by Marc-Oliver Frisch

In May, DC Comics finally awoke from their year-long beauty sleep. Unfortunately, they seem to be getting up on the wrong side of the bed. The good news, now, is that the first two chapters of the much-hyped “Batman RIP” storyline made the Top 10. The bad news, as you may have heard, is that Final Crisis, the big blockbuster title they’d been building towards for the past two years, didn’t quite debut in the top slot. See below for an explanation. Apart from the two major projects, DC also launched another bunch of miniseries in May, none of which registered very high on the charts. May was also th first month in two years in which there was no weekly title from the company, so, perhaps not surprisingly, sales of the average DC periodical were slightly down from April, Final Crisis and “Batman RIP” notwithstanding.

With its remake of the old House of Mystery title, Vertigo saw its highest-selling ongoing series launch in almost four years. Due to a long tail of books selling below the 10,000 mark, though, this didn’t have much of an effect on the imprint’s average periodical sales. Over at the WildStorm sublabel, meanwhile, May was a disastrous month for periodicals. Because the WildStorm Universe line of superhero series kept tanking badly and only one of three new limited series based on licensed or creator-owned properties debuted with sales above 10,000 units, average WildStorm periodical numbers declined by almost twenty percent in May, dropping to a terrifying 9,812 copies - a new all-time low for the imprint.

See below for the details, and please mind the disclaimers at the end of the column. Thanks to Milton Griepp and ICv2.com for the permission to use their figures. An overview of ICv2.com’s estimates can be found here.

—–

2 - FINAL CRISIS
05/2008: Final Crisis #1 of 7 — 144,826

Final Crisis, by writer Grant Morrison and artist J.G. Jones, is, of course, DC’s big monster-whopper blockbuster juggernaut of the year. They’ve been building towards the book for quite some time, and it’s been widely expected to be the final litmus test for the current direction of the DC Universe line. Would Final Crisis validate DC’s year-long commitment and turn around the recent negative sales trends, or be final proof that DC were wrong to put all their eggs in one basket and have dropped the ball like a Dutch forward in the penalty box? That was the question. Looking at the May chart, and presuming that half the book’s print run didn’t fall off a truck somewhere, it seems we’re a little closer to the answer now. And for DC, it’s not a pleasant answer.

(more…)

By Paul O’Brien
The May sales charts have received a lot of attention already, and we all know what the big story is: FINAL CRISIS #1 triumphed for DC, vindicating the controversial direction of their superhero imprint, and proving the critics wrong.

Oh no, hold on. That’s Earth-2.

Here in the real world, FINAL CRISIS #1 tailed in around 40,000 copies behind SECRET INVASION #2, which caused a bit of a stir. And it was a strong month for Marvel all round. In addition to the summer crossover, May also saw the release of the Iron Man movie, the conclusion of Joss Whedon and John Cassaday’s ASTONISHING X-MEN, and the launch of AVENGERS/INVADERS (which turns out to be a bigger deal than I’d expected).

All of this means - and if you’re a devoted DC fan, you might want to look away now - that Marvel thrashed DC yet again, with a dollar share of 43% to DC’s 28%, and a unit share of 48% to 30%. And arguably, that’s a lot more damning than just comparing the figures of SECRET INVASION and FINAL CRISIS. Of course, to be fair, there’s a strong argument that DC should be happy with being number two. After all, they’ve still got around a third of the direct market. And they have imprints like Vertigo, CMX and Minx which could be selling well in other channels - Marvel has no equivalent of those. Still, the superhero books are an important part of DC’s line, and the gap between them and Marvel is starting to look more like a chasm.

Thanks as always to Milton Griepp and ICV2 for permission to use their figures for these calculations.

1.  SECRET INVASION
04/08  Secret Invasion #1 of 8 - 254,449
05/08  Secret Invasion #2 of 8 - 182,443  (-28.3%)

Marvel’s summer event book holds onto the top spot for the second month running. It has a comfortable margin over FINAL CRISIS #1, with estimated sales of 144,826. Most books tend to see their big sales drop with issue #2, so chances are that Marvel will keep the lead for the rest of the run.

