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The government may claim the recession has ended, but comic book and graphic novel retailers and their customers remain cautious while looking to the future of the economy and the category. Yes, some retailers say, sales are improving but are still slow. "While certain aspects are less terrible," said Mitch Cutler, owner of St. Marks Comics in New York City, "it's all about holding on and waiting for the alleged end of the recession to be a little less alleged."

Once again, PW Comics Week talked with independent comics retailers from around the county—six direct market comics shops and two general bookstores—in our annual informal phone survey about the state of the comics and graphic novel marketplace. In conversations with PWCW, many retailers said this past Christmas turned out better than they expected and sales generally have been up, at least a bit, since the beginning of the year. Many retailers said that among their biggest selling books of the past year were R. Crumb's Book of Genesis Illustrated, Joe Sacco's Footnotes in Gaza, Robert Kirkman's Walking Dead and David Mazzucchelli's Asterios Polyp. And they also pointed to surprise hits like Brian Maruca and Jim Rugg's Afrodisiac from Adhouse. Some retailers said that sales dropped on pricey collectible hardcover collections. And while manga sales appear to be flat or even shrinking, some retailers said that former teen-age manga buyers are growing up and may finally be buying some of the literary, sophisticated and even eccentric manga titles now coming into the market.

The Year 2009 And The Holidays

While many of the retailers said that graphic novel sales last year and at the beginning of this year were up and that Christmas 2009 was better than 2008, they conceded there was still room for more improvement. "Buying habits are different than 10 years ago," Eric Thornton of Chicago Comics said, "we don't have impulse buyers; people are focused on what they want. Quite honestly, it's been awhile since I've seen people willy-nilly with money."

Andrew Neal of Chapel Hill Comics in Chapel Hill, North Carolina said, "Six months of 2009 were up and 6 months were down." While he pointed out, "North Carolina is doing better than a lot of states," and he is "lucky to be in an affluent area," he admitted that there were a lot of layoffs at the nearby University of North Carolina, and "a decent percentage of customers lost their jobs." Neal also said that even though customers were buying less, his store was attracting more customers overall due to a move to a better location. "We had more transactions in 2009," Neal said.

Gaston Dominguez, CEO of Meltdown Comics, a comics shop in Los Angles, said the past year, "was pretty rough overall." However Jerry Gladstone, co-owner of Midtown Comics in New York City, told PWCW "any potential growth might have been missed, but nothing reduced."

Looking back on 2009 Holiday season, St. Mark's Comics' Cutler said, "This year did not suck as much as last year, Christmas 2008 was the worst ever. [In 2009] no one was buying high end collectibles, but at least they were buying." Jeff Ayers, manager of Forbidden Planet, a comics shop in New York City, also said Christmas 2009 was an improvement over Christmas 2008: "Last year was a late rush, [2009] was back to a bit more of a month-long event than a last minute scramble." Overall, Forbidden Planet's Ayers said sales were "about pretty much the same and we're keeping excess inventory down." After Christmas Ayers said sales "leveled back down to what they were before Christmas" due to "a crappy January in New York." At Chapel Hill Comics, Neal exclaimed, "Christmas was great. December was one month that beat last year. Before Christmas was much better last year, but afterwards has been much less; fewer people are spending money on themselves after Christmas." For Chicago Comics' Thornton, "the holiday season was good; it was pretty close to last year." Dominguez noted that "Christmas wasn't what it's been over our 17 years in business," because customers were using a lot more gift cards and credit cards; "the credit cards are the ones making money," he said.

Out on the coast at Powell's Books, a general bookstore in Portland, Oregon, the graphic novel buyer Gerry Donaghy said comics are "still doing well as a category," and they "had a great winter and holiday season." Speaking of the first few months of 2010, Donaghy continued: "We're still feeling the effects of what was going on at the tail-end of 2008; I'm still in my apprehensive mode, but we're doing better than 2009."

Elizabeth Jordan, adult book buyer at Book People, a general bookstore in Austin, Texas, joked, "Over the last year, 12 months compared to the last 12 months, [graphic novel] sales were up a whopping $6." Jordan said that November, December and January sales were good, but in February "everything was down. We've held strong as much as everything has; 2009 was trending up compared to 2008, and our graphic novels did well even during the recession," she said. Graphic novel sales make up 1% of the overall sales for Book People.

