AV zombie

American comic book characters may well be stoking box-office fires, but the art form itself struggles to find readers. In Japan however, manga continues to reach an audience. According to data from the Research Institute for Publications, comic books represent over 30 per cent of the Japanese magazine industry. But while the art form remains popular, sales are slowly eroding. The sales trend is downwards. But rather than price themselves into a collectors’ niche, four of the country’s principle manga publishers have joined forces to bring their creations to the Nintendo Wii. Kadokawa, Kodansha, Shogakukan and Shueisha have signed-up for a joint venture called Librica. The grand plan is to make digital comics available via the Wii Ware download service. Even more intriguing, the longer term plan is to deliver content to the handheld DS. This is a wizard wheeze. Using the wildly popular DS platform could radically change the form factor of comic books, and if it proves popular in Japan (a given, some might say), Western publishers like Marvel and DC are certain to develop their own stories for the booming portable tech market. Is the video game market about to throw the comic book industry its biggest lifeline since Stan Lee’s invention of The Fantastic Four in the Sixties?