The conventional interpretation is that FINAL CRISIS has underperformed. I’m not sure that’s entirely fair. After all, 145K would be a comfortable number one in most months, and it’s around 35K clear of NEW AVENGERS in the third slot. So let’s look at it from the other perspective. Hasn’t SECRET INVASION done unexpectedly well?

Marvel have spent months building up this story, and at first it didn’t seem to have much impact on sales. In the last couple of months, however, things have picked up. Satellite books like MS MARVEL have seen big increases. The core title is comfortably outperforming last year’s WORLD WAR HULK, which debuted with first month sales of 178,408, before dropping to 155,322 in the second month.

If SECRET INVASION and FINAL CRISIS had both sold 145K with their first issue, nobody would have been particularly shocked by that. So let’s be fair: this gap is as much due to SECRET INVASION doing well, as FINAL CRISIS doing badly.

It’s not unqualified good news for Marvel, though. That 28% drop is on the steep side. In comparison, WORLD WAR HULK dropped 18% in its second month; CIVIL WAR, only 9%. And the re-orders aren’t spectacular. Issue #1 picks up only 4,186 extra copies (as usual, included above). However, that might be misleading - SECRET INVASION #1 came out in the first week of April, so three weeks of re-orders will have been included in the April chart.

Still, it’s possible retailers might have overdone it a bit with this series, and we might see some further downward corrections over the next few months. But even if that happens, we’re only talking about sales dropping from “astronomical” to “very good indeed.”

(more…)

Dick Kyacinth returns and looks at this week’s sales numbers:

I certainly have had my reservations about Final Crisis, but I found the first issue to be pretty good, mostly due to the pervasive, foreboding atmosphere that Grant Morrison and JG Jones established. Of course, my reaction to the comic has very little to do with Direct Market sales, but it’s still kind of surprising to see this kind of differential. I was under the impression that folks were underwhelmed by the whole Skrull infiltration storyline, especially compared to the prospect of a Morrison/Jones epic. And DC has been promoting Final Crisis as the culmination of several years worth of stories for quite some time now, whereas Secret Invasion just seemed like the sort of by-the-numbers crossover that would have been relegated to a summer’s worth of annuals back in the early 1990s.

But maybe that’s what people want right now, for whatever reason. I think it’s worth considering that something as simple as an Invasion of the Body Snatchers rehash might seem somewhat appealing compared to what DC has been dishing out over the last year or so. In fact, it’s probably time to consider the damage done by the Countdown miniseries and its related spinoffs. As Marc-Oliver Frisch and others have noted, a book selling 70,000 copies every week is nothing to sneeze at, even if DC expected those numbers to be about 15,000-20,000 higher. On the other hand, Countdown may have done some substantial harm to DC as a brand in the Direct Market.

Val rounds up more chatter.

ICv2’s May Sales figures are up and it isn’t all that fab:

Sales of periodical comics declined in May for the fourth month in a row posting a 6% drop compared with sales in May of 2007 when, led by the Death of Captain America, some 15 titles sold over 100,000 copies (versus just 7 in May 2008). Still periodical comics posted a 7% gain from April, though it was not enough to compete with May 2007. For the second month in a row graphic novel sales declined and actually dropped more precipitously than periodical comics.

More charts and graphs:
Top 300 Comics May 2008
Top 100 Graphic Novels May 2008
Top 300 sales analysis

John Mayo’s monthly sales analysis is also up at CBR, and SECRET INVASION #2 beat FINAL CRISIS #1 200,344 to 159,036 by his estimates. That is not good news for DC.

by Marc-Oliver Frisch

Looking at the pertinent facts and carefully weighing all the available data, it can be safely concluded that, at DC Comics, April was the month before May. The year-long weekly Countdown to Final Crisis concluded, and so did several other storylines, creative runs and limited series. The book that was probably the publisher’s highest seller for the month, the 50-cent primer DC Universe #0, didn’t show up on the charts, because Diamond Comic Distributors don’t count promotional comics. The most prominent DC Universe launch in April was Judd Winick and Ian Churchill’s new Titans series, joined further down the charts by the intra-company crossover book DC/WildStorm: Dreamwar and the manga take Batman: Death Mask. In other words, few things started, and many kept winding down in preparation for May’s Final Crisis.

