Over 2019, according to figures from the Bookstore Observatory, bookstores recorded (excluding school books) a 2.3% increase in sales (and comic books the strongest increase, with +7.4% (and +6.3% in 2018).
55% of the sales (in value) of comic strips correspond to novelties less than one year old, 11% are between 1 and 2 years old and 34% have been published for more than two years.
Comic books represent an essential part of their turnover: it accounts for 14% (behind general literature, children's books and humanities).
"The editorial phenomenon represented by the publication of a new volume of Asterix.. (1st of sales in 2019, editor's note) does not, of course, alone explain this strong growth (evolution of the sector excluding Asterix: +6%)", stresses the Bookstore Observatory.
For Laurent Parez, a bookshop in Antibes and member of the Canal BD network, this increase stems, in addition to the 38th volume of Asterix, from the release of Les Indes Fourbes (ranked as the second best selling book of 2019), the strong growth in comic books and manga (+16.4%) and the rise in the importance of the human sciences dealt with in comic books (for example, Green algae, the forbidden story published by Delcourt, which deals with the toxicity of plants washed up on Brittany's beaches, Sarkozy-Gaddafi Tickets and bombs to the Delcourt publishing house, which presents an investigation into corruption).
