The last two weeks have provided a powerful example of what happens when supply outstrips demand: VIZ laid off 40% of its workforce, Go! Comi folded, and DC announced that it would be shutting down CMX on July 1, 2010. Though Go! Comi’s demise was the least surprising development of the three, it reminds us just how much the market has contracted from its highpoint in 2007, when it seemed as if everyone with a dollar and a dream was trying to launch a manga imprint. ICv2 reports that manga sales fell steadily in 2008 and 2009, from a high of $210 million in 2007 to a low of $140 million in 2009 — a decline of 33% from the market’s peak. Publishers have responded accordingly, dropping poor performing series, slowing the release of others, and acquiring fewer new licenses; 2010 will be the first time since 2004 that manga publishers will release fewer than 1,000 new volumes in a year.
Taking a closer look at the Bookscan numbers from 2007 and 2009 is particularly instructive. Brian Hibbs estimates that VIZ’s sales dropped 20% between 2007 and 2009, from $55 million to $44 million — a respectable number, to be sure, but a strong indication that the Naruto gravy train is coming to an end. Tokyopop, the next biggest player in the market, suffered a 50% decline in sales during that same period, from $30 million to $15 million. Some of that decline reflects Tokyopop’s 2009 decision to drop a number of titles, while some reflects the fact the Tokyopop’s original audience is “greying” (a somewhat absurd term, given the age of their customer base) and spending less money on manga. Even Del Rey, which posted similar sales figures in 2007 and 2009 (around $8 million), is relying less on licensed manga than on “manga-esque” properties based on American television shows: their best sellers are Ben 10 Alien Force and Bakugan Battle Brawlers, both of which outperform Negima, Tsubasa, and Shugo Chara.
Perhaps most telling is that CMX did not have a single title in the Bookscan’s 2009 Top 750 Graphic Novel list, even though parent company DC turned in a strong performance, thanks to renewed interest in Watchmen. (DC had 93 titles on the Bookscan chart.) Gia Manry explains exactly what that means: no CMX title sold more than 3,887 copies through Bookscan outlets. However imperfect a barometer Bookscan may be — and Hibbs freely acknowledges its limitations in his annual write-up — the fact that not one CMX series appears on the Bookscan list suggests that their manga imprint was barely making a ripple in the market, even after six years of operation. (For more on CMX’s failure to gain traction in the market, see David Welsh’s spot-on critique.)
The news isn’t all bleak. As Hibbs and Manry note, Yen Press has bucked the tide, with sales trending upwards from 2007 to 2009 on the strength of Maximum Ride, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, and Soul Eater. Other companies appear to have weathered the downtown by making strategic decisions about what and when to publish; Vertical, Inc., for example, concentrated on Black Jack for 2008 and 2009 while lining up a small but impressive set of new titles for 2010, while Tokyopop responded to market demand by speeding up the release schedule for strong performers like Alice in the Country of Hearts. More encouraging still: new players — Fantagraphics, Top Shelf — are entering the market, targeting older readers with edgy material that might not fit as well into other publishers’ catalogs.
What will the market look like in twelve months? That’s hard to say, though I wouldn’t be surprised to see another small-to-mid-size publisher fold, nor would I be surprised to see Kodansha abandon its plans for a direct US presence. Reviewing the first eleven NY Times Graphic Books Bestseller lists, it seems entirely possible that Yen Press will eclipse Del Rey as the number-three manga publisher (unless the Avatar and Pride and Prejudice and Zombies books do boffo business), and Tokyopop may finally reap the financial benefits of its dramatic 2008 restructuring. And we may at last see more high-quality books aimed at adults; whatever Gary Groth’s attitude towards manga, he’s certainly backed one of the most exciting initiatives to come down the pike in ages. Let’s hope it’s a portent of things to come.
UPDATE, 5/20/10: Christopher Butcher offers a seasoned retailer’s perspective on the CMX line. He notes that many comic stores had difficulty moving the first wave of CMX titles, making many owners reluctant to continue stocking CMX manga.
Well, that’s cute.
Considering that mainstream North American comics have become hyper-masculated to that point of disgusting caricatures of the most juvenile male power fantasies and self-pity, I think I may as well just never read anything from DC ever again. Not to slander men or superheroes (I know my Heinrich Zemo from my Helmut Zemo) but that’s just the sort of thing DC and Marvel wants to sell these days in any package they can stuff it into.
They don’t want to appeal to an actual market like Yen or Seven Seas. Lord forbid they print comics that treat their adult audience like adults, that’s something some no-account publisher like Fantagraphics or Vertical would do. They’re in the business of selling franchises to people just wanting to see how much of the franchise they F’d up this week. DC and Marvel can’t even be called comic publishers any more. I think I may just start calling all comics manga since superheroes are doing such a terrible job of being the vast majority of comics.
