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Dave, I’d match HAL JORDAN to GL, and the LanternS book to GLC, personally — GL was always the Hal title, and GLC the “Not Hal”

Interesting is the five-years-ago figures (from just before the New 52 started) versus now. So in spite of all the “darker and edgier” New 52 revamps, “DC You,” “Convergence,” and other changes, the only characters to see a rise in sales figures since then are Batman (who’d probably sell well anyway), Superman, Batgirl, Constantine, and… Scooby-Doo? Interesting that in sales growth percentages, Scoob and the gang are one of DC’s main successes…

Scooby Doo Apocalypse was a lot better than I could imagine. It inspired me to buy the other similar books. Nice surprise in fun and entertaining reading

I’m really surprised by Unfollow. It’s a great book, full of mystery, intrigue, and plenty of weirdness! It’s a perfect Vertigo title! Why is no one buying this thing?

Nahan: bad marketing strategies. I probably would have been interested but no interior art was visible in the Previews (I think), price of the vertigo floppy was upped 33% just before and they didn’t made any effort on the price of the first paperback as they used to.
And launching a serie demanding such a very long run of issued to be correctly mamanged (the counter can’t drop from 140 to 10 in 2 issues) at a time were any new launch making it past issue 12 is a miracle was perhaps a little too risky.

Nathan: I’m buying it. And it is the perfect Vertigo title. It reminds me of Air by Wilson & Perker from a few years back, gives me that same feeling of those cool little books poking their heads out between Sandman and Preacher and Animal Man and Fables, you know? That…Vertigo feeling…mmm…

I’ve been reviewing Telgemeier’s comics for years, and that lack of wider recognition is why I did this long review/feature on Sisters for The Comics Journal:

http://www.tcj.com/reviews/sisters/

My gut says that for SQUIRREL GIRL BEATS…. the $25 for 120 pages in HC format is going to do very mediocre — at ~20 cents a page that’s not a fraction of the value of GHOSTS $10.99 for 256, which is about 1/5 of the cost at ~4 cents/page,

My bigger question might be what is Raina getting for a 500k print run? She’s not getting less than $2/copy, right? Right?!?!?

-B

If you think that Raina T. is lacking for recognition you must be defining that recognition pretty narrowly. Or, to be specific: you’re probably not seeing that attention because the only places you’re looking are niche comics sites that exclusively cover the weird, insular world of the direct market–sites which by definition won’t be covering Telgemier’s work because it exists almost entirely outside that world.

There’s no shortage of (well deserved) recognition, awards, and horors for Raina coming from arenas focused on libraries and general kid lit.

The fact that so much of that AV Club article is referencing Marvel/DC/Squirrel Girl/whatever–as if an incredibly popular kids’ comic is just some kind of weird anomaly whose only real take away is as some helpful suggestion for DM publishers–shows a lack of knowledge of the breadth, depth, and popularity of kids’ comics right now.

Largest American graphic novel initial print run. Impressive.

One Piece makes 500k look small.

http://mangapanda.info/one-piece-manga-77-gets-3-8-million-print-run/

What Ben said.

It’d be nice if Marvel (and, to a growing extent, DC) would be more open about its cancellations. This growing habit of “listed this month, not next month” is very irritating. I didn’t know Illuminati was cancelled till I read the final page of #7.. At least in the 70’s, there was an excuse (flimsy as it was) for cancellations not being announced—some decided so fast that DC would have their little box saying something like “next issue on sale the third week of July” in the final issues.

“Even after having watched Star Wars: The Force Awakens, I had to check to see who this character is. Releasing an ongoing series focused on him seemed to me to be quite a daring move -or am I the only one who totally forgot his part in the movie?”

Poe Dameron has a lot of fans. It’s not that surprising to see Marvel try a series for him.

Merci pour les conseils culinaires en fin de rubrique. ;)

Pleasantly surprised the racists haven’t come out in response to the comments about black characters (and also pleasantly surprised about how well two of those books are selling).

You can not be a racist, and still be glad that as clichéd, unnecessary and overhyped a character as Red Wolf is failing.

Why does it matter if they put FINAL ISSUE in thr solicits?

Chris: simple courtesy for people paying dollars to buy their products.

You’re a bit harsch on Moon Knight I think, it’s not that a much a popular character for a start, both first and second issues went on reprint – and besides it’s beautifully drawn.

Why does it matter if they put FINAL ISSUE in thr solicits?
==================================================================
Chris:

Some of us aren’t rolling in mounds of cash. Ergo, we have to adhere to a budget each month. If I see a title I buy every month isn’t solicited and it doesn’t say “final issue”, how do I know it’s not coming back next month? Hard to commit to a new title if I’m not sure the unsolicited title is coming back or not. And, like most other comics fans, my budget is not flexible–once again, no mounds of money lying around. So, yes, it WOULD be nice, and it’s not too much to ask, for Marvel and DC to have the common courtesy to let us know when they’re cancelling a title. Considering the dwindling readership these days, the LAST thing they need is more disgruntled—possibly soon to be former—readers.

Yep, like Rob said. For us, overseas consumers, we HAVE to preorder a title to have a chance to read it. We don’t have racks with all the titles available to choose from. Comics shops with original floppy comics wouldn’t survive with racks like that. So we preorder. And yeah, knowing a title is stopped would be nice, same thing with knowing if it’s a limited serie or not.
That’s also why double shipping is so annoying because it cuts your monthly budget, even when you did not add any new title to your “list”.
But, apparently, from what we can see of Marvel’s floppy policy, they just don’t care about floppy readers at all.
Which is a bad move: how many times do floppy readers think “well, I’ll get in in trade paperback format” and then forget about it later? Or finally buy it, but second handed, because it’s cheaper?

