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Speaking as someone who was in the thick of the expansion of graphic novels into the book and library channels and as the co-founder of Yen Press I want to point out a few things. Western style graphic novels and manga owe a great deal to each other; manga would not have been introduced into bookstores if efforts by American comic book publishers to get their books into these outlets hadn’t happened. In the late 1990s it was difficult to get any graphic novel into these outlets. Once that wall began to come down, retailers were more responsive to try out manga titles. The reason that manga dominated BookScan was that the bookstore market was; that’s where the core fans shopped. The direct market retailer, for the most part, did not represent manga the way bookstore chains did. So the fans flocked to bookstores and libraries.

On the flip side, the comic shops were where the core fans of DC, Marvel, Dark Horse, etc. all shopped. For manga BookScan was more of a comprehensive look at the retail piece of that business (libraries are not accounted for on BookScan). The BookScan numbers for American graphic novels represented an expansion of new readers beyond the core fan. While at DC I wanted to build a way to have the direct market retailers report into BookScan. In my eyes they were the trade book industry’s version of the independent bookseller. I would suggest that now the core customer for trade books of American titles is split between direct and book retailers.

As for the lasting effect of the manga audience, of course there are current writers and artists who grew up reading manga. It’s only natural they would be influenced by it. The same goes for American comics. We are looking at a time where anyone who is fifteen years old has lived in world where both manga and American graphic novels were available in bookstores and libraries. And we are now entering an era where the same will be said for digital comics. Expanding the reach of the medium will naturally increase the readership and influence generations of artists and writers. We are luck to live at time where the medium, regardless of country of origin, or art styles have as many outlets for potential readers. That is truly triumphant.

The summary: Manga blazed the trail into bookstores. The Book Trade notices the sales, and begins to produce original imprints as well as distributing comics publishers. The Internet facilitates discussion among librarians, critics, and fans.
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In 1994, when I started as a bookseller, the following comics publishers were available to the bookstore/library market:
Marvel
DC
Viz
Dark Horse
First (the remnants)
WaRP
Cartoon Books

Curiously, even though comic strip collections were on the New York Times bestseller list, I rarely saw comic strip collections (the most mainstream comics of the day!) in comics shops.

In 1999, the market expanded, as Spawn had a Random House reissue (all other Image titles unavailable), and Fantagraphics began distribution with … Norton? (Or was it someone else?) That year, Viz, in bookstores for a decade, introduced Pokemon.

It was Pokemon, with the multi-platform marketing, which launched manga, not Sailor Moon.
Sailor Moon pissed off the fans with censored Saturday Morning cartoons, and Mixx (later Tokyopop) had no bookstore distribution, so all I could order for my store was the Meet Sailor Moon guidebook from Random House.

Manga succeeds because it’s already been tested in Japan. Import the titles which are popular with kids and teens.

Manga had a foothold in comics shops via Eclipse, Viz, and Dark Horse. Via comicbooks, not graphic novels.

Bookstores had been computerized ever since Borders in the 70s. Libraries barcoded books in the early 1990s. Both were able to track inventories and notice when manga and graphic novels began to sell/circulate. Compare to comics shops (where many stores still don’t have an e-commerce site, and some don’t have computerized sales systems.)

Once the books begin to sell, then whomever reads the Bookscan data can notice the trend. That’s why, in 2002, you began to see mainstream publishers slowly enter the bookstore market with comics, mostly with the help of comics moles/the geek diaspora. Also, LPC and CDS began to distribute many comics publishers (CrossGen, Tokyopop, Humanoids) to the trade in 2000.

There’s another factor that comes into play here regarding the growth of the gn category in the traditional market, as the buyer in the libraries paid greater attention to the circulation numbers for GN titles like Bone, Blankets, Maus and Persepolis they began looking for more content and the librarians were very vocal with the publishing industry about what the audience/patrons wanted and libraries needed:MORE Graphic Novels PLEASE. So when Smile was successful it encouraged other houses to follow suit. Wimpy Kid filled and still fills an incredible demand as a graphic novel in the educational market. Because of Smile you have so many more great books to follow. As the category began to strengthen independent bookstore owners grew their selections. During this time the Eisner Awards also began to gain credibility as a legitimate award in the library market which also has a librarian as a judge.
The next market? K-12. You have two generations of educators and school librarians who grew up with manga and western-style comics/graphic novels. They do an awesome job of articulating the value of comics as a literary device or tool for the classroom. The really cool thing is-they now have a really nice global catalog of graphic novels to use in their classrooms and media resource centers aka libraries. As these ‘new kids’ become the decision makers comics will hit another high point spawning even more talented creators and fantastic books.
What an awesome time to be in this business!

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