Comments on: Mayo: “Sales Advances & Declines”

by: Paul O'Brien

Sun, 10 Feb 2008 16:38:49 +0000

We do see it from time to time on major Marvel/DC titles. DAREDEVIL climbed under Brian Bendis, and INCREDIBLE HULK climbed for quite a while under Bruce Jones (until people got bored of waiting for a pay-off and drifted away again). So it can be done.

However, it’s not the standard, and I think the tendency to write four-to-six-part storylines for trade paperback collections deters readers from jumping aboard halfway through an opening storyline. By the time storyline #2 comes along, the buzz has dissipated. Also, I think readers, writers and publishers have now developed a mentality that there is such a thing as a “jumping on point”, and that it is the exception to a “don’t bother, we’ve already started” norm.

I would suspect that readers who would at one point have started buying a series on the strength of good reviews and now making a mental note to buy the trade when it comes out in six months time. Whether they actually remember to do so is another matter.

by: Samy Merchi

Sun, 10 Feb 2008 07:55:30 +0000

Addendum: I think Invincible has done it in the modern climate.

by: Samy Merchi

Sun, 10 Feb 2008 07:50:27 +0000

Something that I raised a while ago was the question: “how long has standard attrition existed?” “Has there been a time when standard attrition did not exist and it was normal for books to gain from month to month?”

One of the particular books I was thinking about when I formulated the question was New Teen Titans, which supposedly was going downwards for the very early 1980 issues, and then around #8 or so — with no creative team change, no direction change, no nothing — started heading upwards.

You’d very rarely see something like that these days. But it does suggest that at least once in the comic book industry, it was possible for a book to totally turn itself onto the consumer base *without* a #1, without a creative team change, without deaths or rebirths, without anything other than good writing, and numbers would start to go up.

I’m sure that in history, there must be other times too when a comic book has steadily climbed in sales without any gimmicks.

Why don’t we have that today anymore? I think it’s a question worth exploring.

by: Paul O'Brien

Sat, 09 Feb 2008 01:03:14 +0000

Yup, that’s the pattern. Launch. Slow decline. Attention-grabbing new direction/creator. Slow decline. Repeat until cancelled, with the occasional variant cover, crossover and anniversary issue to provide a spike along the way.

I don’t see that as particularly unhealthy. Books live out their natural lifespan, fade away, and get replaced by different (or relaunched) books. The fact that the direct market is growing tends to suggest that this is a perfectly viable model.

by: The Beat

Fri, 08 Feb 2008 17:21:25 +0000

I don’t think these sales declines are showing any change in comics economics. As long as these figures have been tracked, the normal pattern for a comics is to decline every month. As our commenters call it “standard attrition.”

by: Rick Rottman

Fri, 08 Feb 2008 14:50:01 +0000

Back when DC and Marvel took steps to stop FM Z-Cult from posting trackers to comics, I wondered if downloading comics had any kind of measurable effect on comic sales. I found sales charts for the last ten years on Comics Buyer’s Guide

2004 - $328.25 million (6% increase)
2005 - $352.33 million (7% increase)
2006 - $395.55 million (12% increase)
2007 - $429.90 million (9% increase)

I only looked back as far as 2004 because that’s when FM Z-Cult went online. I seem to remember the yearly sales numbers mostly being negative before 2004, but I’m not sure. The numbers show that sales since 2004 have increased 31%.

by: Rakarich

Fri, 08 Feb 2008 13:51:37 +0000

It looks like “the quick buck era” of the big 2 is definitely showing it’s ill effects. In any business it’s been proven time and time again that the slow and steady wins the race. I hope the big 2 can/will change their business plans for long term growth.