I had a friend who was a manager at Hastings for a bout a year that got let go over a year ago. Even then, the environment for employees was not good and they really didn’t have a good feel for the comics market. Not surprising that they owe Funko more than Diamond. There seems to be a big excess of Funko Pops at all the local comic shops as well as Hot Topics.

The company went private in 2014.
Most stores are located in small cities (one is in Fremont, NE).
Unless Wal-Mart fills that void, some readers will have to either drive to a metropolitan area (not uncommon in the midwest, where day trips are popular), or make better use of the local library and interlibrary loan. Or go online.
But casual discovery? Browsing… that’s unlikely.

“A good time to stock up on bargains” at the expense of the artists and publishers who will never get paid.

““A good time to stock up on bargains” at the expense of the artists and publishers who will never get paid.”

It’ll help more than inventory sitting on the shelf unsold would.

i wonder if Diamond is able to absorb this kind of large financial hit? What will the domino effect be on the DM?

If they get pennies on the dollar, it won’t be for a very very long time.

>“A good time to stock up on bargains” at the expense of the artists and publishers who will never get paid.<

I suspect that the graphic novels were sourced via Diamond BOOK Distributors and various book store distributors. Those are returnable, although there are limits. Yup, the publisher/distributor takes a beating on returns… HarperCollins sunk Eclipse that way with The Hobbit.

Anything purchased via Diamond COMICS would be like a comics shop… it's one-way.
Diamond bought the stock from the companies, and re-sold it to Hastings, on credit. (They do this for many stores… I think it's a retail standard…. retail accounts get 60 or 90 days to pay each bill.)

So, Diamond is stuck, unless they signed some sort of distribution agreement with a publisher or company that says different.

Also, it should be noted:
When a book goes on sale in a bookstore, it does not affect a creator's royalties.
That is determined for every book sold, not on the sales price.
A publisher will sell a book for about 50% of the cover price to a store. The store can then discount the book if they feel they'll make more money doing so.
It doesn't matter if it's paid for full price at a comic con, or bought at 50% off on Amazon. The royalty paid to the creator is the same.

To the best of my knowledge, Diamond doesn’t offer more than 30 days to anyone.

This debt appears to be Diamond BOOK distributors which is a different company than the COMICS portion, but one which is probably in generally poor shape right now mostly because they’ve lost most of their client publishers — despite the lock on COMICS for the “Big Five”, Diamond BOOKS only appears to distribute IDW and Image — no Marvel, DC, or Dark Horse.

http://www.diamondbookdistributors.com/default.asp?t=1&m=1&c=53&s=660&ai=70695&ssd= looks like a list of impacted pubs. I could be entirely wrong, but I think that everyone there other than IDW and Image DBD is “buy/sell”, where *DBD* will be the party out on the sale…. but what is Hastings going to have in stock? Probably a lot of Image and IDW (licensed) books. Those pubs may potentially be on the hook for at least some of the loss if the terms are similar to the “brokerage” deal that they have with DCD.

But that’s without actually having real knowledge of facts, and could be entirely wrong!!

-B

The bankruptcy court will decide which debts they have to pay and how much.

How much leverage the publisher has to get themselves paid probably depends on their size. Small publishers often walk away with nothing when a chain or distributor goes bankrupt. In cases like that, the creator will not get paid either. It’s happened to me multiple times.

Aloha Hawaiian Dick looks great and deserves to sell more copies; I am very impressed by both story and art, I also buy every issue of Low and Outcast. This company is doing things right: every title is its own universe and independent concept.
I hope that comic readers will support Image titles, they are fresh and interesting. (and I don’t work for them, ha ha) Bravo.

Look at how many creators fled Marvel and DC to do their own thing at Image. Are fanboys really just interested in capes and tights, or quality work by creators who love what they do?

Considering that good chunk of them are selling below DC/Marvel cancellation levels I’d think that people are reading DC/Marvel for creators AND characters,

Skottie, most of these numbers are even worse than DC and Marvel. It’s admirable you’re always on these every month championing creator owned books but you’ve never said anything more than “Buy creator books!” Which ones in particular do you think everyone should be buying?

Seems to be mostly about charcater than creators; Recently Ted McKeever (who hasn’t done work for the Big 2 in years) announced he was levaing comics, becuase his heart is not into it. How many will follow suit?

http://www.bleedingcool.com/2016/06/08/the-current-state-of-the-comic-book-industry-is-the-lowest-ted-mckeever-talks-to-bleeding-cool-about-quitting/

Since I cannot edit or remove, here goes, fixed typos:

Seems to be mostly about characters than creators; Recently Ted McKeever (who hasn’t done work for the Big 2 in years) announced he was leaving comics, because his heart was not into it anymore. How many will follow suit?

“Skottie, most of these numbers are even worse than DC and Marvel.”

Which means . . . what? The creators are actually making more money from these numbers at Image than the page rate at Marvel or DC. Scott Snyder famously said he makes multiples on Wytches than what he earns from writing Batman.

If you’re so concerned about lower Image numbers, then fucking buy their books and help out.

We have to remember that mine gold for creator-owned books are in the trades,a lot of books that are performing poorly on this chart are doing very fine on Amazon e etc.

I read quite a bunch of Image Waking Dead, Invincilbe, Nailbitter, Citizen Jack, Huck + tons others.. Not all people pick up a comic based on who did it. I dont think I have ever picked up a comic based solely on creative team. I will though not pick up a series based on writer or artist when they have a track record of not releasing books before moving onto other projects. Tony Harris how many projects got abandoned by him. Anything Bryan Hitch Image title Real Heroes. Any non Marvel Rob Liefeld title if you get 2 issues it is a shock. If the book grabs me will read it but honestly could care less about creative team

Gra^hic Inida (kind of a revival of the late Virgin Comics) is also an editor with very nice products, at an amazing price (everything is $3 with often more than 20p per story). Grant Morrisson’s 18 Days is amazing and Chakra and Devi aslo look interesting. But I don’t think any of their title ever make it to the Top300 :(sc

DC should just call itself “Bloodlines Comics” to better reflect where its priorities are (spoiler: stuck in 1993).

