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Topic: It’s Like The 90’s All Over Again (Topic Closed Topic Closed) Post ReplyPost New Topic
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Jesus Garcia
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Posted: 18 December 2014 at 11:29am | IP Logged | 1  

I'm happy to read that a single comic book could sell 1,000,000.

Assuming speculators are largely dead and buried, that means that a million people are willing to read a single comic book.

So, there's a readership out there, providing that the material has appeal.

I wonder if the sale numbers we have been seeing in the last 15 years are a result of dilution. If Marvel / DC merged and produced less books (15 max a month) then their individual sales would be in the 250,000 units range.

I don't buy any new comics except Byrne or Larsen productions (hope no heads explode seeing those two names coupled like that). Go four times a year to pick up my reserves and -- for kicks -- go to the regular stands to see what's being published.

On first impressions, I am bewildered by the sameness of the material. Gloss, color, figures. Then I have to look hard to see what's Marvel, DC, or say Image. Even then, how do I know that is Bruce Wayne under the cape and cowl and not Alfred's long lost nephew ... or Steve Rogers returned from Earth-say-what????

Back in the early seventies when I started hunting comics, I NOTICED the Kirby, Kubert, Adams styles. There was a difference between the way Marvel and DC packaged (Loved the DC 100-page formats).

If I were the same kid today, I wouldn't know what to pick and choose from as it all looks the same. But, Star Wars WOULD call out to me!


Edited by Jesus Garcia on 18 December 2014 at 11:29am
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John Byrne
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Posted: 18 December 2014 at 12:06pm | IP Logged | 2  

I'm happy to read that a single comic book could sell 1,000,000.

Assuming speculators are largely dead and buried, that means that a million people are willing to read a single comic book.

So, there's a readership out there, providing that the material has appeal.

•••

And assuming each one of them has wings, they can FLY.

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Andrew W. Farago
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Posted: 18 December 2014 at 1:03pm | IP Logged | 3  

If Rocket Raccoon #1 can sell 300,000 copies on the strength of one movie, it's not hard to fathom Star Wars selling at least four or five times that with the full Disney machine backing it. 

If Star Wars were released with one lone cover, I'm sure it would still be ordered somewhere in the neighborhood of a million copies.  We don't know what the actual numbers are yet, either, just that it's north of a million several months before the comic hits stores.
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John Byrne
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Posted: 18 December 2014 at 1:37pm | IP Logged | 4  

If Star Wars were released with one lone cover, I'm sure it would still be ordered somewhere in the neighborhood of a million copies.

••

Ah, so you're figuring each sale was to someone who bought only ONE variant cover? Because, of course, experience has taught us that's so very often the case, right?

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Andrew W. Farago
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Posted: 18 December 2014 at 2:23pm | IP Logged | 5  

No, I'm saying that we don't know how many copies above and beyond one million are hitting shops.  Since Marvel's cagey about this stuff, I don't know how many standard covers are shipping and how many variants there are. 

A certain percentage of the whole print run will be variant covers, and there will be a certain percentage of ordering the standard cover so that retailers will be able to get the variants they want, but some of the variants are exclusive to particular retailers, so no one shop (or collector) will get every single variant. 

The five or so comic shops I visit regularly tend to get a handful of variant covers each month, for the collectors who really insist on getting them, but none of the shops in my area can afford to order books they know they aren't going to sell in order to get a few special covers they'll be able to sell at a premium.  Someone like Matt Hawes can weigh in on this, but most comic shops are running on such a tight margin that no one's ordering 100 copies of Star Wars that they know they won't be able to sell.

I know full well that one million copies of this won't be going to one million individual readers, but I'm also sure that this initial print run will sell out, that we'll see multiple printings (with more variants, undoubtedly).  And at four or five dollars a pop, fewer customers are buying stacks and stacks of comics as an investment anymore.  Are the same people who bought a stack of Jim Lee's X-Men #1 for $10 twenty-three years ago going to drop $50 for a comparable stack of Star Wars comics next year?
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Eric Ladd
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Posted: 18 December 2014 at 2:37pm | IP Logged | 6  

I think a single cover for this book would not hit 1 million copies for order. Obtaining all the covers from a single location would be impossible for a collector, but I strongly doubt retailers would order the same amount of copies if there was a single cover. I would think many retailers are inflating their orders to reach certain order thresholds for some of those covers. They will recoup the money from copies sitting around as coasters by selling the variant at a premium.
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Andrew W. Farago
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Posted: 18 December 2014 at 3:23pm | IP Logged | 7  