What's Been Selling?

A few bestselling books boosted sales for retailers over the winter and holiday season. Jordan said sales at Book People were "driven solely" by R. Crumb's Book of Genesis Illustrated from W.W. Norton. "Crumb just keeps going, I was caught ordering like crazy at Christmas; we've sold over 200 copies since October." Pretty much all the retailers PWCW spoke to pointed to Crumb's Genesis as a big seller. "Genesis was a huge book," Thornton said, "We could not keep it on the shelf." Donaghy said, "a couple bestselling titles were The Book of Genesis and Joe Sacco's Footnotes in Gaza (Metropolitan Books). Genesis was selling considerably: I was buying 200, 300 at a time and plowing through them." Neal also said Crumb had done well, but that it has declined in sales since Christmas. He also mentioned that David Mazzucchelli's Asterios Polyp (Pantheon) "sold a ton." Neal also did well with Robert Kirkman's Walking Dead series from Image Comics, and he said that Alan Moore's classic superhero epic, Watchman, was his second bestseller, selling "big until the movie, January through March" of 2009.

At Forbidden Planet, Ayers also did well with Crumb and Asterios Polyp, as well as Logicomix by Apostolos Doxiadis, Christos H. Papadimitriou and the art team of Alecos Papdatos and Annie Di Donna, an usual biography of Bertrand Russell from Bloomsbury, noting that the books, "sold more than my lofty expectations." He pointed to these books as, "perennials," books that people bought as gifts and for themselves. And even though these titles "didn't have a whole year of sales, they still sold more copies than other books throughout the year." Ayers said even while these big books do well for them; he makes an effort to have "slightly more niche books that normal book stores don't have [in order] to stand out of the crowd." He noted indie titles such as Capacity and Sleeper Car, both by Theo Ellsworth and published by Secret Acres. Another small press book that a few retailers listed as a success was AdHouse's Afrodisiac, a blaxploitation parody by Brian Maruca and Jim Rugg. Out less than a week at the time, Neal said Afrodisiac had "done really well. It's not something people hear about and come in looking for, but it's a hardcover with great design and is a great deal at $15. We got grand sales on it." Meltdown's Dominguez also said Afrodisisac was a big hit for them, with people coming in and buying it, showing it around at work and often sending more people in to Meltdown looking for copies. "It's not a cape book," he said, "but a fun made up story."

Book Collections, Pamphlet Comics and Manga

One of the more dicey aspects of the market for retailers was traditional pamphlet form comics. "The vast majority of sales are in collected form," Thornton said, "[book] collections are the backbone of the industry." Furthermore, Thornton said the Marvel and DC pamphlet price increase to $3.99 was "the biggest hit this year. Once the price increase hit, mid-tier titles dropped across the board." He continued, "trade books are fine, always climbing upward, but monthlies are slowing." Ayers from Forbidden Planet said, "Single issues still have a market," but he continued noting that the popularity of "event" comics-generally a super hero crossover series that involve characters from across a multiple series-seem to be falling off. "Event titles brought people in last year, both long-time fans and new readers, but [this year] people are suffering from event fatigue," Thornton explained. "The last year and a half [crossover] events didn't bring people in, and catered to people who are [already] fans," he said.

But Thornton also mentioned that after the first graphic novel of a series is collected into book form, some fans would start buying the continuing pamphlet issues to keep up with the story. He pointed to the wildly popular zombie comics series, The Walking Dead, as an example. He said it's a "50-50 split" of peopling just waiting for the next trade book." For Meltdown's Dominguez, "superheroes are the bread and butter," however, he said, "lots of people are waiting for trade [book collections]." He said his customers are testing the $1 first issues DC is offering, such as Joe the Barbarian. Dominquez said he sold 300 copies of Joe the Barbarian but he also said he would, "see if it drops off with a price of $2.99." Dominguez also said he was "not branching out with big tie-ins," and he noted a change in tone in superhero titles, "this year it's about optimism and hope, light stories, not dark and grim." However, at St. Marks Comics, Cutler said, "Single issue sales are up because they are cheap, softcover sales are steady and hardcovers are done."