Survivors’ Club and Last Gang in Town ended last week.

Slash & Burn, by virtue of Vertigo’s lowest-selling title for April 2016, ended that month.

Seriously — are trade sales of Doctor Fate what keeps that book going? Paul — come back to the Legion!

I’m curious why Midnighter and Martian Manhunter, both great books that are being cancelled, are being kicked to the curb while Doctor Fate, selling worse than both of those, is apparently continuing post Rebirth? Makes no sense. Maybe you’re right, Steve, and it’s trades sell well?

RE: Green Lantern: Edge of Oblivion – I am still for about the 3rd month wondering why the numbers for GL: Lost Army are not included in the past counts.

As for Bloodlines, I remain convinced that DC has to do things with titles every once in a while for some reason in the family of trademarks/copyrights. There are too many times when older names get thrown out for no reason. Like “Star-Spangled Comics featuring G.I.Zombie” – why not just “G.I.Zombie”?

I feel sorry for all those people buying Civil War who are apparently assuming the storyline or even the quality is anywhere near the movie.

So glad to hear Preacher is getting picked up by people. I really loved the book and thought the show did a good job with its tone and plotting. The only thing I really didn’t like was that it showed Jesse somehow becoming more god fearing, not less. I imagine AMC didn’t want Fox News and bible thumpers to jump all over it, but as an atheist, I’m bummed that he hasn’t cursed out god yet and started hunting him down. That said, I think there’s time for them to make that character turn, so I’m withholding criticism.

“The only thing I really didn’t like was that it showed Jesse somehow becoming more god fearing, not less.”

Depending on the angle the show takes, I think that’s a fair starting point that he can build off of. I imagine they’re trying to keep the length of the series open-ended, so his rage against god would have to take a while to build up momentum.

I added to the original story (once I finally located the link) that Boom’s move had been announced last fall: http://icv2.com/articles/news/view/32847/boom-studios-comic-production-cuts

I could not find similar announcements from others, but I would assume they were all responding to similar market information. Rebalancing shifts back and forth like this have been a common practice over the years; it’s common to see years where graphic novel volumes grow and comics don’t, and vice versa.

The problem is with most comics costing around $4 on average, it makes more economic sense to wait for the $9 to $11 TPB which tends to collect, at least, four issues if not more.

Single issues are vital to the health of the industry but the price point is a killer for most customers.

The total number of paying customers for monthly comics has been shrinking for decades. while production costs have been going up as publishers focused on making higher quality products for adult readers with disposable income. These adult readers with disposable income apparently demand high standards. Higher quality is the comic industry’s common explanation for the higher cost of comics.

The most common explanation for why periodicals are more expensive these days is because there are less customers to spread the costs out. In other words, economies of de-scale , the opposite of economies of scale, are the culprit.

Print has been displaced by new media over the last thirty years to some degree but I don’t think a empirical explanation has been put forward.

New media is sexy but it isn’t exactly “cheaper” than a comic.Video games still require upfront cost if the “replay value” is high. The internet and cable TV provide a lot of entertainment options but are more expensive than the things they displaced: newspapers, magazines, local TV stations.

What if there are other factors, besides production quality and economies of scale.
What if the cost of paper is a contributing factor to the decline of print?

What if profit seeking content providers moved over the new media because costs were rising more slowly in new media?

https://books.google.com/books?id=58DqCQAAQBAJ&pg=PA123&lpg=PA123&dq=newspapers+1990s+%22cost+of+paper%22&source=bl&ots=NiCtnd7NnA&sig=KYVoMT87Ooq0-GGkeAZk1kp0d5k&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjJhbDxrt_MAhWJcT4KHUEfCy4Q6AEIHTAA#v=onepage&q=newspapers%201990s%20%22cost%20of%20paper%22&f=false

In addition to this, I think we need more context.
How are other forms of media, media that monthly periodical comics doing in comparison to comics?

Video games, movies, books?

I think it may be safe to say that digital sales are a not insignificant since neither the Outside World publishers, creators, or online comic enthusiasts talk about them regularly.

I read a post, the other day, either this blog or Bleeding Cool, about how motion comics were the future of the comics industry. Creators and publishers who didn’t adapt by digitizing their content would bite the dust. Is there any wide consensus among industry professionals about that? It seem similar to statements that stated that if comics didn’t adapt by being more diversity-orientated, they would bit the dust. There’s no evidence that shows that technology or diversity is reversing the plight of monthly comics.

*”How are other forms of media, media that monthly periodical comics doing in comparison to comics?”
should be
“How are other forms of media, media that monthly periodical comics are in competition with, doing in comparison to comics?”

30 years ago I got hooked on comics.

15 years ago I spent ~$120/month, going into the LCS every Wednesday with delight.

10 years ago I began to budget and be selective due to pricing.

5 years ago I started dabbling in alternate means to reading than buying new/retail: library, digital, flea market-style regional comic “conventions” (talking like 50 comics for $20 type stuff), piracy.

Currently, I don’t buy anything new and have not darkened the doorway of a comic shop in years.

And despite the relative ease and lack of real money spent in order to read comics, there’s very little I even want to read anymore. What happened to comics? Or, what happened to me?

There HAS to be a saturation point. How many publishers can print comics month after month, and rely on pull lists for their survival? I am astonished at how many titles are solicited in PREVIEWS each month. Are there really THAT many comic readers out there, to support all that printing??

I eagerly await Xavier’s analysis here later in the month to explain how that issue of Spider-Man was– yet again– a complete and utter failure. :)

“Perhaps tellingly, while a lot of comparisons to previous periods are in the black, and overall comics sales are up 1.32% for the year in DOLLARS, in UNITS they are down -7.53%, indicating that high cover prices and not more comics solds are keeping things level.”

