How to use this Page

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.

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.

Paper Girls is a rare miss for BKV.
It’s still readable and enjoyable, but it’s not up to his usual masterpiece status.
Usually with BKV he makes his characters wants/motivations absolutely clear. He failed to do so with Paper Girls. Things just happen to these girls, but their motivations are secondary/unclear.
Readers have no sense of who teh girls are or what they want.
One is an astronaut, one is the ‘tough’ one with the Dad/Step-mom in AA, and then there are… two others? And time travel? And dinosaurs?

The lack of clarity on the dinosaurs and time travel would be tolerable if we knew who the girls were and what they wanted.

To illustrate this, we knew what the dead teenagers wanted. They wanted to fight back against the dinosaur people, and help others. That’s a clear motivation/goal. The girls>? WHo knows.

We Stand on Guard was his first big whiff in a while, IMO. I’m enjoying Paper Girls a good deal though!

Yeah, We Stand On Guard didn’t do it for me either, Kyle. I will agree with Dude though that the character shading on the girls has been pretty light thus far. We have a good sense of some of their personal traumas, but they don’t have a tenable goal in mind besides “survive.” Obviously, that’s not an uncommon goal for lead characters to have in a zombie/alien/monster invasion story like Paper Girls has turned out to be. I do hope we get some more character development and secondary goals for the individual girls as the series goes on, though.

I should clarify, I’m reading Paper Girls, I like reading Paper Girls, and I will continue to read Paper Girls.

But BKV is a master of the craft. When I pick up a BKV book (cough, cough, Saga, cough) I expect motivations and character traits to be clear from Issue 1 – because he’s a master.

Paper Girls is at issue-5 and the basics aren’t clear? I’m still enjoying it, but this won’t have the legs-outside-of-hardcore-Wednesday crowd that some of his other books have. The non-hardcore crowd respond only to the best of the best.

Paper Girls is merely enjoyable with really cool art. It’s not best of the best, because it ignores the basics.

And I loved We Stand on Guard. Everything was clear from Issue 1.; US vs. Canada – main character is Red Headed Girl, with seething intense revenge motivation. Got it, Go.

That was some damn impressive world building in only 1 issue.

Similarly – I didn’t even understand half the language in Barrier – and I still completely understood who the two main characters were and what motivated them.
He’s a master. Paper Girls is such an unexpected miss.

Enjoying Paper Girls so far, possibly because I delivered Papers. Mirror, as with Pretty Deadly is hard to read on a monthly basis. Probably will switch to trades for both.

Some really impressive numbers in there -thanks for the analysis. And for Paper Girls fans – look for my interview with Cliff Chiang in my weekly column next Monday.

While I’m digging those 8house comics, the numbering and titling is terrible. Some ideas seem great when stoned, but in reality are pretty whack.

I’m really enjoying Paper Girls. Good characters, story and art. I feel like the creators are putting care and thought into this one, and I’m along for the (bike?) ride!

@Paul Houston: Brandon Graham and/or Image would seem to agree with you. The upcoming issues of 8House, subtitled Mirror, have been canceled and re-solicited under the simpler title of “Mirror,” now its own series, like From Under Mountains. It remains to be seen how (or perhaps if) the unconcluded 8House stories, Arclight and Kiem, will continue.

I hope the “So far no further issues have been solicited.” doesn’t mean we won’t see any more Manifest Destiny. It’s one of my favorite books being published right now.

Wow. Two things.

1) I had no idea there was a new series by Greg Rucka (!) and Nicola Scott (!!) – Massive PR fail. I’d have bought that book. Fail.

2) I loved Prophet by Graham. Hadn’t read any of his work before. I would have bought 8 House – but I could not figure out what the hell it was. Once those other books not by Graham , but still called 8 House started showing up, I decided not to bother and did not buy any 8 House. I’m looking at the Image site right now and I still don’t understand what 8 House is. Marketing Clarity Fail.

But seriously – Elevator Pitch answer this for me – What the hell is 8 House? Can anyone help when Image’s site can’t?

I agree re: 8House:Arclight. The branding is a bit confusing – made it seem to me like a sequel to something that I had missed? Still not sure.

In general I find there’s a lack of overall basic info in Inage solicits that would be helpful. Most of the solicit text is about the plot (I.e. “Steve and Bob are on the run from Jane but things are about to take a turn for the worse!”). I’m being a little facetious, but most of the solicits leave me wondering what the book is even about. Is it sci-fi? Horror? What’s the basic premise? If you happened to miss the solicit for issue #1 you’re out of luck. It’s not as much of an issue for the big 2 since their books feature mostly super-hero stories set in their universe – but Image publishes such a diverse array of stuff. Doesn’t help that lately so many of the titles sound the same – “Starve”, “Savior”, “Surface”, “Spread”

Overall tho – buying more Image books than ever. Loving Manifest Destiny and Rumble – hope their sales pick up or are stronger in digital & trades.

Wow, I totally missed that Erin is Asian-American. Yay, I’m color-blind! Or maybe just inattentive.

(Though I don’t thinks she’s given a last name, and Chiang’s art is subtle enough, and the issue isn’t raised in dialogue the way religious differences are….)

In any case, I’m glad she’s there for readers for whom this is a real concern.

[…] The first issue of Paper Girls by Brian Vaughn and Cliff Chiang.  I really liked it and am looking forward to future issues.  The main characters are a bunch of teen age girls who deliver the paper.  (Pretty much tells you in the title, duh.)  The story is set in the 80’s, so people still had the paper delivered to their homes.  The writing is exceptional as would be expected and I love Cliff Chiang’s art.  When he was on Wonder Woman it was one of my favorite comics, as for the art as well as the writing.   There’s an interview with him at the Beat. […]