New York City, NY– If ever there was a time for comic relief, this is it. Expectations for sales may be down across the publishing industry, but UK-based comic-book and graphic-novel publisher Cinebook will provide plenty to laugh about this year with eight new series and 38 new titles. Acquiring English-language publication and distribution rights to series already popular in their original French editions comes at a price, but owner Olivier Cadic sees that cost as an investment in the future—and a sign of hope for both retailers and comics fans.
“We’re investing to introduce to the Anglo-Saxon world the numerous European talents of the Ninth Art,” declares Cadic. “We were confident that readers would find these topselling titles just as great in English as the rest of the world finds them in French, Spanish, and numerous other languages.”
The company’s sales seem to bear out Cadic’s premise: In 2008, Cinebook’s North
American sales more than tripled year on year, both in dollars and number of books sold.
Last year, almost half of Cinebook’s sales were in Europe (46%) and one-third in North
America (31%), but sales in North America surpassed those in Great Britain for the first
time. (Cinebook also sells in the South Sea Islands, Asia and Africa/the Middle East.)
Cinebook, a first-time exhibitor at this week’s New York Comic Con (booth no. 1521),
has announced that it will add the following series to its already wide-ranging catalog:
“Billy and Buddy,” “Buck Danny,” “The Chimpanzee Complex,” “Insiders,”
Bellybuttons,”
series “Lucky Luke,” “Iznogoud,”
“Aldebaran,”
“Ducoboo,”
already being published by Cinebook.
While many of these names are new to English readers, they are by no means new to
Europe and other parts of the world: “Lucky Luke” titles alone have sold 250 million
copies worldwide in French and other languages. “The Bluecoats,” a humorous Civil
War series, which Cinebook will introduce next month in North America, has sold more
than 15 million copies. And Cinebook doesn’t only have a large catalog dedicated to
children’s series: For young adults and adults, the “Thorgal,”
“Largo Winch” series have sold respectively 14, 12 and 10 million copies.
It is this kind of fervor for comics, known as the “ninth art” (alongside other plastic arts
such as sculpture and painting) in France—a country where approximately one in eight
books sold is a comic book—that Cinebook is banking on stoking in the Anglophone
world. The publisher will display copies of more than 50 titles at New York Comic Con
this week in its booth near the center of Level 3 of the Jacob K. Javits Center.
Cinebook will also hold daily drawings for free copies of “I.R.$.,” an adventure series
about Larry B. Max, a very special agent of the Internal Revenue Service. In the current
economic climate, Cadic opines that readers might especially enjoy the tales of I.R.S.
agent Max, who links high finance and high crime to reel in the biggest tax evaders.
“Every year it’s the same,” says Cadic with a twinkle.
“Nothing is certain but death and . . . Max!” (Cinebook will release a new volume of
“I.R.$.” each April.)
To read more about Cinebook or to view the company’s catalogue, visit
www.cinebook.com. Cinebook’s titles are distributed in North America by National
Book Network Distribution, Inc. (NBN), www.nbnbooks.com.
EDITORS
To schedule an interview with Olivier Cadic, or for additional information regarding the
company, please email Erica Jeffrey (North America) at e.jeffrey@comcast.net or
Olivier Cadic (United Kingdom) at olivier@cinebook.co.uk, T.+44(0)1227 731368.
Brief personal profile of Olivier Cadic:
In 1982, at age 20, Olivier Cadic started electronics firm Info Elec in Paris. In 1996, he
transferred the company’s business offices to England, where he founded the association
La France libre . . . d’entreprendre (“Free France . . . free enterprise”) to assist French
businessowners. In 1999, he raised €10 million in funding and created PCB007.com, the
first global Internet marketplace for printed circuits. In 2003, observing the electronics
market trend toward Asian production, Cadic began systematically divesting his
activities in this domain. At the end of 2005, with the founding of his publishing firm
Cinebook Ltd, he began to promote Franco-Belgian comic strips to the English-speaking
world. He has published approximately 30 series in English, including “Lucky Luke,”
“Blake & Mortimer,” “Largo Winch” and “Thorgal.”
Cadic coauthored the award-winning “Queen Margot” series, Cinebook’s only original
graphic novel line.
With the support of current French president Nicolas Sarkozy, Cadic was elected in 2006
to the A.F.E. (the assembly of French nationals living abroad) to represent French
citizens living in the United Kingdom. In the order of protocol, he is third in line after the
French Ambassador and the French General Consul.
— END —
