Sometimes it's hard to be a curmudgeon. You wait - well, years - for some good news to come along, and then it all hits at once...

SOMETIMES I DON'T BELIEVE MY VICTORY

For a start, over the last couple of months we've seen the BookScan numbers for graphic novels in bookstores, which have been published mainly by Newsarama (December - January). Imagine! Sales figures, based on actual sales! What a concept...

The dominance of the BookScan figures by Japanese books has been covered by my Ninth Art colleague Paul O'Brien, but quite apart from their ramifications on the industry in the year ahead, the main thing that I find heartening in those figures is the actual numbers.

Some of these books have been on sale less than six months, and have already sold nearly twenty-five thousand copies - which is of course in addition to what they may have sold in comic stores. And while it's far, far more reliable than Diamond's Top 300 charts, even BookScan doesn't track every single copy sold in bookstores.

Despite some people's best efforts to the contrary, people are buying graphic novels.

Rejoice.

I TAKE ON THESE DEMANDS

Speaking of graphic novels...

Back in the days of yore (say, 1998...) people complained when a publisher "forced" them to buy the same thing more than once.

The then-ubiquitous collector mentality instilled in people the idea that if a comic they liked was collected, they had to buy the collected version - to ensure their collection was 'complete,' and because the collections often contained sketches or galleries which the original comics hadn't (which is still completism, but from a different angle).

And so, die-hard collector-fans complained. Woe betide the publisher that put out a collection without some 'extras' included (because people hated feeling obligated to buy something that was essentially no different to what they already had) - and conversely, woe betide the publisher that put out a collection with extras (because people hated feeling obligated to... you get the idea).

Of course, that's all changed. But even so, one can only imagine - with a wistful gaze and an unknown source of moisture in one's eye - what the few remaining collector-fans must think of CrossGen.

Now, CrossGen don't get mentioned much in this column, for no other reason than none of their books thus far have appealed to me.

(They also don't get mentioned much because, all Kool-Aid jokes aside, they have probably the most professional PR machine of any publisher out there, and therefore rarely make a faux pas...)

But one of their recent announcements got me thinking.

Starting this year, CrossGen (or is it all "CGE" now? That part confuses me) will launch their line of "Traveller" format books.

"Traveller format? What's that?" say those of you who can't be arsed to click on the link.

Well, it's essentially a normal trade paperback shrunk down to slightly-bigger-than digest size. (You can "travel" with it in your pocket, geddit?) They're 192 pages of roughly 5 by 8 inch full colour comics.

For nine-dollars-ninety-five.

Now, without a doubt the price was the first thing that got my attention; but the size could be good, too. This is apparently the same size as CG's extant monthly FORGE and EDGE 'compendia,' and they're surprisingly legible given the reduction in size.

So why would the collectors weep?

Because this will be the fifth format in which CG have released the same product.

You can read MERIDIAN as a monthly comic, in collected editions, in the FORGE compendia, on CG's website - and soon, in Traveller editions.

(There's an irony in MERIDIAN being selected as the first CG comic to be "Traveller-ised" - it's apparently the publisher's worst-selling book in the direct market, but their biggest seller in bookstores...)

Personally, I reckon this is good thinking on CG's part. The company line is that CG doesn't care what format people read their comics in, so long as they read them, and I can't fault them for that. For that price, I may even try MERIDIAN myself - and I expect that's exactly the reaction they're aiming for.

TO UNDERSTAND THE MADMAN'S HEART

And finally, one more item for those of us interested in book-format comics, and how to sell them to a wider audience: Drawn & Quarterly publisher Chris Oliveros and MAUS author Art Spiegelman recently headed a presentation at the monthly BISAC (Book Industry Systems Advisory Committee) meeting to put forward suggestions for a proper graphic novel labelling system in bookstores.

Go and read that article; the subject's dry as sandpaper in many ways, but the reality is that this could be the biggest step towards seeing a 'proper' GN section in major bookstores yet.

Because, despite what we may like to think, bookstores don't listen to us. They're not interested in our little rants, or our constant pleas for them to rack JINX in the 'Crime' section, and so on.

But they do listen to their own advisory committee. And if BISAC gives them a method of stocking graphic novels by genre, with evidence that this will increase their sales, then bookstores are going to listen.

And all it took was speaking to them on their own terms. I say again; what a concept.

I FIND MY WAY HOME

I recently discovered the joys of broadband (yeah, I know; two years later than everyone else) and, subsequently, internet radio. This month's titles are all taken from songs I heard on ebm-radio.com - in honesty I couldn't tell you which bands or songs most of them are from, but that's half the joy of it. If you have any fondness for darkwave/electronica, I highly recommend the station.

Antony Johnston is the author of JULIUS, SPOOKED and THE LONG HAUL. His new ongoing series WASTELAND begins in July 2006.

This article is Ideological Freeware. The author grants permission for its reproduction and redistribution by private individuals on condition that the author and source of the article are clearly shown, no charge is made, and the whole article is reproduced intact, including this notice.