For the first time graphic novels took a prominent position at the nation's largest non-profit literary festival, New York is Book Country, which turned Fifth Avenue into a giant bookshop from 55th Street all the way down to 42nd Street. Right in the middle of this giant pedestrian book mall, at 49th Street, DC Comics sponsored the first graphic novel block complete with appearances by Neil Gaiman and Jim Lee. Patty Jeres of DC Comics explained DC's sponsorship of the event to ICv2: 'As part of the event we had Neil Gaiman on Saturday at the Equitable Center in New York City, and he did a reading from Sandman: Endless Nights and a signing for a ticketed event. And we sold between four hundred and five hundred tickets for the event on Sunday [note: all profits from the festival go to literary charities]. We had a booth as well as Mad Magazine. Our five featured projects (because I think you're limited to five) were Sandman: Endless Nights; Batman: Hong Kong; League of Extraordinary Gentlemen; Batman: Hush; and Undercover Genie, a Kyle Baker book. And we had a signing...either for the festival, with us, with Mad Magazine, or with Borders we had Neil Gaiman, Jim Lee, Doug Moench, Kyle Baker, Drew Friedman, and Dick DeBartolo. It's a great time; it's a great weekend.'
Jeres pointed out one of the major effects of securing a presence in this major literary event, 'It adds a different level of legitimacy to graphic novels and comics.... It put us on the same platform as Random House and Harper Collins, and it helped us reach out to an even broader market. We saw a lot of kids and we sent a lot of kids home with comics. We had a lot of our regular readers that were there and a lot of people who just came up and said 'who is this guy and why does he have such a long line?' So it was a great outreach opportunity.'
One of the most popular guests, Jim Lee, was signing copies of his new Hush graphic novel as well as a Batman/Superman poster, which he and Scott Williams created for the event. The poster sold for $10 with all profits going to New York City's excellent library system. Lee and Williams were in good company since famed illustrator Maurice Sendak was the only other artist to create a poster for the benefit of the library system this year.
Marvel also participated in the event, sharing a booth on the graphic novel block with Midtown Comics. Marvel's celebrity guests included Judith O'Brien, author of the Marvel prose novel Mary Jane; Peter David, author of the current Captain Marvel series; John Casaday, the artist on Captain America; and Joe Quesada, Marvel's Editor-in-Chief. A spokesman for Midtown Comics told ICv2 that he was 'very pleased' with the event and with the chance to meet with 'a wide range of customers (not just superhero fans), hand out business cards and talk about the diversity of graphic novel offerings available.' In addition to Midtown, other retailers had a presence in the graphic novel block including Jim Hanley's Comic Universe, Borders, and the manga mavens, Kinokuniya.
DC and Marvel weren't the only comic book publishers participating in the event. NBM, which publishes a wide-ranging list of European and home grown graphic novels, exhibited as well, and NBM publisher, Terry Nantier told ICv2: 'It's a great promotional tool. Obviously we're able to distribute a lot of catalogs here and increase awareness of NBM to a general audience. But the fact is that we're selling books very well at this show; we bring artists to sign so it's pretty busy and increasingly popular.'