Considering their DC/Time Warner/Whoever pedigree, it’s also sad that we’re unlikely to ever see any of these licenses in English again. Thanks for picking up Diamond Girl!
The sad thing about DC’s neglect of CMX is that Asako and Jim were assembling a great catalog of titles! Without more institutional marketing support, however, those books weren’t finding much of an audience outside the reviewing community. And why the hell weren’t they in bookstores? I never, ever saw CMX titles — not even high-profile books like Emma — at Borders or Barnes and Noble. Even comic book stores didn’t seem to stock much CMX (unless, of course, they were one of those rare places that catered to manga readers).
More bun-steaming still is that DC acted as if they were inventing girls’ comics when they launched the Minx imprint; VP Karen Berger actually dissed manga in an interview with ICv2 and never acknowledged the fact that DC was in the manga publishing business!
Oh, I’ve seen plenty of CMX titles in bookstores before they get snatched up in front of me. I almost argued with a girl over a volume of Emma once. The books sold incredibly well, but the print runs must have been abysmally low too. I remember reading an interview with a big LA comic shop owner months ago saying that CMX titles flew off the shelves, but it was a hassle getting their hands on any stock.
Jade, you really are selling DC short. While I agree a lot of their superheroics tend to be bad, putting it nicely, you are ignoring stuff like their Johnny DC imprint for kids which has titles like Tiny Titans, which won an Eisner for best children’s comic, or their Vertigo imprint, which does put out comics for adults, their webcomics imprint Zuda, or the occasional gem from Wildstorm like Mysterious the Unfathomable.
“I think I may just start calling all comics manga since superheroes are doing such a terrible job of being the vast majority of comics.”
I’m not really sure to start with this though. For one, superhero comics don’t actually make up the majority of the comics published in the US and they probably haven’t been for at least a couple of years. Second, you are painting good superhero comics from the last few years, like All-Star Superman or Batwoman’s run in Detective Comics, with the same brush as the horrible ones like Blackest Night or Justice League: Cry for Justice. It would be like, quoting Sean Collins, calling all manga “big-eyed panty-flashing speed-lined nonsense for people who fetishize Japan.”
As for CMX’s end, while I never read a lot of their output (just Emma, Astral Project, Diamond Girl and Chikyu Misaki), it’s never good when something like this happens. That said, I’m not particularly surprised that DC closed it down since they have always been pretty bad at managing their various imprints, Vertigo aside. I’m kind of surprised that CMX didn’t have much of a bookstore presence that is generally one of the things DC is pretty good at but I guess it just re-enforces the idea that it wasn’t much of a priority for them.
Eric, I actually have to admit some heat-of-the-moment ranting there, so much of what I said was a bit of unfair hyperbole and generalisation. I think I’m definitely misplacing some disgust with Marvel on DC as well.
I’m not sure where you’re getting that the majority of US comics aren’t superheroes though. Not to be argumentative, I’m just not understanding. Yes, there is a much much larger chunk of non-superhero titles available from Image and DC shells and Dark Horse than years ago, but superheroes are still the majority unless you’re counting small press, but then volume still weighs heavily towards superhero titles. If you include webcomics, we shouldn’t even be talking about national boundaries at all.
I used to like some superhero comics, but I just got sick of paying three dollars or more for thirty pages of a sudden creative team switch to stroll in and think that shocking plot points and wretched, disjointed, ‘realistic’ dialogue makes for good story-telling. Everything I enjoy about Dr. Doom was destroyed when they cheaply ripped off a decent Byrne story to dress him up in human skin. Maybe a new writer comes on and decides one of the most appealing characters to come around in years is a clone and kills them off. A media model that leaves itself open to and encourages that sort of franchise drift is just something that no longer appeals to me. Every brilliant creative run just made it that much more frustrating when a new team comes in and screws everything up to leave their thumbprint.
Jade, here is a listing of all of the comics that are going to be released in August of this year. There is a lot to go through but Marvel and DC have about 5 pages of combined listings while all of the other publishers listed have about 9-10 pages. Marvel and DC still make up most of the sales, around 70-80% in a given month, but they don’t make most of the comics offered nowadays.
Ah, ok, thanks for clearing that up! Yes there are definitely more non-superhero books offered, but superheroes still makes up a large majority of volume.
I think the main problem here is that my comments did marginalise the value of continuing diversification beyond superhero titles which is certainly apparent. Comparing the diversity of genres today to the days before the Comic Code Authority still reveals a huge blemish on the American comic industry though. If the Comic Code weren’t adopted and abused by certain publishers, I’m sure the American comic industry wouldn’t be too different from the Japanese industry aside from distribution issues.