At Vertigo, Harvey Pekar’s American Splendor came back for another round, but didn’t get the imprint’s average periodical sales out of the hole between 10 and 11K they’ve been stuck in for the past six months. In fairness, though, May’s House of Mystery and June’s Madame Xanadu probably have a better chance to achieve that. At WildStorm, licensed horror properties Supernatural and Friday the 13th returned for an encore, and The Number of the Beast took its stab at revamping the struggling WildStorm Universe line. See below for the details, and please mind the disclaimers at the end of the column. Thanks to Milton Griepp and ICv2.com for the permission to use their figures. An overview of ICv2.com’s estimates can be found here.

—–

9 - JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA
04/2001: JLA #53            —  68,603*
04/2002: JLA #65            —  61,929*
04/2003: JLA #80            —  60,141
04/2004: JLA #96            —  70,377 [71,546]
04/2004: JLA #97            —  68,170 [70,446]
04/2005: JLA #113           —  64,002
————————————–
04/2007: Justice League #7  — 154,984 (+19.1%)
04/2007: Justice League #8  — 130,365 (-15.9%)
05/2007: Justice League #9  — 129,285 (- 0.8%)
06/2007: Justice League #10 — 129,265 (- 0.0%)
07/2007: Justice League #11 — 122,823 (- 5.0%)
08/2007: Justice League #12 — 131,420 (+ 7.0%) [137,181]
09/2007: Justice League #13 — 119,471 (- 9.1%) [124,006]
10/2007: Justice League #14 — 101,763 (-14.8%)
11/2007: –
12/2007: Justice League #15 — 100,234 (- 1.5%)
12/2007: Justice League #16 —  95,557 (- 4.7%)
01/2008: Justice League #17 —  94,712 (- 0.9%)
02/2008: Justice League #18 —  89,803 (- 5.2%)
03/2008: Justice League #19 —  87,482 (- 2.6%)
04/2008: Justice League #20 —  85,807 (- 1.9%)
—————-
6 months: -15.7%
1 year  : -44.6%
2 years :  n.a.
5 years : +42.7%

Sales on DC’s bestselling monthly title are settling into a standard decline. The book’s days beyond the 100,000 unit mark seem to be over for the time being, but it’s still selling at a very good level for a Justice League series, as the comparisons with JLA show.

As mentioned in the introduction, Justice League of America #20 probably wasn’t DC’s bestselling periodical in April. That honor likely goes to DC Universe #0, which was meant - and just in time for Free Comic Book Day, too - to set up Final Crisis. The reason why DC Universe #0 is not on the chart is that it’s a promotional comic with a cover price of 50 cents, and Diamond stopped listing those.

(more…)

By Paul O’Brien

The event season is upon us again, and Marvel hit the ground running with the first issue of SECRET INVASION. There aren’t too many tie-in issues in this first month, but the crossover still gets off to an impressive start. If you’ve been waiting for event fatigue to set in - well, it looks like you’re going to be waiting for a little while longer.

April also saw the debut issue of YOUNG X-MEN, the final title to be launched on the back of the X-books’ recent “Messiah Complex” crossover. Otherwise, though, Marvel had gave SECRET INVASION #1 a pretty clear run. To be quite honest, once you start heading further down the chart, it’s not a particularly eventful month.

As usual, Marvel dominated the direct market, beating DC by a whopping 44% to 30% in unit share, and 40% to 27% in dollar share. Of course, that partly reflects the fact that FINAL CRISIS hadn’t started yet - and, to be fair, the unit share would probably have been a lot closer if DC UNIVERSE #0 had been eligible for the charts.