The “year to date” comparison stats are going to be a little flakey for a while b/c of the insane Star Wars numbers that were in the charts for the beginning of 2015.

As an additional complication, March ’16 is also the month with a bunch of DC Comics priced higher than normal (those #50 issues).

Not that I’m arguing against your conclusion, just pointing out that there are a lot of unusual factors in play with the “year to date” comparisons right now.

BOOM! Studios beat Dark Horse for the month, in addition to having the #2 spot.

“I eagerly await Xavier’s analysis here later in the month to explain how that issue of Spider-Man was– yet again– a complete and utter failure.”

Even though nobody has made that claim, it’s not surprising you’re hopelessly dependent on other people’s opinions of your inability to increase sales anymore.

The “inability to increase sales anymore” dig hurt, Skottie. Fortunately the 16K+ sales bump in March eased the pain. ;-)
(But I’m sure Xavier will be able to explain that away too.) :-P

Not sure where the “Saga takes a tumble!” tagline for this article came from, but it wasn’t from me…

Man, those figures for Starve, Invisible Republic and Stray Bullets upset me. Those books should sell so much better.

How do you know what the break-even point of a comic book is?

@Martin: Short answer is: you don’t. There’s just too many variables and too many unknowns to generalise. Especially for indie books.

Which of course doesn’t stop people from trying.

Wonder Women will come out twice a month so “every other issue” basically means that Scott will be doing monthly WW for at least 6 months.

Jim Zub (writer of Wayward, Skullkickers, etc) said 8000 copies sold makes the art team a profit. So a break even point somewhere around there, I guess.

WHAT THE HELL, PEOPLE. Sigh.

12/15 Weirdworld #1 – 30,288
01/16 Weirdworld #2 – 17,759 (-41.4%)

This book is so excellent. It’s honestly better than a zillion tons of the other crap Marvel is putting out right now, but alas, that never seems to matter. It isn’t an event title (wait, aren’t fans tired of those?! Until there isn’t one, then they whine they need one!) and no one dies (only to return six months later) so I guess there are no reason to buy it. Great art, wow story? Eh, I’ll wait for Civil War 3, please.

Fans are a fickle lot. They complain about event books, but hate when they don’t have one to complain about. They hate cheesy death announcements, and then help sell the book into the six figures! And do we need to at least give Marvel some props for attempting to put out niche books and see what would stick? Apparently, nothing. For that, again, I blame the fanboys (and girls.) I mean, how many times does everyone also complain about all the Spider/Bat/Super/Wonder books out there in comics land? But whenever the big two attempt something new, no one buys them. I’ve heard this complaint so many times it makes my ears bleed. It’s like we all literally ignore the complaining we aim towards comics on a daily basis. It’s maddening! I want something diverse, unique, cool! But when I’m given it, I’m gonna whine and want the same tried and true I’ve gotten the last umpteen years! No one wins, no one wins…

Spidey/Deadpool is ongoing? Okay. Looking forward to seeing what the sales drop to when Kelly and McGuiness leave the book within six issues.

@Nathan Aaron – one thing to bear in mind is that the people who say they want things probably really do want them and buy them – it’s just that there are a whole lot more people who aren’t saying anything at all but they are buying the opposite of what the first group wants.

Nathan Aaron, what did you think of G0dland, and Bitch Planet? Have you read Shark-Man? What about Bendis/Gaydos’s Alias? Have heard of Joe Sacco? Or that run by Lutes, Unstable Molecules? What do you think SLAM!-c’mere, do you want to see me make this pencil disappear….? Just only spend on the stuff that counts; stop buying the repetitive crap, unless you are at a used book store, or a flea market, or at a serious discount.

‘Comic Books’ are too small, and flimsy, and look like they are strictly for kids any way -it would be cool if there were more ‘Rollingstone’ sized magazine like sequential anthologies. People would spend on that as much as they wait in lines for a cheap Tshirt from China that has a trendy brand name on it. Americans love to be pretentious, spending, bigots that would love to show off their Punisher *magbook* if it was done right, if it looked cool, and functioned sequentially in a way that was bad ass… for example.

Hey Nathan Aaron, FYI:

It Will Never Love You Back: Marvel Entertainment, Ike Perlmutter, and Why the Corporation Cannot Be Your Friend
by Charlotte Finn February 1, 2016 12:00 PM
http://comicsalliance.com/ike-perlmutter-marvel-entertainment-consumers-and-corporations/

Read More: Marvel, Perlmutter, And Why Corporations Aren’t Your Friend | http://comicsalliance.com/ike-perlmutter-marvel-entertainment-consumers-and-corporations/?trackback=tsmclip

Why I’m Boycotting Marvel Comics
by J.A. Micheline August 4, 2015 2:00 PM
http://comicsalliance.com/marvel-boycott-axel-alonso/

Read More: “Why I’m Boycotting Marvel Comics” | http://comicsalliance.com/marvel-boycott-axel-alonso/?trackback=tsmclip

Nathan, perhaps start a petition to boycott -what do you want to boycott today, NAy? NAy?

Hey Nathan Aaron, FYI:

It Will Never Love You Back: Marvel Entertainment, Ike Perlmutter, and Why the Corporation Cannot Be Your Friend
by Charlotte Finn February 1, 2016 12:00 PM

Why I’m Boycotting Marvel Comics
by J.A. Micheline August 4, 2015 2:00 PM

Nathan, perhaps start a petition to boycott -what do you want to boycott today, NAy? NAy?

