Manga's Popularity in America - Where Did it Come From?

In the last six years manga has gone from being about a third of the $75 million graphic novel industry to claiming almost two third's of what is now a $330 million industry! This being said however does not mean that it is all bad news for American comic publishers as the new manga boom may have bypassed comics specialty shops, but it has opened up additional space in bookstores helping to sell American graphic novels.

Artist's around the world are creating works influenced by manga, in 2006, the U.S manga publisher Seven Seas Entertainment issued titles that represent the pinnacle of manga assimilation. It asked its western artists to draw in the Japanese format of right to left. Kurt Hassler, former novel buyer for Walden books and Borders, played a major role in the manga boom. He said that "At the time there were maybe 10 or 20 graphic novels in bookstores, some were uneasy about right to left paging. I was in a position to say if you make this change, Walden books will support what you're doing." The paperback format, the lower price, Kurt's encouragement, the growing familiarity with Japanese styles. All of these factors combined to make Tokyo pops stand up manga a smashing success.

Soon, manga has its own aisle in many stores. Eventually more than a dozen manga publishers were competing to woo readers in the booming bookstore market. As sales of manga rose, sales of comic books plummeted. Hundreds of pages of manga could be had for $10, while most 32 pages American comic books cost $5. In late 2002, VIZ started publishing a stand up English version of the Japanese Shonen jump, offering nearly 500 pages for $5 through big boxed stores. It's current monthly circulation is 250,000. The amazing spider man sells only 100,000.

The biggest cultural export in terms of manga was in the 90's and it was the export of Pokemon. Pokemon helped mange to bust out of the comics shop ghetto. The manga spin offs of the franchise sold millions of copies mostly through outlets like Toys 'R' Us and for the first time a manga was the best sold comic franchise in America.

After this first success many more were to come through manga's such as Dragon Ball Z, Sailor moon, Digimon and Gundam Wing. To make the manga more popular in the us. Companies went on to animate these manga which made them appeal to children at a young age way before they could read and then once they had become able to read they would be interested in the manga form of the animes that they grew up watching.

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