Wednesday, November 22, 2006
German Comic Books
It's tough being a German comic book writer!
For one thing, the market has been traditionally very small - only 4% of all printed matter in Germany is in comic book form. On top of this, 70% of this miniscule market share is dominated by Japanese manga and nearly all the rest by American reprints of Spiderman or by the iconoclastic Dutch series, 'Storm'.
But there have been some great successes - I remember reading an excellent graphic novel a few years ago called 'Vampire' for example.
Looking on the bright side, however, it does mean that there are great opportunities for developing the market and increasing market share. Carlsen comics are doing great work in this area. You can find out more here:
http://www.carlsen.de/rights.comics/
I think you'll agree reading through this list that there is some fascinating stuff here - some very mature reading. I've ordered a batch and will be reporting back to you on it soon.
In particular, I've heard good things about Isabel Kreitz and her book, 'The Discovery of the Curried Sausage'. I'm particularly looking forward to that as I am a great fan of the curried sausage and I've often eaten them on my visits to Hamburg - the culinary capital of the north in my opinion.
Another that comes with rave reviews is Nam and Tram Nguyen's 'Delilah' a translation from the Daisuko studios. This Vietnamese written manga is said to have a delicate touch which still manages to be funny and bittersweet at the same time in the best Asian tradition.
Oh - and they also have a character called Aya!!
This Aya is a 19-year-old who lives in Africa in the late 1970s and faces a whole series of teenage-angst problems with her friends and family. It's another bittersweet French-written romantic comedy which premiered at the Angouleme festival last year. How does the Carlsen Aya compare to AK's Aya? - why not buy both and decide for yourself !!!
You can read more about Carlsen's Aya here:
http://www.carlsencomics.de/cc/cc_artikel/show.php3?id=804&nodeid=1
For one thing, the market has been traditionally very small - only 4% of all printed matter in Germany is in comic book form. On top of this, 70% of this miniscule market share is dominated by Japanese manga and nearly all the rest by American reprints of Spiderman or by the iconoclastic Dutch series, 'Storm'.
But there have been some great successes - I remember reading an excellent graphic novel a few years ago called 'Vampire' for example.
Looking on the bright side, however, it does mean that there are great opportunities for developing the market and increasing market share. Carlsen comics are doing great work in this area. You can find out more here:
http://www.carlsen.de/rights.comics/
I think you'll agree reading through this list that there is some fascinating stuff here - some very mature reading. I've ordered a batch and will be reporting back to you on it soon.
In particular, I've heard good things about Isabel Kreitz and her book, 'The Discovery of the Curried Sausage'. I'm particularly looking forward to that as I am a great fan of the curried sausage and I've often eaten them on my visits to Hamburg - the culinary capital of the north in my opinion.
Another that comes with rave reviews is Nam and Tram Nguyen's 'Delilah' a translation from the Daisuko studios. This Vietnamese written manga is said to have a delicate touch which still manages to be funny and bittersweet at the same time in the best Asian tradition.
Oh - and they also have a character called Aya!!
This Aya is a 19-year-old who lives in Africa in the late 1970s and faces a whole series of teenage-angst problems with her friends and family. It's another bittersweet French-written romantic comedy which premiered at the Angouleme festival last year. How does the Carlsen Aya compare to AK's Aya? - why not buy both and decide for yourself !!!
You can read more about Carlsen's Aya here:
http://www.carlsencomics.de/cc/cc_artikel/show.php3?id=804&nodeid=1
