Comic books were once among the best-selling titles of their era, reaching the widest readership through secondhand circulation as well. In the seventies, we had comics printed weekly in runs of one to two hundred thousand copies. These included licensed, largely American-origin comics alongside domestic titles that competed with them. The eighties were the peak period for humour magazines, with weekly circulations reaching five hundred thousand — comic publications that had become almost society-shaping in influence.
Today, those figures have fallen back to around one thousand five hundred copies a week.
These books and magazines had become collector’s items. Owning every issue of a given series mattered. Despite the fifty years since, you can still find them in secondhand bookshops, and especially in shops in major cities — Istanbul above all — that deal exclusively in these books and magazines.
So what made comics so valuable and such a focal point of interest? Certainly the art concealed within them, and the fact that they could be read in one sitting. The artwork inside was often so accomplished that it frequently overtook the story itself as the main draw. That’s still true today — but it’s clear from the figures above that this is the area digitalisation has hit hardest. First television, then digital games, and after that the world of animation and anime dealt major losses to this important print segment. The titles that still survive have largely been confined to licensed properties such as Marvel, DC and manga. While this has significantly shrunk the genre’s share of the printing industry, a market still exists — and it demands a level of expertise well beyond ordinary book printing.
From the right format to the right paper choice, from the choice of print technology to colour accuracy — this market has its own standards.
Standard American size is 17×26 cm, manga size is 12.5×19 cm, and the larger size preferred in Europe is 21×29.5 cm. Of course, the artist’s imagination may call for other dimensions entirely. Determining the right custom size correctly depends on measures such as portability and readability in hand and anywhere. The cover board (depending on the sale price) will be either one-side-white or coated stock around 300 gsm; the interior paper is completed with familiar book paper. Uncoated woodfree paper loses the comic-book effect. And of course it should be matte stock — both to bring out the detail in the artwork and to remain comfortable to read.
Offset should unquestionably be the printing technique of choice for comic books. Even though digital printing can deliver the same result, it can’t match the sensory quality of oil-based ink. As for colour: yes, a colour world can create more impact, but black-and-white — even line art — suits the spirit of the medium better. If you have a comic book project, we recommend finding a printer experienced in this area.
The comic book market’s biggest bottleneck today is paper and royalty costs. Royalty fees rising with the exchange rate, together with imported paper costs, have driven up comic book prices. This has turned the market into one of scarce, expensive books. Even so, the market still has a customer base aged 12 to 40.
Domestic artists, meanwhile, actually have an enormous source of stories at their disposal: Turkish history. As an ancient nation, we have more comic-book heroes and stories than we could even count — a resource we could pass on to this under-forty audience. They’re far better than American superheroes and Japanese characters.
Even though comic book publishing in Türkiye has been trending graphically upward (in terms of growth) each year, it hasn’t quite settled into a clear “industry” or “sector” definition. Without sufficient domestic industrial support and mass production, domestic artists generally make their living producing work for publishers abroad, while domestic comics find shelf space through boutique efforts.
If this article has taken you back to the years you spent reading comics, let’s close by looking at who’s selling those old books today:
Online book-sales sites hold a 50–60% share of sales — sites like Idefix, Kitap Yurdu and D&R. Chain stores and bookshops support this with a 20–30% share, while comic book shops, with a 10% share, continue to be the sensory, breathing marketplaces of the comic book world.