An ICv2 Release.  ICv2 has announced the release of the ICv2 Retailers Guide to Graphic Novels #9, which includes an analysis of the graphic novel market in North America for the summer of 2006.  While sales at the major U.S. book chains were down over the summer months, graphic novels bucked the trend in bookstores and in the direct market they accounted for a majority of the mammoth 25% year-over-year increase in sales in July.

 

The new Retailers Guide to Graphic Novels points out some of the very different sort of graphic novels that helped spur sales this summer, a wide variety of releases ranging from manga titles like Naruto and Fruits Basket, to Marvel's Halo Graphic Novel, Alison Bechdel's Fun Home, Alan Moore's V for Vendetta, Watchmen and Lost Girls, and Brian K. Vaughan's Y: The Last Man.  Vaughan, whose Pride of Baghdad has already established itself as one of the major fall graphic novel releases, is the subject of the 'Writer's Spotlight' section of the new Guide.

 

The new Guide also includes a Holiday Gift Guide, which includes some of the 2006 releases that are perfectly suited for holiday sales, and for the first time ICv2 rates 'The Top Twenty American Genre Comics' based on sales in both the bookstore and direct market.

 
ICv2 is the undisputed expert in the graphic novel field and publishes news and information on pop culture products in the anime, comics, games, toys, and movie and TV merchandise categories daily on its Website, ICv2.com, and in its magazines, the ICv2 Retailers Guide to Anime/Manga, the ICv2 Retailers Guide to Graphic Novels, and the ICv2 Retailers Guide to Games.  ICv2 also provides marketing, distribution, and general business consulting services to companies involved in the pop culture products industries.

 

The Guide is available free to retailers (send an email to DViau@icv2.com) and to others for $10 plus postage and handling via the ICv2 online store (click here).