On Thursday I attended the ICv2 conference, which was only open to the industry, specifically publishers, retailers, librarians, writers, artists, literary agents, licensors and licensees. Journalists had to be on a list, and I had a press badge, courtesy of Popcultureshock. Last year I listened to the ICv2 recordings on the mangacast at work on Friday, and realized that I had missed out on some really good stuff.

Fans may be familiar with ICv2 as a frequently quoted source of statistics about the manga and graphic novel industry. For retailers, ICv2 is an online newspaper and trade magazine that covers pop culture news. They also put out a free magazine for retailers called the “Guide to Graphic Novels”. Apparently they also make guides for videogames and anime.

The ICv2 Conference included four panels about the graphic novel industry, mostly moderated by by Milton Griepp, president of ICv2. As someone who has primarily attended fan conventions and fan panels in the past, I found Griepp to be an excellent moderator and presenter. Maybe I’m just not used to his level of professionalism at conventions.

Brigid Alverson of the Manga Blog and Ed Chavez of the Mangacast sat in the back row with me. Brigid seemed to be taking down everything being said – not just at the ICv2 conference, but at every panel she attended with courtroom stenographer precision. Indeed, the most-used letters of her keyboard had worn off, despite her laptop’s relative newness. Short of having cybernetically enhanced Stand Alone Complex-style robot typing hands, I doubt I’ll ever hit Brigid’s WPM. Ed, meanwhile, recorded most of the panels he attended, since unlike myself, Ed is a responsible podcaster with shows that come out reliably, frequently, and on time. I will include links to their coverage below.

ICv2 White Paper—Graphic Novels: Growth and Change
Non-Fiction—The Real World of Graphic Storytelling
Manga Ratings, Redactions, and Freedom of Speech
Buyers Panel—Graphic Novels, the Next Three Years

ICv2 White Paper—Graphic Novels: Growth and Change
From the program guide: ICv2 will present the results of its annual graphic novel industry survey, along with special conference-only info that will not be published in its magazines or on the Web.

Brigid’s coverage of White Paper, Ed’s recording of the panel, ANN’s reproduction of Griepp’s chart.

What I found most interesting (and what the manga blogosphere latched onto as well) in this panel is Griepp’s report that graphic novels became more popular than periodicals in 2005. Periodicals are what some retailers call “pamphlet” comics and what Brigid calls “floppies”. 2005 represented a tipping point, and the gap between graphic novels and periodicals is expected to widen. My personal reaction was like, “Not until 2005?” But then, I’m still writing 2006 on checks, and 2000 seems like it happened long ago and far away, before the dotcom crash and when I didn’t know anyone else who read manga.

Comic book store sales have grown in this decade in a way that the industry hasn’t seen since the mid-1990’s. Griepp credited “exciting movies” for this growth. Right now 300 is selling tons of copies in a run up to the movie. There’s also a DVD effect – just before the DVD of a comic book movie hits the market the sales of the comic it’s based on also increase. Later at the con I heard a lot more about this from the people at DC.

Griepp’s powerpoint slides drove home a few key issues about the graphic novel world that you can read about in more detail on other blogs. In brief:

• Naruto is a flagship property that sells over $100,000 per volume, a record in graphic novel sales that is “A very important property to the business”. At Anime Boston 2003 I remember an ADV guy predicting that Naruto (unliscensed at the time) would become one of those show that is a gateway drug to anime, and he hoped then that the “plucky little ninjas” would trigger a new wave of anime fans by “jumping into people’s hearts”, which totally happened, and it worked for the manga industry as well.
• Graphic novels are becoming accepted as a more legitimate art form, thanks to award winning books like American Born Chinese and Fun Home. Last year also saw teaching compendiums published for Bone and Persepolis, bringing graphic novels into the school curriculum, and adding more legitimacy to the form.
• There has been an increase in non-fiction graphic novels this year, 267 titles versus last year’s 101 titles in the same category. Stuff like the 9/11 Commission Report and Cancer Vixen were read by people who don’t normally read graphic novels. There was more talk about this in the second panel.
• Writers of regular fiction are now getting into comics , like Stephen King. King is an author “brand” and there are several other author brands, like Neil Gaiman, Frank Miller, and Alan Moore.

Non-Fiction—The Real World of Graphic Storytelling
From the program guide: The memoir, historical storytelling, and education are among the fastest growing areas of the graphic novel (and we use the term loosely) category in North America. Is the N.A. market going to look more like Japan’s, where manga is a favored form for non-fiction as well as fiction?

Moderated by Calvin Reid of Publishers Weekly, the speakers were: Marisa Acocella Marchetto, the New Yorker cartoonist who wrote Cancer Vixen; Larry Gonick, the man behind the The Cartoon History of the Universe; Glenn Kardy, the President of Japanime Co., who is responsible for the Manga University imprint, which includes the Kanji de Manga series; Thomas LeBein, a publisher of Hill & Wang, who brought out the 9/11 Report, A Graphic Adaptation; and when Ted Rall cancelled he was replaced at the last minute by George O’Conner, the artist behind Journey into Mohawk Country from First Second Books.

