Here are our picks for the top comics business news events of 2009, based on assessments of their long term impact on the industry.

1. Disney buys Marvel

The transaction closed at the end of December, so now it’s official—the Mouse House owns Marvel Comics. This was the most dramatic transaction in a long term trend, the merger of Hollywood and the comics business (see “Comics Merging with Hollywood, continued”), which hit new heights in 2009.

2. Warners forms DC Entertainment

Shortly after the Marvel announcement, Warner Bros. announced that it was forming DC Entertainment and appointing a Hollywood executive to run it. DC’s long-time publisher Paul Levitz is stepping down as part of the transition and moving to a new role (see “Paul Levitz’s Incredible 36 Years at DC”).

3. Book returns hammer graphic novel publishers

With bookstore sales dropping and Borders Group operating under a heavy debt load in the midst of a global recession, the stage was set for bookstores to cut inventories on graphic novels, both American titles and manga, and cut inventory they did. Major store closings by Waldenbooks added to the flow. Returns coupled with smaller orders on new products meant tight cash flow for graphic novel publishers, especially small ones with heavy exposure to the bookstore market.

4. Diamond raises product thresholds

Seeking to cut costs in the wake of the economic recession, Diamond Comic Distributors substantially raised the minimum level at which it would cut a purchase order, with smaller titles losing easy access to the market as a result. Diamond Previews cut its page count and some publishers changed their release plans or sought alternate distribution channels to comic stores and consumers.

5. Digital comics take off

ComiXology, Panelfly, and Genus joined iVerse and UClick as platforms for iPhone comic apps, with some publishers, including IDW and Dark Horse, also releasing their own apps. IDW announced that it had sold as many digital copies of its Star Trek Countdown series as it did physical copies, showing the size of the opportunity for this new medium.

6. Watchmen sets a new bar

Sales on the Watchmen graphic novel, demonstrating an unprecedented linkage to the release of the movie, hit numbers previously unheard of in the graphic novel business, with over one million copies in print around the release of the movie.

7. Copyright expirations bedevil Big Two

The most popular comic characters published (and exploited in film, TV, and videogames) by the Big Two U.S. comic companies were created decades ago, and with copyrights expiring, the heirs of their creators are looking to cash in. Although Warners won a round in the ongoing litigation with the Seigel heirs (see “Warners, DC, Win Superman Suit”), they lost another (see “Siegel Heirs Win Another Round”). Meanwhile Marvel got in on the action when the heirs of Jack Kirby filed copyright termination notices related to a number of major Marvel characters in 2009 (see “Kirby Heirs Seek Copyrights”).

8. Twilight graphic novels

It’s rare that you can state with certainty when a title is announced that it will end up on the top of the bookstore graphic novel bestseller charts, but the Twilight graphic novels announced by Hachette house's Yen Press last summer certainly fit that bill. With sales of Twilight novels one factor in a tougher market for shojo manga, bringing the property into the fold of graphic novels is a big plus for the medium.

9. Kodansha enters U.S. manga market directly

After ending its relationships with Tokyopop and Dark Horse, Kodansha entered the U.S. market directly by releasing new editions of its Akira and Ghost in the Shell manga last fall. Del Rey continues to sell some Kodansha titles, and Random House distributes the Kodansha releases.

10. Guilty plea for possession of comics

Christopher Handley pleaded guilty to possession of manga depicting underage characters having sex, to our knowledge the first time that anyone’s been convicted of a crime for possessing comics in the U.S. (see “Handley Sentencing Set for January”).

Many small and mid-sized publishers have come and gone over the years. The comic shop direct market is a brutal place for newcomers. With only two companies, Marvel and DC Comics, dominating over 90% of the playing field, independent books get very little, if any, shelf space in stores. Some comic shop owners won't even carry small press books anymore. They'll only stock titles from major publishers featured in the monthly Diamond Previews catalog. Therefore, new publishers have a very hard time reaching comic book consumers and generating enough sales to survive.

For the last 20 years, the competitive environment of the American comic book industry as remained essentially the same. Corporate officers at traditional publishers have grown complacent in a market that is not growing. The industry today isn't geared toward attracting new readers. Somewhere along the way, the major companies decided to focus solely on retaining the loyal white male customers they already have – comic geeks who fervently buy every monthly issue of superhero comics such as Spider-Man or X-Men. In terms of future growth, that is not a healthy thing overall for the industry. It makes for an insular market that regurgitates the same old formulas year in and year out.

Unable to imagine a different business model and unwilling to invest any significant time or energy promoting anything different from the existing library of established brand name characters, the titans of American comics have essentially left the playing field open for outsiders to produce original material in other genres outside of the superhero universes.

We are on the brink of a new era in graphic literature. The industry is starting to enter a “third age” of comic books. The old newsstand-only model was the “first age” and the comic shop direct market was the “second age.” No one knows for certain what the exact shape of this “third age” will end up being, but I'm banking on it being the digital web comics age. Distributing comic books as podcasts or e-books on iTunes, Amazon Kindle and other web media platforms will put them in front of millions of new people who normally never go to comic book stores.

With iPhone-style touchscreen technology on lightweight, ultra-portable media devices with high-resolution HD screens, creators and publishers now have a great new format to deliver premium content at lower costs.