Marvel makes comics starring Marvel characters. People who read Marvel Comics usually want to read about Spider-Man, the X-Men, the Avengers, etc… A lot of what they are publishing nowadays is chasing away the loyal fan who just wants to read about their favorite characters. Yeah there’s room for Weirdworld but if fan’s aren’t buying the A-List books (excluding Star Wars) you can’t expect sales for B and C level titles to be great. Marvel, for the last decade, have invested more on the names under the title than the title itself. That makes for creator loyalty, not brand loyalty. Why read a Marvel book trying to be an Image book when you can just read an Image book?

FWIW, with DC and Marvel both putting out so many new series all the time (including renumbered ones), I’m not sure it’s possible for any series to “stabilize” for long.

About Star Wars sales, maybe we should also consider that the book started with John Cassaday on art and covers, and now it’s Deoadato or Leinil Yu. All of them are A list artists sure, but well, some are more A than others. I personally stopped after Immonen’s arc, maybe some other readers did. Looking forward to know who will be the next artist. Maybe they’ll be back on major ones, or slightly slipping on the B list ones.

Also, the fact the comics didn’t gain any new buyers (and worse, lost buyers) since the movie is out is not a good sign. Maybe the star wars mania is a already a bit passé, Marvel was definitely wise to launch the book nearly two years before the movie, but they’ve got to find another big hit now. It won’t be Star Wars for a while, at least not before the next movie – so a long while – and even then, it will never come back to those first issues sales.

@Nathan
The way I see it, Events and big names are creating a lot of static through which even very good titles have a hard time emerging. Maybe Marvel ought to create a Vertigo-like imprint for all the odd ones out to find a nest.

“In case you’re wondering, Superman has never dipped below 30K in the modern Diamond-served comics market. The lowest ever recorded sales were 31,504 for issue #697 back in February of 2010.”

superman 29 sold around 33k

Superman 29 $2.99 DC 33,633

“Despite being returnable, I believe there is some sort of restocking fee, plus the time involved in processing the returns—any retailers out there want to verify this?”

DC did NOT charge a restock fee this time (thankfully), and DC structured the program so that, in order to qualify, you had to order either half-of-BATMAN or BATMAN depending on the title — For example, ROBIN SON OF BATMAN was “order BATMAN”, while STARFIRE was “order half of BATMAN” — and you had to order like that on EVERY title, or NONE of them were returnable.

So, basically, they encouraged us to WILDLY over order.

-B

It’s super sad that DC encouraged wild over-ordering on such lame books.
The DC-YOU books were, by and large, just really lame and uncompelling.

You’re not going to shift PREZ copies without a HUGE name writer or artist. Further, someone who is ‘big in novels’ or ‘big in TV’ does not translate as big in comics.

I hear Superman American Alien is good (i’m not buying it) but the house Ads for it were just a picture of Max Landis. I don’t know who Max Landis is, but his picture makes me think i wouldn’t like his stuff (Hipster looking guy) – so, no sale.

I mean jesus, if Jonathan Hickman isn’t announced as a Rebirth Author – i’m f**king scared for DC and MOnthly Floppy comics overall. These are frightening/sad numbers.

There’s really no reason to buy floppies anymore. Why should we pay more for individual issues in which a third of the content is advertisements, when we can wait and pay less for an ad-free slicker bound version?

Floppies are a waste. Time to evolve, DC and Marvel.

Shame about some of those numbers. I’m enjoying Constantine, but I imagine it’s not going to survive whatever shake up is planned for Rebirth.

God, they really need to do something to promote those new Vertigo series. sSomething different thanv stopping the 9.99$ first trade and upping the floppy price to 3.99$ I mean.

Crazy idea. In my admittedly limited view, it’s seemed like DC always had an older audience than Marvel. Or to be more precise, Marvel grabbed a bigger chunk of the young/new reader market from the 1970s on.

Are these numbers fundamentally about the DC reader dying off?

Mike

@Skottie – because we don’t want to wait six months for the trade? And DC doesn’t want to pay writers/artists for six months without getting any revenue?

@Mbunge – dunno about that. Barring the Star Wars books, are the Marvel numbers THAT different?

@Zach: Why shouldn’t the Star Wars titles count? They’re comic books, right?

In terms of absolute numbers, the Marvel figures are a bit more of a mixed bag. But in relative terms there are quite a few Marvel titles that did better than DC’s books in January. The important caveat here is that there are a lot of #1 and #2 issues from Marvel since January was still an important month for their ANAD launch.

Batman #48 was DC’s best-selling title, and it placed #8 for the month at ~101K. There were six (3 SW, 3 super-hero issues) Marvel titles (plus one Image title) that sold better than that. The next highest DC issue came in at #24 on the Diamond countdown and only sold slightly better than half of Batman #48.

DC shipped 74 issues in January. Twenty-one Marvel issues *each* shipped more copies than 97% of DC’s output. Of those twenty-one issues, seventeen were super-hero issues.

DC had only 4 issues in January that shipped more than 45K according to ICv2. Marvel had thirty-one issues that shipped more than 45K and Image had two. So Marvel had thirty-one issues with bigger numbers than 94% of DC’s output.

When comparing DC numbers to Marvel numbers for January, yes, DC’s numbers are very soft relative to Marvel’s, and it isn’t just Star Wars issues.

More people should read CHEW.

I actually think that you should STOP lowering Image “returnables” by 10%. Why? The “10% rule” was established for books like “52” that were “open to buy” returnable — that is, it is returnable, if a retailer buys 2 copies or 200,000 copies or any number on any side of those. Therefore, it was expected that a wide swath of retailers will qualify for said returns, and that returns could be “meaningful”.

Image, conversely, heavily gates their returnable books — for the discount bracket that I am in (equivalent to my bracket for DC and Marvel sales), I need to order *40* copies in order to qualify for returnable orders. That’s a big number in today’s market for a lot of accounts. I only have about eight regular monthly Marvel and DC periodicals combined that sell 40 copies!

