New porn comics anthology?; Comic AG 51 shipping; “Art comix” and Bookscan

It’s over… Perseus for the win!

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A new “violent porn comic” anthology from Robin Bougie, artist and publisher of the Cinema Sewer magazines, seems set to debut by the end of the month.  Robin doesn’t expect Sleazy Slice to be carried by Diamond however, so your best bet for a copy would be through his website.

(Really?  Considering all the stuff that does get listed?)

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Comic AG 51 is shipping this week, so grab a five and some change and visit your friendly neighborhood LCS.  Also ask about our nice collections of trade paperbacks, too.

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At the Engine, Journalista’s Dirk Deppey rips into Brian Hibb’s conclusion that ”art comix” sell just as poorly in the bookstore market as they do in the direct market, based on Bookscan numbers.

Without considering whose conclusion is applicable to more publishers, any sales in the book market would seem to indicate that, for whatever reason, the direct market is not fully maximizing the sales potential of art/literary/indy comics.  Is this due to some artificial “glass ceiling” in the DM system?  Is it even fair to directly compare the 3000 independent comics stores to the combined sales of several chains and one Amazon?

That some art comix are not selling comparably better than mainstream comics in bookstores is less important than those same art comix are moving units in the BM, with seemingly a lot of room for growth.  One does not need to turn to incomplete data such as Bookscan when some publishers have gone on record saying that the BM is steadily outpacing other markets, if not becoming the most significant portion of their sales.

On the other hand, I don’t see many comics that are BM-only hits and completely bomb in the DM.  Books that do well in the bookstore tend to do well in the comic store, too.  This could support the view that there is no glass ceiling, yet when anecdotal evidence suggests that only 25%~40% of stores stock any indy comics at all, one can’t help but think there are some major opportunities being lost by the DM.  (Knowing how few retailers actually carry our own products, and the numbers moved by those who do, I myself believe this is true.)

But in the end, we all know what the real argument is about… the periodicals format versus trades.  (No no, not which one is better…)  Perhaps bookstores are having more success selling manga and trades from indies because they’re just better at handling that format, period.  And comic book stores sell more “mainstream” Marvels and DCs because they’re really the only market carrying the periodicals.  If support for the DM equates to support for the periodical format, then this conversation is irrelevant for small publishers who don’t find the floppies format profitable because the DM doesn’t support them in the first place, isn’t it?

Edit: The Comics Reporter Tom Spurgeon gives his own insightful analysis.

Edit 2: The Beat’s Heidi MacDonald asks whether comics can ever compete with manga.

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Wow, an anime convention scammed a charity for breast cancer research?  That’s low.