For comparison's sake, the last Marvel comic to sell a million copies was Punisher 2099 #1, about 22 years ago.  Foil cover, big marketing push, massive volume discounts, $1.75 cover price...that number feels way more inflated and artificial than the Star Wars number.  There aren't nearly as many multiple-copy buyers around now, and the comic shops with warehouses full of Adventures of Superman #500 and X-Men #1 and the polybagged X-Force #1 either learned their lesson about overordering based on hype or went extinct.
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Jesus Garcia
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Posted: 18 December 2014 at 3:39pm | IP Logged | 8  

Recently, I read about a comic book collector that had the misfortune of finding out what his comic book collection was truly worth. About a buck a comic or less. This regardless of the near-mint condition of his collection. I dunno what he had he his collection.

I say "misfortune" because the guy apparently expected to be able to sell this collection for retirement-level amounts.

So, if comic book collections indeed aren't worth that much anymore, it's no stretch to imagine that speculators who are always alive and well, have abandoned comics as a venue.

I feel speculation has moved into original art. Why dish out 300 dollars for a copy of FF 48, when you can (theoretically) purchase a page from FF?
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Matt Hawes
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Posted: 18 December 2014 at 7:23pm | IP Logged | 9  

 Jesus wrote:
...I feel speculation has moved into original art...


Speculation never truly left comics, even after the bust of the mid-1990s', and it's been on the rise again for the past decade. Who do you think is buying up all those variant covers, not just "Star Wars", but all the titles that have them (which, these days, is MOST of the titles)? And every time a movie or TV show based on a comic is rumored, look at the frenzy of speculators at shops and online buying, hoarding, and selling the comics the movie are TV show is based upon.

In the past over 18 years of running a shop, I can assure you, speculators are still out there in the market, and there's plenty of them.
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Stephen Robinson
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Posted: 18 December 2014 at 7:31pm | IP Logged | 10  

JESUS: Recently, I read about a comic book collector
that had the misfortune of finding out what his comic
book collection was truly worth. About a buck a comic or
less. This regardless of the near-mint condition of his
collection. I dunno what he had he his collection.

I say "misfortune" because the guy apparently expected
to be able to sell this collection for retirement-level
amounts.


SER: A lot of otherwise intelligent people think they
could make a fortune selling their comic book
collection. Where's the market? Generations of
"collectors" keeping their comics in "mint" condition,
so neither the books nor their condition is "rare." It's
like everyone forgot how supply and demand work.

My collection is priceless -- to me -- because of the
memories associated with the books from my youth. I've
mentioned that the comics I've purchased since I left my
parents' house I could easily part with as they don't
have the same nostalgic connection.

The reality, though, is that most of our collections
aren't worth a great deal if we tried to sell them but
would still cost an inordinate amount to replace. I'm
lucky that I still have Silver Age Superman comics that
I bought 25 years ago (when many of them were only 20
years old at the time!).
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Stephen Churay
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Posted: 18 December 2014 at 7:37pm | IP Logged | 11  

If Rocket Raccoon #1 can sell 300,000 copies on the strength of one
movie, it's not hard to fathom Star Wars selling at least four or five
times that with the full Disney machine backing it. 
======
Over a third of Rocket Raccoon sales are due to Loot Crate. Granted,
200,000 copies is huge in today's comic world, but at least 100,000 of
those were due to people who didn't want the issue per se. I'm curious
to know if the Star Wars issue is pack with the shipment.
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Andrew W. Farago
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Posted: 18 December 2014 at 11:32pm | IP Logged | 12  

Right, I'd forgotten about the Loot Crate thing.  Still, 200k copies for a character that even the most diehard comic fans barely knew about a few years ago is phenomenal.  The first issue's gone through multiple reprintings, too, which tells me that the demand from actual readers is there.

Second printings (all the way through seventh printings, on some books) have been a really heartening sign as far as giving me hope that more and more comics are being purchased by people who are actually reading them.  When a book like Ms. Marvel or Rocket Raccoon or Sex Criminals or Hawkeye keeps going back to press, it's because positive word of mouth has made people want to start reading a book right away, without waiting for the first trade paperback.  I feel like more and more, when I see people buying multiple copies of something at the comic shop, it's either because they worked on it or because they want their friends to check out a book.
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