Just a few quick impressions, as I have to dash off and get ready for my panel: For those in the industry and in the press, NYCC kicked off yesterday with the ICv2 Graphic Novel Conference. The centerpiece of the conference is always ICv2 head Milton Greipp’s White Paper, a summary of how graphic novels sold in the previous year. I actually missed that session (bad blogger!) but ICv2 has a brief summary here and I will have more info as the weekend goes on. The short version is that mangs sales in 2008 dropped to about the same level as 2005. There was a lot of talk at the conference about recent changes at Diamond that affect how many books will be sold in comics stores, and for both manga and other graphic novels there seemed to be a consensus that the market would focus a bit, with the more popular titles staying fairly strong and weaker titles dropping out of sight.
The overall mood was not as gloomy as I would have thought, considering the dire news all around us. Many people I spoke to had lost colleagues or had their own jobs restructured, and several people mentioned publishing fewer books this year than in previous years. Afterwards I went to a launch party for Graphic Novel Reporter, and the mood there was upbeat—it takes a certain amount of chutzpah to launch something new when everyone else is jumping out of windows, but these guys sound like they can do it!
If you’re here, Deb Aoki has posted today’s manga events in one handy list. Be sure to drop by our Teen Girls Read Manga panel this morning if you’re in the building, and I’ll send in more highlights as they happen!