In the conference prequel to San Diego Comicon, graphic novel sales moved up despite a tough overall publishing environment. So: how to continue the trend?
I thought most about this not while reading the various big-time coverage of SDCC, but while reading regional reportage of a Canadian artist’s graphic novel debut, which has the enthusiastic but oddly educational tone that many journalists still use to introduce the concept to a general audience. As an insider, I’m usually puzzled by that, but this time I started to think about the ways in which GNs need to be considered in the larger context of trade publishing. That Victoria Times-Colonist article, for instance, accurately points out in the lede that GNs can range from “new ground” to “compilations”. This is definitely what skews publishers’ understanding of GN sales; it’s almost like an alternate universe where anthologies, usually a category-killer in trade publishing, can by contrast be the strongest performers in GNs if they’re part of an existing franchise. (Yes, I did just hyper-direct you to Bone, True Blood and Green Lantern in three words. Now you see the issue.)Â So the ongoing challenge is: how to make this into a marketing/literary language that everyone can use to their collective benefit?