This panel had a strong opening, as the moderator talked about just the kind of comics I’m interested in: Non-fiction manga, like business manga, stuff like the Warren Buffet biography or the Project X Cup Noodle book. I also really enjoy biographical indy comics by women, like My New York Diary – so I thought that this would be the panel for me!

Wrong! The panel turned into a big book tour thing where specific authors pitched their individual books. Nevertheless, I did get a few points of interest out of this panel.

One big problem with non-fiction graphic novels is shelving. If you put these books in the graphic novel section you’ll only reach people who already read graphic novels – and those people have to fight teenagers to see the shelf with the non-manga selection. Biographies can be placed on a biography table or in the biography section – but then people like me who wouldn’t usually read biographies will never find them.

After a few cursory remarks about non-ficiton, the panelists talked about how they got their start in the industry before going into specifics about their books.

LeBien talked about the difficulty of getting permission to publish the 9/11 Commission Report from the original author. The text itself is public domain, but reaching someone in the Whitehouse was a difficult progress. His emails and note were ignored until the day before printing began.

Nevertheless, the 9/11 Commission Report adaptation hit the ground running, with advance copies cleverly sent to the right reviews ahead of time, and the book debuted on the New York Times Bestseller list. It was a huge success, reaching non-graphic novel readers, and beyond that – the book was read by people who would not have considered reading the original Report.

Larry Gonick told the colorful tale of his start in the world of cartooning, driving across the desert with a sketchbook and some heavy drugs. He once did a comic about tax reform, in an effort to do a comic on something impossibly boring. I am very interested in this tax reform comic! Gonick recommends a comic called Cuba for Beginners which is rare and can only be obtained through socialist bookstores. Nevertheless, Ed Chavez has read it, and told me it was pretty good.

I have a bone to pick with Mr. Glenn Kardy. I read Kanji de Manga volumes one and two, mostly while studying for the JLPT exam. When I reached the last page of volume two of Kanji de Manga I discovered a note saying that the books were geared towards the JLPT. Holy crap! If I had known that to begin with (like at the front of the book) I would have read them sooner. That’s a minor complaint, however, and my real problem is the hideous furry artwork on the cover of volume one. Volume 4 has a respectable cover, and the cover of volume 2 is only mildly embarrassing on the off-chance someone on the subway knows what the term “moe” means, but volume 3 has another hideous inexcusable cover. Is that supposed to be a parody of Shippo from InuYasha? I don’t want people to think that I’m a furry or that I like catgirls, or both when I’m studying kanji in public. I have considered that these books skew a bit younger than me, and the teenagers taking the JLPT test with me are probably the target demographic, nevertheless, if I had a kid, I wouldn’t want anyone to think he or she was a furry. Unless she was. It’s a lifestyle choice.

I’m willing to forgive Manga University for now, because I am extremely interested in their manga cookbook, samurai history book, and sound effects guide. Kardy pitched a giftbook called “What We Love About Manga” as something for your bewildered grandpa to give you instead of remembering what volume of Naruto you wanted for Christmas. I really don’t like giftbooks (if they are what I think they are). Teens might be better off asking their grandparents for the Naruto artbook(s) or character guides, or the fanbook that Viz talked about later at the convention. I consider myself an authority on what to give teen Narutards for Christmas – unfortunately your grandpa probably doesn’t read manga blogs or listen to anime podcasts.

O’Conner made an excellent pitch for Journey into Mohawk Country, so much so that I sought it out and bought it at the convention. I’ll write a full review later. For now I’ll say that it’s an adaptation of Harmen Meyndertsz van den Bogaert’s diaries from 1634-1635, when the 23-year-old Dutchman traveled through upstate New York. I thought it would look a little more like Satsuma Gishiden for some reason, but I was wrong. More on this later.

Manga Ratings, Redactions, and Freedom of Speech
From the program guide: Japanese culture is very different than American when it comes to controlling access to adult content, and publishers have taken a wide range of approaches when deciding how to deal with those cultural differences in their American editions. Retailers, libraries, and publishers all have their concerns.
Brigid’s coverage

This panel was moderated by Griepp and dominated by librarian Michele Gorman, who spent the last few years as a consultant working with Tokyopop to develop their new rating system. Also in attendance were Liza Coppola of Viz, Kurt Hassler of Yen Press, Mike Kiley from Tokyopop, Dallas Middaugh of Del Ray, and Tomoko Suga, a licensing manager from Kodansha.

I didn’t expect to take much away from this panel, since Tokyopop’s new rating system doesn’t interest me much. It did interest the many librarians in the audience, and it was a lively discussion, the likes of which you won’t find in Anime News Network forums, since that’s not where hip young librarians hang out.¹

The most interesting part of the panel was Suga’s explanation of how mature titles are never shelved near kid’s manga in Japan since everything is arranged by demographic. For example, the mahjong manga is shelved near the porn. Griepp surprised Suga by asking the audience what demographic plays mahjong in America. A few people responded “old women,” which is not the mahjong demographic in Japan, where the game is played by smoking, gambling young men. Suga was shocked. This really drove home the cultural differences between the two countries.

