Comics Stake Claim at BookExpo America
This story originally appeared in PW Comics Week on June 5, 2007 Sign up now!
by Douglas Wolk, PW Comics Week -- Publishers Weekly, 6/5/2007
Comics and graphic novel publishers at this year's BookExpo America, the annual book industry convention held at the Javits Center in Manhattan June 1-3, reported healthy foot traffic, plenty of interest from librarians and booksellers, and a generally sunny outlook for the growth of the graphic novel category.
In a public interview with PWCW's Calvin Reid (part of BEA's Upfront & Unscripted interview/podcast series), Yen Press copublishing director Kurt Hassler (the former graphic novel buyer for Borders) said sales in the category "have not matured by any stretch of the imagination" and predicted much more expansion ahead. He noted that the success of manga has done more to get conventional American graphic novels onto bookstore shelves than anything else. Hassler also announced new Yen Press titles due this fall, including With the Light (about a family raising an autistic child); a book called World of Quest, which will also be an animated series on Kids' WB; and an original manga work created by Judith Park, an award-winning German manga-ka.
Still, most of the big comics-related announcements and promotions at the Expo had to do with prose authors, one way or another. Vertigo director Karen Berger announced that horror novelist Peter Straub and actor/screenwriter Michael Easton will co-write a horror/suspense graphic novel called The Green Man. Berger also announced that novelist Jay Kantor is writing an original graphic novel, Aaron and Ahmed, and that YA novelist Cecil Castellucci is writing a sequel to her just released Minx graphic novel The Plain Janes, to be called Janes in Love. Marvel was promoting comics adaptations of the works of Stephen King, Neil Gaiman and Laurell K. Hamilton. Disney had a big display and giveaways to promote the graphic novel version of Eoin Colfer's Artemis Fowl. NBM had signings for Stefan Petrucha, the writer for its Nancy Drew graphic novel series. And manga companies Tokyopop and Viz were attracting lots of interest for prose-related releases (see Comics Briefly)—especially Viz's Brave Story and Tokyopop's copublishing venture with HarperCollins, which includes manga versions of work by novelists Meg Cabot (Avalon High Coronation), Erin Hunter (The Lost Warrior) and Ellen Schreiber (Blood Relatives).
The Image Comics booth featured signings by a handful of its artists—100 copies of Kyle Baker's Nat Turner, volume 2, were snapped up in a matter of minutes, and there was a long line for popular superhero/zombie writer Robert Kirkman to autograph copies of Invincible and The Walking Dead. Fantagraphics was set up in the booth of its distributor, W.W. Norton, and Fantagraphics publicist Eric Reynolds reported very strong interest in two upcoming reprint projects: Willie and Joe, a collection of cartoonist Bill Mauldin's series about two WWII soldiers, and Walt Kelly's classic comic strip, Pogo. Drawn & Quarterly announced several upcoming projects by Chris Ware (including a second volume of his Acme Novelty Datebook sketchbook series), an 800-page autobiographical graphic novel by renowned manga-ka Yoshihiro Tatsumi and a reprint of British comics artist Raymond Briggs's early graphic novel, Gentleman Jim. The Holt/Roaring Brook graphic novel imprint First Second had preview copies of several fall titles, most notably Nick Abadzis's Laika, based on the Soviet dog that was shot into space, and Sara Varon's whimsical kid's work, Robot Dreams.
The one major distribution deal announced at BEA was an agreement between Boom! Studios and the Perseus Books Group to distribute Boom! Studios' books, including Hero 2 and Tag, to the bookstore market. "Overnight, it has transformed us from a comics publisher in the direct market to a book publisher that is also in the direct market," said Boom! publisher Ross Richie.
