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Michael Roberts
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| Posted: 28 September 2017 at 4:12am | IP Logged | 1
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But I think it's the profit level that's important, the percentage return on books, that's the key. And THAT may not be so good these days. Yeah, Captain Fonebone may have sold $40k of product this month... but EVERYBODY is getting paid more than when books were 40 cents as well, so what's the profit on the book? I believe THAT is the main issue.
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On the single issues, maybe. But now you have the digital market, which is almost zero expense, and the trade paperback market in traditional book channels, which is reprint material. Those are the segments that are growing.
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Matt Hawes
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| Posted: 28 September 2017 at 4:14am | IP Logged | 2
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Michael Roberts wrote:
| ...Your link does support his first statement that sales are better than they've been in a long time... |
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And yet, it goes against his claim that sales are better than they have ever been. But you knew that. Ever the contrarian, eh?
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
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| Posted: 28 September 2017 at 5:19am | IP Logged | 3
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For some reason this discussion reminds me of when Bill Jemas said HIDDEN YEARS had been cancelled because it was "the worst selling X-Men book ever!"Taken strictly at face value, that was true. XMHY pulled in around 45.000 sales per issue, which was less than half what UNCANNY was doing. Mind you, UNCANNY was selling around 10 or 20% of what it had during the "boom years," giving it the worst sales the title had ever experienced. (When the book was cancelled, in the early Seventies, it was selling close to 300,00!) So, it's all how we chose to skew it. HIDDEN YEARS was the lowest selling X-Men title at a time when all the sales were depressed, and many of Marvel's titles were actually selling less.
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Shane Matlock
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| Posted: 28 September 2017 at 5:52am | IP Logged | 4
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JB, check out what X-Men is selling these days. X-Men Blue and Gold were the big relaunches from just a few months ago. They're bi-weekly so this is four months in with new number 1 issues. (Not even sure what the Astonishing X-Men #1 is at the top of the charts to be honest but based on the sales of X-Men Gold and Blue from these charts, it'll be a third of that in just a few months.) Anyway, X-Men Gold #8 46,615 (ranked 20th). X-Men Blue #8 46,615 (rank 26th). (The latter one must be a misprint since it has the same sales as the former but is ranked 6 levels below it on the charts.) Anyway, yeah, comics are selling better than they ever have, guys! Even though the point they cancelled X-Men Hidden Years is now considered a top twenty or thirty comic for the flagship X-Men titles!
http://www.comicsbeat.com/marvel-month-to-month-sales-july-2 017-another-nail-in-the-coffin/
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Joe Zhang
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| Posted: 28 September 2017 at 8:07am | IP Logged | 5
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In the month of August retailers ordered just as many issues of Flash as the best selling regular X-Men book, Astonishing X-Men (50K). Twice as many, if you consider that Flash is published twice a month. This would have been unimaginable just a few years ago. Marvel should hang their heads in shame.
http://www.comichron.com/monthlycomicssales/2017/2017-08.htm l
Edited by Joe Zhang on 28 September 2017 at 8:10am
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Adam Schulman
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| Posted: 28 September 2017 at 5:28pm | IP Logged | 6
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AMAZING SPIDER-MAN is 18th?? Wow.
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Andy Mokler
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| Posted: 28 September 2017 at 8:55pm | IP Logged | 7
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In addition to TPB's and digital content being lumped in with comic sales, I think another important point is that "sales" means the comic shop bought them but that doesn't mean readers actually bought them.
My point being, since books aren't returnable to the distributor/publisher anymore, it skews the numbers. I suppose one could assume that the comic shops are being very accurate with their ordering and that sales numbers are close enough but I think there's a lot of back issues piling up that are being counted as sales that the comic shop is actually just getting stuck with because they over-ordered.
Also, there's more than one story I've heard, granted, during the '90's but still a possibility, of companies "buying" mountains of their books through a comic shop friend(front?) to skew publication sales numbers.
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Michael Roberts
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| Posted: 28 September 2017 at 9:02pm | IP Logged | 8
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...Your link does support his first statement that sales are better than they've been in a long time...----
And yet, it goes against his claim that sales are better than they have ever been. But you knew that. Ever the contrarian, eh?
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Yes, I did know that. That's why I said it supported his first statement. As opposed to his second statement.
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Michael Roberts
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| Posted: 28 September 2017 at 9:07pm | IP Logged | 9
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but I think there's a lot of back issues piling up that are being counted as sales that the comic shop is actually just getting stuck with because they over-ordered.
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I think it's more the case these days that shops only order for their pull list customers plus an extra few copies. I know I've stopped going to a couple of stores like that.
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Eric Jansen
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| Posted: 28 September 2017 at 9:11pm | IP Logged | 10
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Yeah. And some of those extras go in the back issue box at higher prices and others end up in the discount boxes. Sales probably even out (for the comic shop guy who knows what he's doing).
Edited by Eric Jansen on 29 September 2017 at 12:22am
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Shane Matlock
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| Posted: 29 September 2017 at 12:09am | IP Logged | 11
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The numbers are further skewed by the fact that shops have to order a certain amount of product to get the coveted variant covers, so indeed many of these issues go straight to dollar bins, just because the shop wanted to get the 25:1, 100:1 variant covers. Marvel's recent strategy where shops had to order a certain amount of product to get the lenticular covers seems to have irked a lot of comic shop owners. The thing is they are doing all this junk to increase sales and their individual title sales of their top tier books like X-Men, Avengers, Spider-Man are still in the crapper. DC is killing them on actual sales with far fewer gimmicks to drive up their sales figures. If it wasn't for the Star Wars comics which have been a pretty big hit for Marvel, their sales would be even worse.
Legacy seems to be a course correction for Marvel, much like Rebirth was for the readers DC gained and then quickly shed with bad product during New 52, but from what I've read, Marvel still hasn't learned their lesson with characters like the Jane Foster Thor and Amadeus Cho Hulk still being around even after Legacy. Would the Flash sell as well for DC if the new readers they gained from the show went to read the book and found a different person as the Flash in the comic? I doubt it. It's just confusing to someone that hasn't been reading comics for years and wants more of the character they are seeing in the tv shows or movies. But Marvel still thinks diversity is the way to go it seems despite sales figures to the contrary. I don't think it's just shoe-horning diversity by altering existing characters though that's the problem, but Marvel's tendency to give every single supporting character superpowers. At one point every Hulk supporting character has been a Hulk from Betty to Thunderbolt Ross to Rick to now Amadeus Cho. Why not just give everyone in the Marvel universe superpowers and be done with it?
The whole Marvel line these days seems to be one big poorly written What If?
Edited by Shane Matlock on 29 September 2017 at 1:04am
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Joe Zhang
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| Posted: 29 September 2017 at 4:50am | IP Logged | 12
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Fans are disappointed at Marvel's consistently poor output of the past couple years and recently they have taken to Youtube to vent. The comments section of the videos is full of discontentment, not even a peep of support for the company. Marvel Legacy is turning out to be a defiant doubling-down of the creative direction that fans are unhappy about. This is not going to end well.
Edited by Joe Zhang on 29 September 2017 at 4:50am
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