If we assume 2500 retailers, 40 copies each would be 100k — CLEARLY this shows that the overwhelming majority of retailers aren’t qualifying for and/or participating in, Image’s returnable program — especially on something like CITIZEN JACK with sub 10k reported sales. I’ll be a little surprised if even 100 stores took Image up on the returnability with that sales number.

Food for thought.

-B

Thanks, Brian. I had noticed over the past few months of doing these Image charts that the returnability was operating differently from Marvel/DC, but didn’t know why that was so or what the mechanism was that was operating behind it. Your information here explains a lot! I will likely revise how I handle the numbers for returnable Image titles on these charts going forward.

Any word on when we’ll get sales charts for Dark Horse, Valiant, & IDW?

More people need to be reading Black Magick! Greg Rucka and Nicola Scott, drawing her butt off for this book. I mean, the art. Have you seen the art? WOW. And it’s actually a great book, too!

I think Southern Cross finished its first arc and will be back at some later date with a second? Though with those sales numbers it might not be back. Pity, since I rather enjoyed it; very much like those “we’re trapped on a spaceship and people are dying mysteriously” episodes of Doctor Who.

I’m also enjoying Faster Than Light, although the story is pretty fragmented so far.

The sales on BLACK SCIENCE, EAST OF WEST, and LAZARUS break my heart. So many people are missing out on (respectively) fun, epic, and intriguing storytelling.

Just popping in to say that Head Lopper is, besides the fact that it is one well-done comics, is one hell of a good idea in its packaging and sales format. It’s one huge quaterly, you take a smuch time reading it than good old 70’s-80’s comics, you can change your mind if you don’t like it because you’re preorder isn’t yet confirmed once you are done reading it, and you don’t feel cheated because that’s a very nice cover price ($6).

@Christopher: There used to be an indie comics monthly round-up, but the last one I see is March 2015.

I imagine it’s tough enough putting together informed commentary for DC/Marvel/Image, let alone the plethora of smaller titles.

The Violent is a fantastic comic. Same goes for Stray Bullets. And Savage Republic. Really a pity that the more (social-) realistic, complexly written titles don’t do as well as the crazy over-the-top-genre stuff. Maybe people assume they’re less entertaining?? Which is not true at all.

“That’s a nice improvement over the previous floppy sales level of this TPB juggernaut, and better than its previous volume #2 sales level ! I will not wait any longer and make it a win !”

Well, I guess you’ll change your mind with the sales of number 3 in january that seems to have fallen to the 32.000 mark. If the fall don’t stop quickly, it’ll end with really lower numbers than the previous volume.

Indeed, that was one of the biggest shock of January top300! And I indeed changed my mind and took back my W vote, you are absolutly right – I wrote it yesterday :p

Hey, another excessively negative piece. Must be another month.

Proably something I ate. It’s still struck. Wait for January, it’s even worse.
Eh, 4 win, 15 Fail, that’s probably better than what DC did or will do :p

I think the issue here is the premise that books that had < 1 years runs, ended just a few months ago,and relaunched with the same creative team, should magically do better or deemed failures if they fall back to their previous numbers.

Marvel could also be perfectly happy with that :: they just sold more comics, period, of everyone (and I mean all of them) of there books at least for a month or two.

@Brian – seems like a pretty reasonable barometer for determining failure.

@David – I don’t know why Marvel would be perfectly happy with that. They sold a a few copies of a lot of books. That’s a rather resource-intensive way to “win” the sales charts. Takes burning through a lot of talent, promoting a ton of low-selling books, pissing off retail partners, etc.

In before Dan Slott shows up to argue how Spider-man’s sales are actually a success by means of copious amounts of spin.

@Zach “Pissing off retail partners” (and fans too I should add), is probably the baddest part of it, true.
But as long as the same fans and retail partners are still buying number ones like crazy, they just have (we just have) what they (we) deserve.

Like Xavier said – most of those new books are back the way they were before the relaunch, but in the meantime they sold X times more comics with a new number one, and still some more with a new number two, and even a bit left on a new number three. And that means a lot lot lot more money and comics sold at the end, much much more than if they would have kept the numbering going on.
It’s still the same book, the same heroes, sometimes the same artists than before, but for at least for three months, it sold like pancakes.

I know you will say “in the long term”. But honestly, let’s stop fooling ourselves : in the long term there will be still Spider-Man, Avengers and Deadpool comics, whereas a number 334 or a new number 1. It’s just that the new number 1 sells way better than 334. For how long will it work ? That is the question, but for now it’s still working, and working really well.

Crossovers and variants seems more of a problem, really.

(oh, and like Xavier, I’m french too, so I hope my english is ok !)

It’s pretty obvious to me from reading these columns that most fans, in spite of what the world thinks, generally want the characters they’ve been used to for years. Sam Wilson as Cap is bombing badly. It’s actually a pretty decent read, but you’d never know it by the sales numbers. Cue the return of Steve Rogers to the role just in time for the movie in May.

If you take away what makes a character popular, it takes away readers who were drawn to what made the character popular in the first place. Superior Iron Man didn’t sell very well. I really think part of the reason was the altered outfit and Tony’s even more arrogant and overbearing than usual personality. I’d say that’s one reason that the all new, all PC Avengers crashed between the first and second issue. To most people, the Avengers are Steve Rogers, Tony Stark, etc., not Jane Foster Thor, Kid Nova and “Ms. Marvel”. Such a title might get critical acclaim, but that doesn’t always translate to sales. Same premise of movies and tv shows that don’t translate into box office and ratings. “Steve Jobs” is an example of a recent film that was almost universally acclaimed, but bombed at the box office.

Too bad really, that people don’t want to try new things. I think the Howling Commandos, Squadron Supreme and especially Red Wolf are all good reads. I don’t expect any of them to make it past issue 12 at this rate.