Thanks as always to Milton Griepp and ICV2 for permission to use their figures for these calculations.

1.  SECRET INVASION
04/08  Secret Invasion #1 of 8 - 250,263

An excellent start for the latest big event book. The first month sales for CIVIL WAR #1, back in May 2006, were 260,804, so we’re very much in the same league here. Last year’s WORLD WAR HULK, in contrast, debuted with only 178,408. So from the look of it, this is a winner. And when the tie-in books really start to roll, Marvel should have another sales juggernaut on their hands.

2.  NEW AVENGERS
04/03  Avengers #66     -  58,312
04/04  Avengers #81     -  54,987
04/05  New Avengers #5  - 162,412
04/06  New Avengers #18 - 121,550
=====
04/07  New Avengers #29 - 125,378  (  +4.9%)
05/07  New Avengers #30 - 126,425  (  +0.8%)
06/07  New Avengers #31 - 172,684  ( +36.6%)
07/07  New Avengers #32 - 122,991  ( -28.8%)
08/07  New Avengers #33 - 117,906  (  -4.1%)
09/07  New Avengers #34 - 112,815  (  -4.3%)
10/07  New Avengers #35 - 111,481  (  -1.2%)
11/07  New Avengers #36 - 107,715  (  -3.4%)
12/07  New Avengers #37 - 105,545  (  -2.0%)
01/08  —
02/08  New Avengers #38 - 104,140  (  -1.3%)
03/08  New Avengers #39 - 103,046  (  -1.1%)
04/08  New Avengers #40 - 110,470  (  +7.2%)
                           6 mnth  (  -0.9%)
                           1 year  ( -13.5%)
                           2 year  (  -9.1%)
                           3 year  ( -32.0%)
                           4 year  (
+100.9%)
                           5 year  ( +89.4%)

This is a Secret Invasion tie-in, and at first glance the climb might seem a bit low. After all, issue #31 was promoted as the first major issue of the storyline, and it sold 172K. But that was a lynchpin issue, and this is simply a tie-in. We saw something similar in 2006, when NEW AVENGERS had much smaller gains from its CIVIL WAR tie-ins than other books - presumably because it was selling so well to start with.

(more…)

John Jackson Miller has posted his April 2008 sales estimates via Diamond. Jackson relates that although several categories were down, over all backlist propelled sales over a year ago:

Overall, the comics industry fared better against last April — but only overall. Comparatives in the narrower categories remain slightly down, even considering this April had five ship weeks (versus four last year). But the backlist strength bumped the overall category up 6% this month — with the year-to-date now ahead by nearly $1 million, or 1%.

Also via Simon Jones, ComicsSnob looks at an overview of 2007 manga sales in Japan:

Bullet Points:
# Japanese manga sales slip another 2.3% in 2007, but
# the medium is gaining currency as a tool of Soft Power diplomacy
# …and increased academic and scholarly attention.

There’s much more in the link, not all of it presented in a way our addled mind could comprehend, but this did stand out:

Aside: for the record, I think manga sales in Japan will continue to drop by ~5% a year until digital distribution becomes more than just a novelty, and is instead firmly established as the ‘third format’ — which will happen in Japan where the weekly/monthly ‘phone books’ are already largely considered to be disposable/recyclable media (and where everyone has a super-awesome cell phone that not only displays manga but also, in a pinch, can open an exploding Gate and be thrown at invading aliens) but not in the States where the nearest equivalent to the throw-away manga magazines are instead polybagged (don’t forget a cardboard backer) and sold at significant mark-up on e-bay — these are two completely different business models, folks, so unfortunately, no digital superheroes for you.

by Marc-Oliver Frisch

For DC Comics, March was another slack month in the periodical business. More than ten ongoing titles were slated for cancellation across the publisher’s various lines, and numerous finite projects were in their final stages, with new ones waiting around the corner to replace them over the next several months. There were no major new releases in the DC Universe line of mainstream superhero titles in March, but DC suffered from late books again. With Action Comics, Batman and Justice Society of America, three of the company’s major titles failed to come out. The fact that sales of both the average DC Comics periodical and the average DC Universe periodical were the lowest they’d been in more than three years didn’t come as a great surprise, consequently. Over a five-year period, though, both averages remain slightly up.