What’s appropriate for certain demographics in Japan can be totally inappropriate for certain American audiences. The new rating system aims to give librarians and parents as much information as possible. However, the system isn’t universal across all American manga publishers.

The other big shock of this panel (for me) was that Korean, Indonesian, and Singaporean publishers of manga request changes from the Japanese publishers all the time. So much so that the Japanese artists are accustomed to making small changes to their art for other countries. It’s only in America that the fans protest artistic changes with a frenzy (for an example, see this ANN poll). Even Gorman seemed puzzled as to why teens react so negatively to small changes to manga. She speculated that they might feel ownership over something that they’ve read.

Buyers Panel—Graphic Novels, the Next Three Years
From the program guide: A panel of key graphic novel buyers from multiple channels will discuss what’s selling and why, how the market’s changing, and what kinds of products will grow the market in the next three years.

Again moderated by Griepp, this panel featured: Christopher Butcher, a retailer, buyer, letterer, and blogger from Canada; Chis Powell, manager of the Lone Star Comics chain and mycomicshop.com; Regina Kanicki, a buyer for Baker & Taylor; Bill Schanes, a purchaser for Diamond; James Killen, a Barnes and Noble buyer; and Ed Masessa, the Category Manager for Scholastic Book Fairs.

The panel opened with some very witty comments from Chris Butcher. I have never read Butcher’s blog before, but between this panel and the panel about blogging, I was convinced that it’s required reading.

Butcher said that yaoi is a big success in his store. He defined yaoi as “Pornography aimed at a teen girl market,” and followed that up with “Who knew porn would sell?” He further remarked that “stocking it” lead to success, and “Luckily, the mass market can’t sell porn as well as us.”

Regina Kanicki seemed dubious, and speculated that maybe yaoi is plateauing in sales. Griepp had mentioned earlier in the conference that he first saw yaoi in the 1970’s in Japan, didn’t understand it, and never thought it would catch on here. It actually amused me to hear someone older than my father saying the word “yaoi” over and over again. In all seriousness, Griepp is obviously “old school” and has known about yaoi since before I was born.

Chris Powell mostly sells yaoi in his online store; it might be OK to buy those sorts of books publicly in Canada, but certain parts of Texas are a different story. Powell saw growth last year in “slice of life” titles like Blankets. Powell seemed to share similar taste in comics to me, and may have mentioned the Project X series at one point. I regret not talking to him more – he would totally be interested in that Warren Buffet manga.

Bill Shanes likened small press to a giant tree, saying that “you never know where an acorn is going to grow”. He claimed that distributors can embellish sales, but can’t make a good book. Content is king.

James Killen saw nonfiction as a growth area, especially with the female market. He thinks that the Stephen King graphic novel will be a milestone.

The crowd seemed particularly interested in what Ed Maessa had to say. Graphic novels only hit the Scholastic Book Fair circuit in the spring of 2004, first with Superman and then Jeff Smith’s Bone. Maessa seemed puzzled in why everyone was so interested in his job, since he has only sold four million graphic novels since 2004, “small potatoes” in this $330 million market. However, Scholastic travels to 110,000 schools per year, reaching the eyes of about 56 million kids. Every book in the Book Fair is shelved face out, so it’s all prime real estate in the publishing world.

Maessa said that he feels that he’s planting the seed of manga (and graphic novel) fandom into young, mainstream audiences. He’ll stock the first two volumes of a manga series in his Fair, but it’s up to the fans to go out and find the rest.

Maessa explained that he has to be extremely conservative in his graphic novel picks, so only top sellers make it into the Book Fair. Anything with a videogame or movie tie-in is huge, and those “cine-manga” screencap books (that I hate) sell very well. W.I.T.C.H. is a big hit, even though I appeared that few adults in the room had heard of it. I only know it because it’s a cartoon on the Disney Channel, and I work in animation.

Although the other panelist asked for great all-ages titles from any artists in attendance, Maessa explained that manga doesn’t sell well to younger kids. He speculated the the price point is too high – parents don’t want to pay $10 for a black and white comic. Teenagers apparently have the pocket money to flock to the stuff. One of the two Christophers wanted more comics like Owly for his store – something the entire family can enjoy. Maessa pointed out that Bone is like that, but it defies genres so you can’t really ask people for more books like it, it’s too original.

Ed Chavez told me later that manga for kids in Japan is kind of crappy. Even a Monkey Can Draw Manga confirms his claim in one extremely memorable chapter.

Griepp and some of the older members of the audience were surprised at the success of books based on videogames, and I was surprised that they were surprised. Videogames are big business nowadays, almost as big as Hollywood in terms of eyeshare.

I was surprised to learn that a giant statue of Captain Underpants in a store really does sell more books.

¹ Was it just me, or were there some sexy librarians in the audience? It made me reconsider my entire career.