Wednesday, January 09, 2008  
2007 in Review

:: Posted by Bryan @ 1/09/2008 12:01:00 AM
2007 in Review
by Bryan Munn

2007 was a great year to be following the world of comics and comic art. It was also frustrating. Great because there was so much going on: edition after edition of beautiful comics from young cartoonists and re-issues of classic material from the best cartoonists of days gone by. Frustrating for almost exactly the same reason: it is very hard to keep up with all that is going on in the world that can be classified as "comics" --be it comic strips, magazine and editorial cartooning, European comics, manga, graphic novels, memoirs and reportage, and everything else. I find the entire world of cartooning and the culture of comics readers and fans fascinating and some days it is all I can do to absorb a few panels and snippets of news, let alone keep up with all the comics reading I want to do. At Sequential, we try to stay on top of the Canadian dimension of comics by monitoring how comics stories are reported in the mainstream Canadian media (newspapers, tv and magazines), as well as how comics are covered in the specialized niche world of fan media, including zines, podcasts, comics news sites and blogs. By linking to these stories, and by passing along news and announcements about upcoming projects and events from individual cartoonists and publishers, we hope to help create an overall picture of the vibrant culture of comics in this country.

The picture that emerged this past year is a large and sprawling composite panorama, with very few details accurately sketched-in. Many of the 2007 entries at Sequential resemble long checklists or snapshots rather than full reports --an indication of the great variety and number of comics news stories that find their way to the net in some form or another these days. So, to help get a handle on some of the major threads, Sequential presents "The Year in Review."


Top Trends and Newsmakers

There were several major stories that were tracked at Sequential in 2007. What follows is a list if the people and trends that had the greatest impact on comics culture in Canada. Stories not included in this list, but nevertheless worth revisiting, include the trial to decide ownership of a collection of original art created by the late Ben Wicks; the evolution of fan culture in Canada, from the growth in cosplay to the big changes in the Toronto convention scene; the continued growth of the graphic novel market to the point where it seems impossible to keep up with the new GNs being published (or even to read all the reviews in the newspapers! --there were hundreds of blog posts at Sequential tagged with the graphic novel label).

One story that affected me personally was the closing of Now and Then Books, the long-running comic book shop that was an early champion of comic art and the source of a large number of my own favourite comics experiences. An important story, but not the most important.

Here are the top 6 trends and newsmakers:


1. Lynn Johnston

Lynn Johnston was the biggest cartoonist newsmaker of 2007. Other cartoonists cut big deals, published books, and had great reviews, but Johnston remained the most financially successful and popular comics artist in the country. Besides riding the top of the bestseller lists with her book collections and being among the most widely syndicated comic strip cartoonists in the WORLD, the news of the radical changes Johnston planned to implement in her strip For Better or For Worse had a thunderous impact on the world of comics. When after 26 years of producing one of the most popular international comics strips, Johnston announced her semi-retirement and the re-formatting of the strip into a "greatest hits" with new framing devices, the her fans and even general readers were alternately baffled, amazed, and saddened. In addition, her decision to wrap-up the various story threads of the strip, freezing the characters in time, had the same effect. Most notoriously, Johnston wound up the long courtship of Elizabeth and Anthony, provoking much internet discussion and criticism. Everyone had something to say about Johnston in 2007, and her professional decisions and personal life gave us much to talk about (Johnston and her husband Rod Johnston announced their separation in September). Even Dave Sim couldn't hold back the love, blessing us with a blog post on the similarities between For Better or for Worse and Cerebus.



2. Manga, or Japanese Cultural Imperialism in Canada

2007 was the year translated Japanese comics continued to rule the graphic novel bestseller charts in Canada. Spearheaded by VIZ's Naruto campaign and aided by the broadcast of several key anime series by kid-centric channels like YTV and Teletoon, manga had a huge presence in chain bookstores and comic shops. According to some sources, manga accounts for roughly two-thirds of graphic novel sales in the U.S. and Canada. The industry seems to be dominated by VIZ (distributed in Canada by Simon & Schuster), but several other publishers, most notably Tokyopop, own large chunks of the manga sales pie. Canadian publishers also joined the fray in 2007. Drawn and Quarterly had continued success with the work of Yoshihiro Tatsumi: Abandon the Old in Tokyo won a Harvey Award and more volumes are planned (D+Q also plans to publish the work of Seiichi Hayashi in 2008). As well, UDON continued to publish successful versions of several anime and video game properties in addition to launching a new line of Manwha/translated Korean comics. Demented Dragon, a relatively young start-up, has also entered the manga publishing waters.