At the publisher’s Vertigo imprint, which accounts for four of the ten titles due to be cancelled, writer/artist David Lapham’s ongoing series Young Liars debuted, while the WildStorm sublabel had the launch of two miniseries belonging to its troubled WildStorm Universe line of superhero titles. The average periodical sales of both imprints display massive losses in the neighborhood of 30 percent over the past five years. In response, Vertigo appears to be focusing more strongly on original graphic novels in the future, while more licensed and creator-owned projects are in the pipeline at WildStorm. See below for the details, and please mind the disclaimers at the end of the column. Thanks to Milton Griepp and ICv2.com for the permission to use their figures. An overview of ICv2.com’s estimates can be found here.

—–

7 - JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA
03/2001: JLA #52            —  67,382*
03/2002: JLA #64            —  61,871*
03/2003: JLA #79            —  61,589
03/2004: JLA #94            —  76,134 [77,822]
03/2004: JLA #95            —  69,898 [73,620]
03/2005: JLA #112           —  64,790
————————————–
03/2007: Justice League #6  — 130,099 (- 1.8%) [131,754]
04/2007: Justice League #7  — 154,984 (+19.1%)
04/2007: Justice League #8  — 130,365 (-15.9%)
05/2007: Justice League #9  — 129,285 (- 0.8%)
06/2007: Justice League #10 — 129,265 (- 0.0%)
07/2007: Justice League #11 — 122,823 (- 5.0%)
08/2007: Justice League #12 — 131,420 (+ 7.0%) [137,181]
09/2007: Justice League #13 — 119,471 (- 9.1%) [124,006]
10/2007: Justice League #14 — 101,763 (-14.8%)
11/2007: –
12/2007: Justice League #15 — 100,234 (- 1.5%)
12/2007: Justice League #16 —  95,557 (- 4.7%)
01/2008: Justice League #17 —  94,712 (- 0.9%)
02/2008: Justice League #18 —  89,803 (- 5.2%)
03/2008: Justice League #19 —  87,482 (- 2.6%)
—————-
6 months: -26.8%
1 year  : -32.8%
2 years :   n.a.
5 years : +42.0%

The last two issues tied in with the Salvation Run miniseries that was announced as a major event last summer. Given that Salvation Run failed to deliver commercially, it’s not much of a surprise that there’s no discernible effect on Justice League sales.

Historically, these numbers are still sound, however, despite the recent decline since novelist Brad Meltzer ended his run back in August.
(more…)

By Paul O’Brien

After a quiet couple of months, March saw Marvel starting to gear up again. In fact, there’s only one really big new title this month - DARK TOWER, which returns for a second miniseries. But there’s also the launch of two new monthly series, CABLE and WOLVERINE: FIRST CLASS. And although SECRET INVASION itself won’t show up until the April chart, the first tie-ins are starting to to crop up.

Once again, Marvel dominated the direct market, leading DC by 44% to 32% in units and 39% to 30% in dollars. And this is before the big crossover season even gets under way, remember.

Thanks as always to Milton Griepp and ICV2 for permission to use their figures for these calculations.

