At this point, I was going to post something about the increasing interest of mainstream book publishers in comics, illustrated by the issue by HarperCollins of a series of comics albums adapting Agatha Christie’s whodunnits and by the news that Faber & Faber (best known as T S Eliot’s publisher) will be bringing out Adrian Tomine’s books in the UK. But this article from the International Herald Tribune (link via Blog@Newsarama) already ties up those threads and others more elegantly and informatively than I could. It also contains the startling information that sales of graphic novels at Waterstone’s, Britain's biggest chain of bookshops, have grown by 41% over the last year. Mind you, without knowing the absolute numbers, that may or may not be significant. Going from selling 1 copy of a book a year to selling 2 is a 100% rise, but isn’t going to make the author rich.Panels
Murder on the Orient Express, from the novel by Agatha Christie, adapted by Francois Riviere (editor) and Solidor (artist). Image taken from BBC News
3 comments:
I was startled at the range of trades that Waterstones stock, actually. I stepped into their Belfast store at the weekend to hunt down a Games Workshop book and was pleasantly surprised at the reasonably diverse selection they had on offer.
Yes, my local branch has everything from the Kirby Fourth World Omnibus to Charley's War to In The Shadow of No Towers, and that's not counting the manga section. It's a big change in a short time.
It sounds like the booksellers are being allowed again to make decisions on what they stock (rather than controlled by Head Office), which is a good thing all round.
Adrian Tomine's 'Shortcomings' is one of the most stylish books we'll publish all year (and there's two more on the way). Feel free to contact me (webmaster@faber.co.uk) for further info.
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