English sales of How to Draw Manga have topped one million and show no signs of slowing down. Courtesy of Diamond Comic Distributors Inc.

U.S. sales of How to Draw Manga have topped one million units. The budding artists buying these instructional books are young, female and getting their comicbook fixes in national bookstores.

Manga (the Japanese comicbook art form) is hot, hot, hot. While manga —and its animated sibling, anime — are not new to North America, it seems they're suddenly all over the public radar.

At the end of May, Diamond Comic Distributors, Inc., the world's largest distributor of English-language comicbooks and related merchandise, reported that its U.S. sales of Graphic-Sha's How to Draw Manga instructional books — originally published in Japanese and comprised of more than 40 separate volumes — topped one million units sold in the English language editions alone.

In addition, venerable book publishers like Del Rey Books and Penguin Group USA are jumping on the manga publishing bandwagon.

Del Rey Manga launched in May 2004 with four books, each the first title in a multi-volume manga series, published in conjunction with Kodansha Ltd. Del Rey Manga plans to publish a total of 12 books in its first year.

Meanwhile, Penguin Group USA has signed a three-year deal to publish manga with Digital Manga Inc., slated to launch in late spring 2005. Eight to 10 titles are planned for the first year, and 15 to 20 per year thereafter.

Girl Power
What has got the public — and publishers — so enthralled with manga? Unlike many North American comicbooks currently sold in comicbook stores, manga storylines venture beyond superheroes and action/adventure. With a wide variety of themes — romance, science fiction, mystery, even non-fiction — manga has successfully migrated from comic shop shelves to bookstore shelves, and are enticing a whole new reading audience — girls.

"I've read statistics that say that up to 75% of the audience for manga now is teen girls," comments Eloise Flood, svp/publisher of Razorbill (Penguin Young Readers Group). "This is in contrast to five or six years ago, when it was probably 75% boys. I think this has to do with broader availability — the books are now in places where large numbers of girls can find them."

Dark Horse got into the manga game in 1988 and has secured some of the top titles like Blade of the Immortal, Hellsing, Oh My Goddess and Trigun. © Dark Horse Comics Inc.