An ICv2 Release. “The ICv2 Conference on Comics & Digital is organized to point the way to the future of the audience, the art form, and the business we care about,” ICv2 President Milton Griepp said of the company’s conference, planned in conjunction with New York Comic Con. “All of those aspects of comics are changing rapidly, and without some examination of what’s happened so far and where we’re going, we’re flying blind,” he said.

The Conference, planned for Wednesday afternoon, October 10th, on the eve of New York Comic Con, has four sessions announced to date, each with a clearly defined purpose in that examination of the state of comics and where it’s going. 

The ICv2 White Paper has become famous for its examination of the numbers behind the comics business. It includes the only public estimate of the over-all market size for comics and graphic novels across all channels and how that’s been changing, both by format and by channel.   It also includes an analysis of the year’s releases, and how they break down by genre. And there’s a look at the drivers of change in the numbers, and a look ahead to how those drivers can be expected to affect the market in the future.

Although comics has been perceived as a kids’ medium since the 50s, the reality is that comics have been primarily written for and sold to older teens and adults for decades. But recently things have been changing, with kids’ titles producing big sales (see, for example, “Ninjago #4 Gets 425K First Printing”), and steady growth in the number of releases directed at kids. This creates huge opportunities for the future, as potential lifetime consumers of comics are being recruited at early ages.  What kinds of titles are working best, and where are publishers finding these kids? Some of the top publishers of kids graphic novels join one of the top retailers of kids graphic novels (Scholastic Book Fairs, which hosts over 120,000 book fairs every year), along with a librarian and the author of one of the most important books on kids graphic novels out there to discuss this growing phenomenon.

 

The creation of print comics has already been revolutionized by technology, with everything from how comics are drawn to coloring techniques radically changed from the way comics were created in past years. Now Webcomics and digital deliver are opening up new digital- or Web-first formats, which may or may not find their way to print. The Beat’ and Publishers Weekly’s Heidi MacDonald moderates a discussion of the people at the cutting edge of these changes, creators and executives from big publishers and exciting new start-ups. What is a comic, and what will it look like in the coming years? We’ve never seen change at the pace we’re seeing it now and the outcome is going to affect everyone’s business in the years to come.

 

Our headline panel this year brings together top digital, publishing, and media executives to talk about the ways in which the comics business is changing, moderated by Rob Salkowitz, author of a key book on the comics business this year. Yes, the past year has seen growth in the comic store channel, reducing the fears that the changes will cripple this critical way of growing the community of comic fans. But how are the ways the comics are being delivered to consumers changing, and how does that change the pipeline from creator to consumer in the years to come? And how does the explosion in media uses of comics, and the new ways that content is being delivered, change the marketplace?  We’ve seen a lot of changes over the past decades, from newsstand to comic stores, the growth of bookstores, the growth of e-commerce, and the proliferation of comics-based movies, but the changes coming now dwarf anything that’ s happened before. The topics covered by this panel will affect everyone in the comics business, and only at the ICv2 Conference are they being addressed in this way.

 

Of course, one of the biggest values of a Conference like this is that you get a chance before and after the event and during the breaks to meet people in the business, and talk to them about mutual areas of interest. The ICv2 Conference brings together some of the smartest, most creative people in the comics business, and you never know what you might learn or what might come of a casual conversation you strike up with a panelist, moderator, or fellow attendee. 

 

To register, click here.

 

For more information on the ICv2 Conference on Comics & Digital II, click here.

 

For information on the speakers at the ICv2 Conference on Comics & Digital 22, click here.