In Sailor Moon, Usagi Tsukino, an ordinary middle school girl, meets Luna, a talking cat. The cat warns Usagi of an impending attack against the world by ancient enemies who once destroyed the Kingdom of the Moon. After Luna helps to re-awaken her dormant powers, Usagi, actually a reincarnation of one of the defenders of the Moon, dons the identity of Sailor Moon and defends the Earth. She is later joined by other teenage girls who all transform into heroes named after planets (Sailor Mercury, Sailor Mars, etc.).

The anime version of Sailor Moon, introduced to the US in 1995, was a massive hit among young women and was the first successful shōjo¹ in the United States. The Sailor Moon series created an entirely new segment of comic book buyer. Outside of the occasional Elfquest or Strangers in Paradise, the vast majority of graphic novels in the US were purchased by men. Suddenly, a large influx of teenage women were looking for Sailor Moon, most of whom had never set foot in a comic book store. It paved the way for the large manga selections in bookstores and the decade-long deluge of original English-language manga (manga-style works produced by American creators).

Two events in 2000 cemented the financial, cultural, and critical success of the graphic novel. Beloved by fans and critics, the movie X-Men, based on the long-running Marvel comic book, sent the new buyers into bookstores looking for further adventures of their favorite mutants. A succession of popular movies (and their sequels) has followed: three Spider-Man films, two more X-Men, two Fantastic Four, two additional installments in the Batman franchise, and Iron Man. Each new film increased the visibility and interest in comic books. Additionally, several movies based on non-super-hero properties such as Ghost World (2001), Road To Perdition (2002), American Splendor (2003), and A History of Violence (2005), received measures of acclaim and profit while offering a welcome mature perspective for grown up audiences.

For booksellers, Michael Chabon's 2000 novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay irrevocably altered the landscape. A literary darling, Chabon employed the tropes, characters, and subjects of his beloved pulps and comics to craft his Pulitzer Prize-winner. Chabon's protagonists, former escape artist Kavalier and Clay, son of a circus strongman, work in the booming comics industry of 1939 New York. The pair creates a sensation with their anti-fascist hero Escapist. The novel, based in part on the lives of comic book luminaries Jack Kirby, Stan Lee, Jerry Siegel, Joe Shuster, Joe Simon, Will Eisner, and Jim Steranko, follows the artist's lives from the birth of Superman to the controversial Kefauver Senate hearings, which lead to the industry-crippling Comics Code Authority.

Chabon's story not only made comic books cool with The New Yorker set but also ushered in a wave of nostalgia for older comics. Over the past ten years, nary a month goes by without some older work, worthwhile or not, being published in a slick format hardcover. Chabon's work has affected the newer stuff as well. Nearly every comic book published in the past 15 years has been collected into bound books.

When I first started working in comics, the industry focused on an insular market of specialty shops for budding geeks and collectors. Thankfully, though comic book shop sales spiral downward, graphic novels remain one of the few growth areas in both specialty shops and mainstream bookstores in an otherwise depressed market. The entire industry is shifting for the better from individual comic books to bound books. This change welcomes newer talents and allows for a wider variety of genres and subject material within in the burgeoning medium.

¹ Japanese comics written for girls 7-18 years old