as graphic novels. The holiday season brings the animated film version of Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis, about girlhood in Iran after the fall of the shah; Satrapi served as codirector. Satrapi lives in France, a nation where graphic novels have been a respected form for decades. In Japan, the bulky comics known as manga are read by businessmen on the subway. In many ways, America has embraced its graphic novelists a little late. Even so, the genre's success is due to its global appeal, Mahoney said. Graphics with straightforward dialogue enable the medium to simplify complex issues and cut through language and cultural barriers at the lightning speed of the Internet.
The article orients itself around an exhibit at the Norman Rockwell museum in Stockbridge MA. which is described as 'captivating'. I will do what they didn't which is to link to the exhibition which runs from November 10 - May 26, 2008.
LitGraphic: The World of the Graphic Novel
A burgeoning art form with roots planted firmly in history, graphic novels, or long-form comic books, have inspired the interest of the literary establishment and a growing number of readers. For today's aficionados, graphic novels, with their antiheroes and visual appeal, are positioned to usurp the role that the novel once played. Focused on subjects as diverse as the nature of relationships, the perils of war, and the meaning of life, graphic novels now comprise the fastest-growing sections of many bookstores‹an accessible, vernacular art form with mass appeal.
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It is amazing to see how much the medium of graphic novels have grown over the past 20 years. And it's been fascinating to see Hollywood come calling. However, I do believe quite strongly that there are some major barriers on the distribution side of things that have inhibited this growth and have prevented comics from growing as much as they could. The main issue isn’t in the book trade, however, but rather in the Direct Market (the “comic shops”).
Diamond's monopoly on the Direct Market has become far too onerous for any of the non-brokered publishers. It boggles my mind that so many of these publishers signed exclusive distribution deals with Diamond that have really gotten them nothing at all. Diamond will still not take an inventory position on titles and "out of stock" titles become defacto "out of print" in many, many cases. Getting re-orders flowing through Diamond in a way that I'm familiar as a bookseller with would seem to be nearly impossible. From this point of view, Diamond is not a distributor at all, but rather a freight-forwarder. And since they are the exclusive supplier in the Direct Market, they really are the only game in town. Certainly the ability to use just-in-time inventory management is a major problem on the retail level as a result of this. Factor in low discounts to retailers and you have a situation that leads to conservatism in ordering. It is fascinating to me that a title like Persepolis performed so much better in the book trade channel. I think the same can be said for manga.
Just to drive this point home even further: it is no surprise to me whatsoever that both Fantagraphics and Drawn & Quarterly have set-up retail operations (in Seattle and Montreal respectfully. The distribution situation is fundamentally untenable as it stands right now and publishers are trying to find alternatives. This all means that if a small press title (and really, that means anything published by anyone save for Marvel, DC, Image and Dark Horse) has small initial orders from Diamond, growing sales long-term is almost impossible. A title is dead right out of the gate.
In my own case, I know that if I tried to launch my graphic novel through Diamond tomorrow I'd be facing initial orders of no more than 300 copies. I'd be looking at re-orders at only another 100-200 if I was very lucky. Even if I managed to get into Ingram, Baker & Taylor, Bookazine, North 49, etc..., orders would most likely be very poor. Printing 1000 copies of my graphic novel is about the minimum I can shoot for with offset printers like Lebonfon. I suspect the odds are long that I'd sell that many over the course of a year.
I think this partially explains why so many graphic novelists are turning to the web and trying to gain traction that way. It certainly does in my case. While I think the diversity in what is being brought to market is truly amazing, I suspect we’re heading towards a schism between the two channels (if we’re not experiencing it already). And that is a somewhat scary proposition for those of us trying to earn a living in this medium.
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