The trend of publishing Japanese-style comics by Western cartoonists, known as "Original English Language" manga (OEL) continued to grow. Besides the manga-influenced stylings of Bryan Lee O'Malley's Scott Pilgrim series, Kitchener, Ontario's Svetlana Chmakova lead the pack with several new publishing deals and the continued success of her Dramacon series of graphic novels. Dramacon chronicles the romantic experiences of a group of con-goers and it is perhaps at the convention level where manga's influence in Canada is most felt: the popularity of the aforementioned cosplay, wherein young fans dress as their favourite anime and manga characters, has all but eclipsed the traditional superhero or Star Trek costume as the clothing of choice at comic book conventions across the country. The social aspect of cosplay, not to mention the huge amount of material targeted at a female audience (shoujo/yaoi), has also increased the number of young women and girls who read comics --something traditional Western comics and graphic novels have not really been able to do for years.

(see all entries with manga tag)



3. Quebec BD and translations

It seems like there were more original Canadian graphic novels published in French than ever before in 2007. According to Michel Viau, there were 86 albums published in Quebec in 2006 and I expect that number to be much larger when the results come in for 2007. At the very least, the record 10 albums published by Mecanique Generale and 6 albums published by La Pasteque represent something of a high-water mark in terms of volume, presentation, artistry, and love of comics.

In addition to the large number of wonderful-looking French-language comics published in Quebec in 2007, the year saw several prominent cartoonists receive top-notch translation treatment. Following the successful translations of Michel Rabagliati aand Guy Delisle, D+Q published Pascal Blanchet's award-winning White Rapids and the book has enjoyed brisk sales and rapturous reviews in the English press. Condundrum Press broached the translation market with its BDAng imprint, featuring editions by Line Gamache and Richard Suicide. Even France's venerable indie outfit L'Association got into the action with an (albeit non-tranlated) anthology of work by Henriette Valium.

Quebec, and especially Montreal, sometimes seem to have a more thriving scene, with a social aspect and a higher proportion of zine and art comics production than the rest of English Canada put together.



4. Webcomics

Publishing comics on the web seems to be the safest and easiest way to present comic art to the widest variety of people these days. Certainly, the number of people who surf the web is much larger than the number of people who might stumble across your minicomic, zine, or graphic novel in a comic book shop or independant bookstore. Hence, the webcomics phenomenon. For example, 2007 was the year that the Shuster Awards recognized webcomics with a separate category (Dan Kim was the winner).

Comic strips and comics books continue to migrate to the web, with several webcomics also making the transition to print in newspapers and book collections. U.S. cartoonist Nicholas Gurewitch's Perry Bible Fellowship webcomic was a bestseller as a book collection on the Chapters-Indigo and Amazon.ca graphic novel list, while Marvel Comics made a poorly-received attempt at archiving old comics online.

As well, 2007 saw a further consolidation of webcomics publishing, as cartoonists continued to move out of the wilderness of indy webcomics and the myspace/comicspace social networks for the relative collective/protective safety of umbrella sites and large syndicates. While established cartoonists like Stuart Immonen could carve out a space online for their comics work, younger artists sought out venues through larger forums like DC Comics Zuda or the Vancouver start-up Zeroes 2 Heroes. The debut of Transmission X, a collective of Toronto area cartoonists who have already established themselves in print comics and illustration (similar to the Act-I-Vate crowd in the U.S.), and the general high quality of the serialized work being produced by the collective, perhaps points the way to the future of webcomics.

(see all webcomics tags)


5. Classic Reprints

2007 also saw several reprint projects launched, exploring and celebrating the heritage of Canadian comics culture. Coming in for special attention was Laurence Hyde, a cartoonist and filmmaker who began his career in the socialist press of the 1930s. Hyde's 1950s anti-nuclear woodcut novel Southern Cross was reprinted twice: it was reprinted in full by Drawn and Quaterly and was also included in a bestselling anthology of woodcut novels edited by George Walker, Graphic Witness. In addition to the La Pasteque's reprints of the Red Ketchup series, plans are in the work to reprint several other Canadian cartoonists of the past, most notably a two volume edition dedicated to Doug Wright, due from D+Q in 2008. D+Q also forged ahead with its ongoing projects, including Moomin, the Gasoline Alley series and Clare Briggs' Oh Skinnay! (these last 2 edited by Jeet Heer).

