The State of the Industry: Good But In Flux
This story originally appeared in PW Comics Week on February 25, 2006 Sign up now!
By Sunyoung Lee -- Publishers Weekly, 2/25/2006
Friday's much-anticipated "State of the Industry" panel proved to be yet another measure of how much the comics biz has changed over the past couple of years. Long gone are the days when superhero comics reigned supreme—at least as far as new readership is concerned. Bringing together the heavy hitters in mainstream comics publishing, the panel featured Paul Levitz, president and publisher of DC Comics, Joe Quesada, editor-in-chief of Marvel Entertainment, Diamond Comic Distribution's v-p Bill Schanes, Michael Silberkleit, chairman and publisher of the venerable Archie Comics franchise, and the newest and most closely watched kid on the block, Tokyopop CEO Stuart Levy. The panel was moderated by PWCW's Calvin Reid.
Just how far the comics world has shifted was made clear when Quesada, who opened his comments by asserting that "Marvel is the greatest comics publisher in the world," had to play catch-up in a conversation that quickly turned away from superhero comics and focused instead on new trends in comics publishing. The biggest news was the expanding audience for comics, based in large part on book-format comics, the increasing diversity of comics currently available and what Levy called the "manga revolution." As DC's Levitz pointed out, "For most of the last decade, if you had a state of the industry panel about comics, the first question would be, how are we going to get new readers? How are we going to bring people in?"
According to Levitz, book-format books have been enormously helpful to the industry for their ability to make the connection between children who read Archie comics that their parents bought for them and adults who go out to buy their own comics.
The importance of female and younger audiences was also mentioned as a key to the future growth of comics. All of the publishers emphasized the importance of capturing younger audiences, whether through television shows and movies, new distribution channels, or newer youth-oriented content. As for increasing female customers, already a key audience for manga and Archie comics, Levitz pointed out that an increased number of women creators would go a long way toward addressing this problem. There's also the question of marketing: "We've found that we can reach those people," Levitz said. "We have to let them know that we have something for them to read."
All of this increased readership has been good for the business as a whole, with periodical sales up as well. Diamond's Schanes described the market as good, and pegged the size of the wholesale of the comics industry at about $550-$600 million in sales over the past year. Schanes even suggested that comics will need to have some level of returnability (unlike the bookstore market, comics shops generally buy comics and books nonreturnable) in the future. As audience familiarity with comics grows, the more they'll buy comics, regardless of the outlet. Still, diversifying retail channels and working to attract people who don't necessarily feel comfortable in comics shops (like many women, for instance) remains a goal. And responding to a question about the need for kids comics, Schanes cited Diamond's Gemstone Publishing imprint, which licenses and publishes Disney-property comics, and ongoing efforts to get the product into convenience and drug stores with a price point of $2.95.
Despite all this, Tokyopop's Levy said that the potential for comics, and manga in particular, has hardly been tapped. He described the spread of the popular category as a kind of "manga creep" that is slowly but surely taking over space in bookstores, nonbook retail outlets and teenager's bedrooms. He proclaimed that "Basically, we're trying to take over the entire industry. What if you're buying a novel? At what point does it become a manga? What about video games? Movies? Manga already has a lot of influence on popular culture—what we want to do is manga-fy a new generation."