If Marvel and DC want to right their ships, they probably need to wise up and go back to the tried and true. It’s been worse at DC: when they did the reboot that gave us Emo Superman, Amazon rape culture Wonder Woman and the like, it looked like it would work at first, given the sales numbers. However, five years on it just doesn’t have the lasting appeal of the original versions. Perhaps Rebirth will start to fix that.

One year ago:
http://www.dccomics.com/blog/2015/02/06/new-books-new-creative-teams-the-complete-list-of-new-and-continuing-dc-comics

The big question being, how much of that sales “boom” was alternate covers? I don’t think “Walking Dead” had more than one cover, but what about the other Top 10 or so?

Several things are becoming clear. One is that the guaranteed sales bump from a new #1 isn’t there anymore. After so many reboots and renumbering they’ve finally managed to make a #1 feel like any other issue. Hence the trend for new comics to launch around 20,000 and be in instant cancellation territory by issue 2.

Also, Vertigo looks dead in the water. Will DC allow titles to bump along at 4000-5000 or just kill them off?

Reading one of my comments at one of my own links above, I’m reminded that January 2011 had an additional strike against it: That was the month that Diamond had switched all publishers so their books would arrive on Tuesday, and a number didn’t meet the logistical demands and their books slid into February. That in part led to how few titles were out.

That said, the February 2011 figure was only 5.17 million copies, so it’s likely the sales of a January 2011 where everything went right would only have been between 4 and 5 million copies. That still would have been the low point.

Things weren’t helped by DC not having an issue of Justice League (Darkseid War) and DKIII out in January, their two biggest trains are really off their scheduled ship dates.

Well, the fact the DK3 issue two didn’t make the top ten in sales in January was a scary drop for a book recieving that much press. Thought it would hang in the top ten for a bit longer, anyway.

@Vernon DK3 #2 came out in December and was the #2 comic for the month. No issue of DK3 shipped in January.

Meanwhile, Kirkman continues to show the whole industry how to make comic books work but how many are paying attention. No reboots. No renumbering. No flood of variant covers. #150 issues of serialized storytelling.

I mean, no offense to Kirkman but nobody puts him on the level of Gaiman or Moore or even Morrison, do they? It’s not like he’s reinventing the wheel. The man is just writing fundamentally sound comics that utilize a lot of the storytelling concepts that used to make comics so popular.

Mike

@Mbunge –
I certainly like Kirkman and enjoy walking dead, but i’d say its success is owed more to consistency, both in end product quality and the creators that chip in. In many ways it’s Snyder/Capullo Batman is quite similar.

Mbunge: you’re so rtight. Kirkman changed the industry and is one of the few people who still know how to make comics the good old way, with with modern storytelling. His last issue of Invincible is amazing, again, making fun of those stupid entities who pop up constantly in maintream super-heroes books to inflige on it artificial changes.

If things don’t turn around by the end of the year Didio & Lee may be out on their ears.

Heck, they may get blamed if the WB?DC movies fail.

Kirkman’s consistency, storytelling skills and longevity are good lessons to take away for the industry for certain, but … maybe … a multi-million dollar nationwide pay cable franchise contributed just a hair?

@Allen: I think something interesting is that the Walking Dead comic launched at #233 with about 7k in sales in October 2003, was nurtured by Image’s TPB system of releasing the trades where the next regular issue was hitting the stands at the same time, and it was allowed to run for seven years before the show came out.

DC, for instance, would be quick to cancel a book launching under 20k, their TPBs don’t come out for about six months after the issues collected so there’s very little (if any) transfer of readers from trade to floppies, and can you imagine a DC (or Marvel) title being left alone for seven years to build an audience?

@Allen – It certainly doesn’t hurt, but I can’t imagine it plays much of a role in the periodical sales. Marvel movies do insanely well but Avengers sales figure are very meh. Man of Steel made hundreds of millions of dollars in the box office and Superman still sells horribly.

Catwoman getting a new creative team due to low sales, and immediately losing ~30% of sales seems like some weird karma thing. I assume it’ll be cancelled at Rebirth.

Man, those are some ugly numbers on some of these books. The trend towards a 20% loss without a freely order variant is pretty distressing also. Really hope DC can turn this around….

I always feel weird, asking myself who are those people buying comics only for their cover? Are they aliens? What do they do with it? Do they eat food? Do they ever read the comics they purchased?

This might be more work than you want to do, but, damn, I’m starting to itch for asterixes next to books with FOVs so that you cn glance at the list and understand the context….

I wish you hadn’t written all of that nuts pre-speculation — it was really unfocused and almost certainly wrong in many many ways.

-B

“I always feel weird, asking myself who are those people buying comics only for their cover?”

It’s more likely that some people are buying more than one copy.

Like in the 90’s? Yuk! It would be really interesting to know the proportion beetween one and the other. I do think there is probably actual readers buying multiple issues -if so, why do they prefer to buy a copy with a different cover of a comics they already pruchased instead of somethign else to read, when the current market is offering so many nice differents reading experience?. But I’m pretty sure there is also a proportion of people buying an issue only for the variant, which would explian how very low selling titles see sometimes such a big jump whenever they play the variant card. It seems that there is a core number of buyers buying variant, no matter the title, but depending on the variant subject popularity.

Contrarily to the 90’s ugly trends, current variants seem to rely solely on art, no gimmicky shenanigans, therefore rest of the shoulders of the artist’s fame and the low print run. I’d be curious to see how the back issue market treats those. Might be a decent investment, in our uncertain times. I think Bleeding Cool has some kind of column tracking that kind or bargain/profit opportunity, every now and then for hot items. Does someone know if one ever provided some kind of statistics on recent variants?

Couple things on the FOV:

I haven’t historically gotten variants, but about a year ago Discount Comic Book Service began offering a package where if you bought all of the FOV for a given month you got them at a bigger discount. Since I was getting most of the titles anyway, I started getting those. Thus I discovered a couple things.