While most of the retailers agreed that pamphlet sales are on the decline, so are higher price point hardcover editions. "People are opting for less expensive items," explained Cutler. "A price point above $40 is a tough sell," Thornton said. And, the sales of these formats are reflected in retailers ordering habits. Neal said he was "less likely to order DC's Absolute Editions [generally priced about $100] and [other] high dollar books." Ayers said, "Some things shouldn't be out in hardcover. We carry those in less quantity. Quick reprints did well and $10 entry graphic novels like Unwritten and Scalped." Cutler agreed, "If Acme Comics is going to put out a comic in hardcover and a softcover six months later, they might as well not bother. With the economy we're in we sell far less collectible editions. The only hardcover things with steady sales are books only available in that format, like classic reprints."

Similarly, Neal mentioned that Marvel's Criminal Omnibus by Ed Brubaker and Sean Philips, "sold a lot more" in paperback format then hardcover. Even at general bookstores this trend was seen: Donaghy said high-end hardcover books "trickled down towards the end of 2008 and never gained ground again. I've certainly not been slap happy about reordering Absolute editions; I can't afford to inventory them deeply." Jordan of Book People concurred, "We weren't taking chances on inventory of limited editions; the ones we had weren't selling." She continued that instead "steady sellers like Walking Dead keep going in trade paperbacks."

In other categories, such as manga, sales varied for retailers, but what was selling signaled a change in manga readership. "The primary manga readership age in the store has gone up to the 30s," Neal claimed, "5 years ago it was high school and college kids who are now happy to read fan translations that come out 6 months earlier." Neal said he is "much more focused" in his manga ordering to try more "idiosyncratic adult stuff," such as Pluto, 20thCentury Boys, Oshinbo and books from Vertical Inc, like Osamu Tezuka's classic Black Jack. Ayers also saw this trend, "people who were sixteen two years ago at the boom are growing up and looking for more adult themed books." He told PWCW, "Dark Horse is doing a hell of a job" as well as Viz with such titles as Taiyo Matsumato's Go Go Monster.

On the other hand, Meltdown was forced to have a close out sale of 4000 manga books before the holidays for a dollar a book. "It's a dead segment for us," he said, also taking note that "perennials" such as 20thCentury Boys, Pluto, Tezuka titles, and Akira that continually sell. At Book People "manga is shrinking," according to Jordan, since "series are difficult to keep an inventory on." However Donaghy said, "I'm going back to things and bringing back series I stopped ordering. The later volumes hadn't sold when I bought the series, so I'm reordering early volumes and seeing if it cycles." He explained, "With some graphic novel series and manga, they peter off and people rediscover them."

Cutting Inventory; Working Harder

Thanks to installing a Point-of-sale system, Dominguez said he is "able to track and refine ordering to cater to core buyers. We used to gamble because [merchandise] was nonreturnable. We were just getting killed, an average $1500 a week in product wouldn't get returned." These days the "code words" for Dominguez are "lean and mean, fast and furious, cut down operations to what is necessary."

Besides ordering, stores search for other ways to maintain business as they cautiously look for the end of the recession. "I'm not going to assume anything," said Neal, "since people started to say its getting better, it's now at the point where I'm not the only one that says ‘yeah right.' No doubt it will get better, but it will take a little while to recover." While waiting for the situation to improve, Ayers said he is "exploring new ways of doing business," among them, he's opening an online store and holding more signings and promotional events. "I do think the year will get better, but I can't sit waiting for it, so I'm working a lot harder in different ways that don't come naturally." Donaghy mused about the future of bookstores at time when online retail and digital publishing are growing: "How brick and mortar stores stay relevant is going to be the question and no one has an answer."

Thinking about the changing landscape for the comics industry overall, Cutler concluded, "It's a good idea for everyone to retrench and find out what the new reality is." In many ways Neal spoke for all of these retailers when he told PWCW, "It's so hard to look at the industry as a whole, every piece is behaving differently."

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