Paul Howley is the owner of the comic book store That’s Entertainment, with two locations in Massachusetts. In Colorado there’s Mile High Comics. Owner Chuck Rozanski has this sobering view of comics retailing. I’ve highlighted the punchline of his comments.
Moving on to happier thoughts, my participation at this year’s Frankfurt Book Fair was quite successful. I was on a panel on International Comics Publishing, which I helped liven up considerably with my sometimes biting remarks on the current state of American comics. I do have to say, however, that hearing the sales numbers from other parts of the world makes our myopic view of American comics as somehow being the dominate form of the medium seem almost laughable. As a case in point, the very nice lady from Japan on our panel sadly reported that Manga sales have declined slightly in Japan, from $5.2 billion to “only” $4.8 billion in 2007. American new comics sales, by comparison, are closer to $250 million. Even France is larger than us in total new comics sales, with nearly $500 million in annual revenues.
This disparity in national comics sales featured prominently in the individual talk that I gave yesterday, on the current state of the American comics market. I tend to be both very flip, and oftentimes quite savage in my public assessments, and yesterday was certainly was a case in point. When asked why American comics sales are so low as compared with the rest of the world, and still declining, I made the statement that most American comics publishers are complete idiots. While that statement may sound unduly harsh, the reality as I see it is that the vast majority of American comics are sold through the network of comics specialty stores known collectively as the “Direct Market.” I helped create the Direct Market in 1980, and watched it grow from 800 small stores in our first year, to nearly 10,000 stores in 1992. Since that time, however, there has been a steady decline in comics shops, to the point today that we are back to about 800.
There are many hobbies that seem to be lamenting the failure of parents — fathers, mostly — to bring along the next generation of fans. This is apparently as much a concern for Major League Baseball as for bowling, fly fishing, and model railroading.
It seems odd that comic book fans should likewise be concerned we haven’t raised the next generation of fanboys. Oh, there were Golden Age fans, and EC “Fanaddicts”, but they were extremely small in number compared to the explosion of baby boomer kids who became comic book fans in the 60’s. Kids today are into video games and anime, and if they’re into comics it’s Japanese manga. We can’t make them like the same things we love. It could be that my generation — for decades the backbone of comic book fandom — is all there is, and all there’s going to be.
