When you put all that together, it paints a stark picture.
New manga releases 2018 series#
Another presenter at the conference, NPD Executive Director of Business Development Kristen McLean, shared data showing a clear correlation between binge-watching of popular anime series and subsequent purchase of related manga content.
Meanwhile, sales of Asian-style manga – already one of the decade’s fastest-growing content categories – have benefited from the availability of animated series on streaming networks like Hulu and Netflix. Superhero-adjacent genres like horror and science fiction also saw a slump in trade sales with the declining popularity of longtime best-seller The Walking Dead and the breakout series Saga on a publishing hiatus. Meanwhile, despite the media dominance of superheroes on every screen, the superhero side of the publishing business has been mired in a slump, outside of a few isolated successes like Marvel’s new X-Men relaunch, sporadic DC releases like Doomsday Clock and landmark issues of long-running series.Īs Griepp pointed out in his presentation, the sales of superhero-oriented trade books generally follow the trends of periodicals by about 12-18 months (the usual time it takes for publishers to issue collected editions of recent storylines), so those numbers are likely to be even worse when 2019 data is tabulated.
Though full-year 2019 data is not yet available, it’s clear that the popularity of younger-reader material has accelerated with the unprecedented success of Dav Pilkey’s latest Dog Man graphic novel (initial print run: 5 million) and YA graphic novelist Raina Telgemeier’s latest, Guts, rocketing to the top of the overall best seller list in its first week of release. ICv2 notes a massive shift in the past two years, with kid-oriented titles for readers age 6-18 up 20% in comic store sales and 39% in bookstores, manga up 41% in comics stores and 5% in bookstores, while superhero graphic novels (typically collections of previously-issued periodicals) fell 10% in bookstores and 15% in comic shops. That trend away from capes and cowls is also starting to be reflected even within the more insular comic store market with the arrival of a more diverse audience with different tastes. US Comic and Graphic Novel share by Category, YTD 9/21/19, shared by NPD Group/Bookscan at ICv2. Superhero content is less than 10%, down 9.6% year-over-year. According to Bookscan data shared at the conference, kid-oriented comics and graphic novels account for a whopping 41% of sell-through at bookstores manga is 28%. Consequently, the books that are selling in bookstores are, generally, not superhero-oriented. While comic shops tend to focus on longtime fans - often older readers who grew up on and collect superhero comics – mass-market bookstores sell to everyone, including younger readers and those outside of traditional comics fandom. When you add in the digital and other channels, direct market sales fell under 50% of the total for the first time since comic shops overtook newsstand distribution in the early 1980s. ICv2 estimates that bookstore sales accounted for $465M in 2018, compared to $510M in the direct market.
New manga releases 2018 driver#
But for the last several years, the trade book channel has become an increasingly significant driver of revenue, gaining double-digit year over year increases as comic store sales have declined.