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It was a wise man who said that comic book movies function as $20 million advertisements for graphic novels…and in the case of the Scott Pilgrim series it is certainly true. According to Oni, the 6-book series now has 1 million copies in print — in North America alone, making it (along with Bone and the works of Alan Moore) one of the biggest graphic novel success stories of the modern era. Congrats to Oni and most of all Bryan Lee O’Malley. Quality lasts. PR below

SIX YEARS, 1200 PAGES, AND 1 MILLION COPIES OF SCOTT PILGRIM

There are now over one million copies of Bryan Lee O’Malley’s Scott Pilgrim series in print, and that’s only counting the North American Oni Press edition. The series has also achieved international success being translated into thirteen different languages worldwide with more to come!

“A million copies in print is a stunning achievement,” said Kuo-Yu Liang, head of Diamond Book Distributors. “It’s great watching Scott Pilgrim and Oni Press grow over the years.” The Scott Pilgrim series first hit shelves in 2004 and has since gone from an indie sensation to a New York Times bestseller and most recently adapted by Universal Studios into a major motion picture, directed by Edgar Wright and starring Michael Cera.

“All this for a little black & white book,” said O’Malley upon hearing the good news. “it’s an amazing success story for indie comics and I can’t thank the fans enough.” Creator Bryan Lee O’Malley and the Scott Pilgrim series have both been honored with multiple awards including the Eisner, Harvey, Doug Wright, Joe Shuster, and National Cartoonists Society Reuben awards, in addition to being named Entertainment Weekly and Wizard Magazine’s Independent Comic of the Year.

Oni Press Publisher Joe Nozemack said about the works, “I’m convinced that Scott Pilgrim will go down as one of those series that changed comics forever. When I’m out and see someone wearing a Scott Pilgrim t-shirt or sitting in a cafe reading one of the books, I get so excited about comics entering the mainstream and to know that Oni Press’ books are helping lead the way, it’s an indescribable feeling.” Nozemack founded Oni Press, Inc. in 1997 with the goal of publishing a varied line of comics and graphic novels that were missing from the market. Twelve years later, Oni is still fighting for diversity in comics by publishing one of the most eclectic catalogs in the industry.

1 COMMENT

  1. Is this 1 million cumulative of vols 1-6? Or each has sold at least a million? Sorry if this is a stupid question, but not clear in post.

  2. Morganagrom,

    Do you think publishers are being harmed by serialization? Is anyone being harmed by serialization? I don’t think I’ve ever seen that response before.

  3. morganagrom says:
    09/17/2010 at 2:30 pm
    Publishers take note, there was no need to serialize the books as pamphlets first.

    –mostly because they used an already established format which was at its peak during the bulk of Scott Pilgrim’s publication.

    Gigi says:
    09/17/2010 at 7:09 pm
    Does “in print” mean that Scott Pilgrim sold 1 million copies or that Oni Press printed 1 million copies?

    –should be the latter.

    “Is anyone being harmed by serialization?”

    not really. The harm is mostly from problems that arise because of serialization. Every format has its own problems so it really has everything to do with personal preference and opinion.

  4. “Is this 1 million cumulative of vols 1-6? Or each has sold at least a million? Sorry if this is a stupid question, but not clear in post.”

    Usually when publishers talk about these things they mean cumulatively. So that would mean that each of the six volumes has like 150,000 or 200,000 copies in print.

  5. Army of Dorkness says:

    “The harm is mostly from problems that arise because of serialization. Every format has its own problems so it really has everything to do with personal preference and opinion.”

    Why in the world would anyone prefer to have a work artificially broken up into arbitrarily-sized parts instead of being allowed to tell/read a story in a format that best suits it?

  6. “Why in the world would anyone prefer to have a work artificially broken up into arbitrarily-sized parts instead of being allowed to tell/read a story in a format that best suits it?”

    Economics. It can be a financial hardship to produce an original graphic novel without an advance from the publisher (or with a small advance from the publisher).

    Sales. Printing single issues of a new title can allow a publisher to reduce risk and gauge the success of a trade collection. By the time the first story arc is finished (six to eight issues) the publisher should have critical and financial data to use to evaluate the success of a trade edition. A comic magazine can also be a critical source of financing for webcomics, where it can be printed more quickly (22-32 pages) than a graphic novel (96+ pages). Most comics also contain advertisements, which help finance publication.

    Design: A pamphlet format of 22-32 pages is just another variable of design. How big should the pages be? How many pages? What sort of binding? Color, duo-tone, or black-and-white?

    Oh, and keep in mind, Scott Pilgrim WAS serialized. Six books, published over a period of six years. Why didn’t he just publish it as a giant omnibus edition? See my reasons above.

    There are many great works which have been serialized (Watchmen, Oliver Twist). It’s not a good or bad thing in and of itself, just in how it is used.

  7. I wonder how many of those were sold in traditional direct market comicbook shops?

    Anyone have an answer?

    My hunch is a lot of them weren’t.

    If so, the next big question would be: Why not?

  8. Serialization might not prevent a good story from being told, but serializing a story that wasn’t written with the intent of it being serialized could certainly harm a reader’s enjoyment of the story. A prose story that has subplots resolved at various points and sub-climaxes wouldn’t be too difficult to serialize, but, say, a romance in which the only tension concerns whether the heroine and her lover will find happiness — serializing that would be pointless. Breaking such stories into chunks would be rather like having intermissions during the screening of a romantic comedy. In comics, the fixed page lengths of issues practically forces a writer to use filler to meet the length requirements. Some writers disguise filler better than others.

    IMO, writing a series of novel-length stories isn’t serialization. A reader should be able to start or stop at any point in the series and still have a satisfactory reading experience.

    Serialization might have economic benefits for the publisher, but the reader shouldn’t consider such things important.

    SRS

  9. “Why in the world would anyone prefer to have a work artificially broken up into arbitrarily-sized parts instead of being allowed to tell/read a story in a format that best suits it?”

    That sentence is loaded with assumptions and opinions based on personal preference. As a loaded question, I don’t really feel the need to answer it, and Torsten Adair did a good job of answering it already.

    “Scott Pilgrim WAS serialized”

    I thought about mentioning that, but as you can see, when you said it the typical reaction found its way into Synsider’s post.

    There’s nothing inherently wrong or bad about serialization of any sort. Look to personal preference or even the abilities of the people working on the property in order to find the underlying problems which are affecting your enjoyment.

    I watch an entire season of 24 in 2 days because that is my preference. Some people watch it weekly. Both sides have their reasons for watching it the way they do. Same can probably be said for comics and the purchasing preferences of comics readers.

  10. Largely I agree with Torsten that one format within a medium is as good as any other, and the success of the storytellers involved to make something wonderful rests in their navigation of that format. I’d point to Sandman, wherein the stories certainly tie into larger arcs beyond the pamphlet, but the use of the serialized segments was deft and played up the shifting artistic renderings brought on by Sam Keith’s early departure on the book, which in turn became a keystone of the series.

    Do you have any examples of work that was artificially broken up into arbitrarily-sized parts? How did those works suffer? I’m not saying you’re wrong, I just don’t see your argument.