Invincible creator Robert Kirkman says he's building an American version of a "manga to anime" pipeline: “What I’m seeing with Invincible, and the way that the animated series is fueling the sales on the trades in the direct market is something that to me is signaling that there’s a potential to build something really exciting in this industry that will sustain us for years and years and years,” Robert Kirkman says during a keynote speech at ComicsPRO 2026. “Everybody talks about manga and how successful manga is, and the thing that makes manga so successful is the manga to anime pipeline. And with Invincible, we’re seeing that you can with American comics basically do the exact same thing.” “Invincible is an animated series that adapts the comic book very closely, and it is doing really well, and all of the streaming services are so excited about adult animation that they are rolling out entire divisions trying to do that. And I think that as more comic books are adapted in this way, because having done Invincible, comics being adapted into animation really is the most seamless transition, and I feel like the two mediums are just made for each other. And so I think that there is a future where we can have a comics to animation pipeline that will fuel this entire industry in a completely unprecedented way. And we’re already seeing the beginnings of it now.” Is this going to work?