The history of Canadian comics was also celebrated in John Bell's Invaders from the North, a colourful overview of comics in Canada, based on years of collecting and research by the dean of Canadian comics historians. As a nice coda to Bell's book, the U.S. fanzine Alter Ego reprinted the classic 1970s history, The Great Canadian Comic Books.




6. The Dollar

The Canadian and world economy were a top comics story in 2007. The value of the U.S. dollar relative to Canada's had a huge impact on prices, although U.S. book and comic publishers were slow to respond to these changes, leading to some creative merchandising on the part of booksellers and comic shop owners and complaints from readers. Several schemes were suggested by retailers and bloggers and prices are beginning to stabilize to reflect the more-or-less dollar parity that should prevail for the next half year, at least.

The U.S. economy in general is heading for a down-turn, with some predicting a recession for 2008.
The war in Iraq, the sub-prime mortgage crisis, and other aspects of Empire, are some of the bigger drags on the shared Canada-U.S. economy that mean bad news for consumers in the new year. Illustration gigs, publishing deals, and book sales may suffer in the long run. The world of comics printing is already in for a change, as the ongoing Quebecor saga demonstrates.

Sequential tried to take the pulse of the changing comics retail trade in 2007 with a series of Comic Shoppe Talks and regular convention round-ups. Attempts were also made to track bestsellers. We will be interested to learn how the dollar effects the business in 2008.

(see all comics retailers tags)

-------------

General Overview and Summary

Publishing

Graphic novel publishing in Canada continued to grow in 2007, with several new imprints entering the fray.

Established stalwart Drawn and Quarterly continued to lead the way, with a number of bestselling and award-winning graphic novels by Canadian, U.S., and international creators to its credit. Well-received volumes published by D+Q included Exit Wounds, by the Israeli cartoonist Rutu Modan, Shortcomings (Adrian Tomine, USA) reprints of Moomin comic strip (Tove Jansson, Finland), and Abandon the Old in Tokyo (Tatsumi, Japan). D+Q's stable of Canadian cartoonists also had a good year: 2007 saw new books from Julie Doucet, Guy Delisle, and Pascal Blanchet. As well, Seth polished off his high-profile George Sprott serial for the New York Times.

Large Canadian publishers and distributors continue to benefit from the manga craze (but ventured into the graphic novel wilds with a few books) while new books from Cumulus Press, Pedlar Press and a host of self-publishers, zinesters, and webcomics types kept up the indie spirit.

Quebec publishers Mecanique Generale, La Pasteque, L'Oie de Cravan, and Conundrum Press issued a record number of books in 2007 (see #3 in the Top Trends list above). New work by Delisle, Blanchet, Jimmy B., Leif Tande and PhlppGrrd were some of the highlights of BDQ in 2007.

Outside the world of graphic novels, the few publishers of U.S.-style comic books in Canada were basically silent in 2007: Dreamwave continues to be a non-starter and Mr. Comics has severely curtailed it's publishing compared to 2006, with no changes to their website since August. Ditto the most recent incarnation of Captain Canuck, whose newest series seemed to just fade away in 2007.


Awards

It's a measure of the general popularity of comics that graphic novels now find themselves nominated for mainstream book prizes. In June, The Jack Chisvin Family Award in Holocaust Memoir/Literature was awarded to I Was A Child of Holocaust Survivors by Bernice Eisenstein (McClelland & Stewart). However, the majority of prizes handed out to Canadian comics and creators in 2007 came from within the comics readership and fan communities.


(all awards tags)


Passages



Several cartoonists passed away in 2007, ranging from the tragically very young to older Giants of the North. Please join with us in bidding a final fond farewell to these artists.


-----
For a more detailed, month-by-month chronicle of the year in comics, you could do worse than take a stroll through the Sequential archives:

January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
December


Here's to a productive and fun comics year in 2008!
(images copyright Lynn Johnston, Svetlana Chmakova, Catherine Lepage, Cameron Stewart, Graeme MacKay, & Seth)

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1 Comments:

Blogger max said...

Amazing work Bryan!
You Rock!

Wednesday, January 16, 2008 10:43:00 AM EST  

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