One is that owning the variant is great an all, but there’s this bit of weirdness of having this book and not having any way to know, from the book itself, what the “real” cover looks like. I’m actually kinda happy that the coloring-book covers are just on top of the regular covers, rather than replacing them. So in that context, I can kinda see someone buying both versions, to be able to own both covers.

Also, while I don’t follow it closely, it does seem that the FOV are increasing in value. I use ComicBase, which has its own price guide-type info, and I run a little report regularly to see which books are currently valued over cover price. The FOVs generally end up on that list. So despite the fact that they are as available as the regular books, there’s still some sort of aftermarket demand.

Worth noting I am not comparing the FOV guide value to the non-FOV version of the same books, but I’m pretty sure it’s just the FOV’s that are going up.

Is that for freely orderable ones, or all variants?

Why do people buy variants? I’ve never understood it. Do they actually appreciate in value?

The big seller for my affiliate link to Amazon this year was multiple gingerbread houses and more chocolate than I though possible to consume (also bought with the houses. It was something like $300 worth of chocolate.

I actually sell a decent amount of games through my link, very few comics.

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One issue of Young Terrorist last year. Issue #2 was supposed to come out last June and there’s still no sign of when it’s coming out.

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Help me out here, ‘peeps: If Young Terrorists is popular, does anyone think there will be a comeback for “Cla$$war”, or “the Brotherhood”?

” This was not so much due to Marvel shipping fewer titles as other publishers shipping more.”

Well, that and the “Sales on all Marvel books that aren’t Star Wars drop off a fucking cliff after issue 2/3, that’s why they renumber them every five minutes” effect starting to kick in post-ANAD.

I’m surprised by Unfollow. Immediately picked up for TV, no one seems to even know it exists. In fact, I was looking for a copy of the second issue (as my store had only copies that literally had split open on all the bottom seams, part of that whole “We print crappier comics today than we did in the 60’s!” mentality the Big Two are using today, but I digress… ) and comic shop owners were all like “Unfollow? I’ve never heard of that title.” Boom.

And can ANYONE tell me what Survivors’ Club is actually about? I mean, I read the first issue and it made 99.8% no sense. Honestly, I pick up each issue that comes out, look over it in the shop and go “Nope, still making NO sense!” ;) I wanted to like it, too.

I thought creators were ditching Vertigo for Image because its page rates had gotten worse (see: Snyder, Morrison, Lemire). Something must have changed to spark all these launches.

Based on Diane Nelson’s description of Vertigo as reported by Variety at the Variety Summit in September 2015 it sounded like the creator-owned aspect is all but gone.

“Vertigo, which focuses on stand-alone fantasy stories, is an engine “for getting original IP into the company and feeding other businesses as well as our publishing business.”

http://variety.com/2015/biz/news/dc-diane-nelson-batman-vs-superman-marvel-flash-arrow-1201595124/

Superman Lois & Clark turns out to be an 8-issue miniseries in a tweet posted before the publication of this article.

Wow at Omega Men doing the usual Vertigo numbers.

“In DKIII’s case, even if you are very generous and assume that up to 200K of those copies went to customers who actually read them (and frankly I think that the number is likely closer to 150K), that means that over half of the total copies sold of DKIII #1 are either sitting unread in a bag and board somewhere or just taking up space on a retailer’s rack (and before too long in a retailer’s quarter box…)”

Dave, maybe don’t confuse sell-through with profit?

My basic line is that you can’t succeed in retail if you’re not keystoning cost-of-goods (doubling your whole cost), but the nature of Variants, both limited by number (1:25, 1:50 and so on) as well as retailer-exclusive covers (where the large majority of DK3’s 440k is going to *actually* come from) means that you might very well be keystoning COGs and yet still be liquidating the majority of your sell-in number.

I also suspect there’s a WIDE swath of retailers who are “just” breaking even on store-exclusives, but they view it as a marketing expense, and therefore are revenue neutral in their heads.

If someone has been selling comics for six years or more, and is still in business, and doesn’t show any signs of imminent closure… well, it’s probably safe to assume that their business model is absolutely no worse than break-even at which point the market needs to say “Sure, OK” — it’s only cases in which retailers are actively losing money that we should have the slightest concerns about their viability — and the impact on the greater market in the sense of “collapse”

*just because you don’t like how someone conducts commerce does not, a priori, make it a poor model*

(All said with the understanding that I personally believe variants, and marketing in that direction to be the equivalent to a disease: http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=41000)

-B

@Brian: I understand fully well that retailers can be breaking even or coming out ahead on incentive variants even while leaving a large amount of the stock unsold. That was kind of my point. It may be good in the term for retailers and publishers, but long term it is bad for everyone.

I mentioned my August 2015 column with my variants rant, but neglected to link to it; it’s here http://www.comicsbeat.com/dc-comics-month-to-month-sales-august-2015-bombshells-return/

I suspect you and I agree far more than disagree on this.

@axspo This column was submitted several days before it was published on the site.

Nathan AAron–

I’m with you. I haven’t bought a book from ‘the big 2’ for years, but the premise (as advertised) for Survivor’s Club intrigued me.

I read the first issue, scratched my head, and never went back.

“Based on Diane Nelson’s description of Vertigo as reported by Variety at the Variety Summit in September 2015 it sounded like the creator-owned aspect is all but gone.”

But if it’s all about IPs for other media, I wonder if that’s the lure, and if there’s a major incentive if they get bought up.

I’m not gonna cry for vertigo as they launched al those new titles with a 3.99$ cover price and apparently stopped their 9.99$ pricing, and did not bother to communicate at all on what their new offer will be to promote this new line of titles.

And yes, I was quite early this month with my column, as I was the last one last month. :p