The comic book market - Italy

1.1 Definition and scope of study

When we speak about a comic book, we intend a book which is characterized by a story told using drawings and words witted together in a dynamic way, the perfect meeting between a film and a book.

Yellow Kid by Richard F. Outcault debuted in the New York Journal in 1895, marking the beginning of the comic strip. Then, in 1905, cartoonist Winsor McCay developed a series of panels that were published in the Sunday edition of the New York Herald and included the renowned Little Nemo.

Comics are a "complicated form capable of blending movement and fixity, board and vignette, text and images in a very distinctive way," according to Frenchman Benoît Peeters. The cartoonist is the author and drawer of comic stories, and it often coincides with the creator of the story but sometimes the two roles can be separated. The technique of comics is famous all over the world and each culture has its own type of comics, such as in Japan where the comic book is called Manga. Among the biggest names in comic book pop culture are Marvel, DC Comics, Dark Horse Comics, Image Comics, IDW Publishing and Valiant Comics. 

The global market value of comics market was worth USD 4635.4 million in 2019 and is predicted to reach USD 4686.2 million by the end of 2026, with a CAGR of 3.3% between 2021 and 2026. The study breaks down each segment of the Comic Book market by application, end-user, and geography. 

In Italy comics are called "fumetti" because they take their name from the little clouds, or "fumetti" in fact, that come out of the mouths of the characters in the vignettes. The comics industry produced very strong overall sales results in the first half of 2021, inside a book market that saw tremendous increase in all segments, with numbers significantly higher than before the pandemic. According to a study conducted by the Italian Publishers Association's research office and published on the AIE website on July 13th, the comics industry tripled its sales from January 4th to June 20th of 2021; the comics market in Italy is now worth between 2% and 6% of the entire publishing sector. The most famous comic book publishers in Italy are Panini Comics, Bao Publishing, Grrrzetic Comic Art Book, Rizzoli Lizard and Sergio Bonelli Editore; some of these publishers also import foreign comics and take care of translation and distribution in Italy. 

In Italy, after the pandemic, the comics market is living a florid period, especially regarding Japanese manga.