Capes and tights save publishing

Spider-Man has already saved incoming president Barack Obama; he’s now poised to save the entire publishing industry. In the midst of the gigantic economic clusterfuck global financial meltdown at the end of 2008, one segment of the publishing industry not only remained solvent, but actually grew: comic books.

The graphic novel industry saw a growth in sales of 5% in 2008, according to an article in USA Today.

Marvel Comics’ Secret Invasion #1 was the best-selling comic book of 2008. The eight-issue miniseries about the takeover of superheroes by shape-shifting Skrulls took the first six spots. Only Uncanny X-Men #500 (No. 7) and DC Comics’ Final Crisis #1 (No. 9) also cracked the top 10. Diamond did not release actual sales figures, but best-selling comic books (priced at $2.99 or $3.99) normally sell more than 100,000 copies.

Another title that sold well in 2008 was DC’s reprint of the Alan Moore/Dave Gibbons graphic novel Watchmen, which has seen a spike in interest in advance of the March 6 release of the film adaptation.