February
23 Meeting of the graphic minds

The first ever ICV2 Graphic Novel Conference is now in the books, and it can be filed under the success column. The book-biz centric event drew strong and positive responses from attendees, most of whom enjoyed hearing different points of view from other people in their sector of the industry as well as the concerns of other sectors.
Kicking off the afternoon was a white paper delivered by Milton Griepp of ICV2, who laid out the terrain in specific numbers that went like this: the graphic novel market in the U.S. and Canada for 2005 was about $245 million retail, breaking down into $78 million in the direct market and $167 million in the bookstore channel. Manga, not surprisingly, was the strongest growth sector. In all, 2,477 graphic novel titles were released last year, with 1,088 of them manga, 815 traditional American genre, 101 fiction/reality, 64 for kids and tweens, 56 humor titles and 353 other titles. 2006 may be the tipping point in which graphic novels pass periodicals.
The impact of graphic novels as literature on the culture was up next. Karen Berger, exec editor of Vertigo at DC Comics, said films such as "Road to Perdition," "A History of Violence" and "Ghost World" show the depth of the impact comics have had on the culture. "When you see movies made from books that people don't think of as graphic novels, it says something about the medium," she says.
The role of movies in popularizing modern comics was punctuated by Denis Kitchen, publisher of the long-gone Kitchen Sink Press, which saw a huge impact from the 1993 film version of "The Crow." The film's success helped him sell more than 375,000 copies of the collected edition of the comic, not to mention the many new comics and merchandise that followed. "We as an industry have become a tremendous source for Hollywood," he says.
Going forward, the forecast for comics and manga is bright. Daniel Frank, editorial director of Pantheon Books, said the unique power of comics and cartoons is evident in the worldwide furor over the publication of cartoons featuring Muslim prophet Mohammed and the protest against them. More mainstream authors and talented newcomers are likely to try their hand at comics, inspired by the success of books such as Marjane Satrapi's "Persepolis."
The anime and manga panel got a little heated when the discussion turned to whether or not kids read at all anymore. But most of the panelists see Japanese-style comics and toons to be popular for a good long while, and to expect those properties to migrate to the big screen as the generation weaned on them finds its way into the larger culture of the country and of Hollywood.
The con itself kicks off tomorrow, with expectations for a good turnout high. All is not perfect, however. The Javits Center is in a part of New York lacking in amenities — unlike San Diego, there's no surfeit of pleasant eateries and watering holes within easy sight of the convention. Also, the show's floor looks like it will fill up quickly, taking up only a part of the lower level of the convention. The New York Times Travel Show is taking place at the same time.