1.  DARK TOWER
03/07  Gunslinger Born #2 of 7 - 168,258  (-22.4%)
04/07  Gunslinger Born #3 of 7 - 149,168  (-11.3%)
05/07  Gunslinger Born #4 of 7 - 139,545  ( -6.5%)
06/07  Gunslinger Born #5 of 7 - 132,090  ( -5.3%)
07/07  Gunslinger Born #6 of 7 - 128,336  ( -2.8%)
08/07  Gunslinger Born #7 of 7 - 124,609  ( -2.9%)
09/07  —
10/07  —
11/07  —
12/07  —
01/08  —
02/08  —
03/08  Long Road Home #1 of 5  - 123,839  ( -0.6%)
                                  6 mnth  (  — )
                                  1 year  (-26.4%)

The first DARK TOWER miniseries was a huge hit for Marvel in 2007, a rare example of a book with obvious mass market appeal which also sold in huge quantities in the direct market. While the first series was mostly an adaptation of Stephen King’s novel WIZARD AND GLASS, the new series is original material. The first issue comes in below the final issue of GUNSLINGER BORN, but only just. Diminishing returns are to be expected with sequels, and besides, 124K for a debut issue is a good performance by any standards. Marvel should be very satisfied with this number.

(more…)

ICv2 has the March numbers and they are not great, prompting us to steal — for the first of what will doubtless be countless times — Vaneta Rogers’ photos of the Morrison/Jones duo. ICV2 continues:

Sales of comics to the direct market by Diamond Comic Distributors slipped 7% in the first quarter of 2008 vs. the year ago period, the first quarterly drop since Q4 of 2004, when comic sales were down 4%. Graphic novel sales were up 5% for the quarter, ameliorating the over-all decline to 5% for the quarter in combined comic and graphic novel dollars. Q1 2008 was also the first over-all decline since Q4 of 2004, when combined comic and graphic novel sales were down 3% vs. the year ago period.

March was the ugliest month of the quarter for comic sales, with a 15% drop in comic sales vs. March 2007. Graphic novels were up 4%, bringing the over-all annual rate of change to a positive 4% for the month.

The comparison is a WEE bit unfair, since last March was the month of the Captain America $26 insanity — but a drop in sales is still a drop in sales. More:

Periodical analysis
Top 300 comics
Top 100 graphic novels.

We’re been behind on the regular news with all the con stuff going on, but the latest blog entry from Paul Levitz is . always worth noting. In this one Paul has many interesting points of DC history, particularly in regards to artists contracts. He also responds to some of the criticism of his analysis of book sales:

A few people here and elsewhere seemed to take issue with my comment that manga was more “increasingly dominated by a handful of properties” than American graphic novels. I went back and checked a bit, and for the fourth quarter last year, something north of 20% of bookstore manga sales came from four properties, and over 40 of the top 50 titles were from those four. That seems pretty concentrated to me, and more so than our core business, so I’ll stand by the comment.

Jakala responds to this

Again, looking at the Bookscan numbers, it’s hard to see how American genre graphic novels could drive readers to more titles. If you cut the list off above 100, very little of DC’s “core business” is represented; and if you expand the list further down the long tail, more and more manga series pop up, overwhelming any showing by American genre graphic novels. Just because a handful of manga series dominate the top 50 doesn’t mean your company is doing anything more diverse within that same space.

but ends with Levitz himself writing to explain:

that his observations were based on a comparison between two different sources: Q4 2007 sales figures in both bookstores and the Direct Market for American GNs; and Q4 2007 Bookscan numbers alone for manga. Based on these sources, Levitz concluded that American genre graphic novels represent a broader range of distinct properties than manga does. (When I asked about the issue of comparing apples and oranges with the different markets, Levitz pointed out that “Bookscan is a fair model in miniature for total manga sales” so he felt it was fair to extrapolate based on these data alone.)

There’s a lot to be said about all of this that we don’t have time to get into right now, but today’s white paper from Milton Griepp should be very interesting, especially since Griepp had this to say in an interview at PWCW:

MG: The market is maturing and it’s become even more important for publishers to understand just what the market’s underlying trends are in order to be competitive. Growth in the graphic novel market has slowed down and the internal dynamics of the mix of products is changing. While the dollars are not growing, growth in the number of titles has not changed. Retail looks good, titles continue to grow so there’s more stuff for the retailers to sell.

In sum, while arguing over product mix and chart depth may seem nitpicky, it’s actually what publishers are really going to have to concentrate on in the future as shelf space — and recession-tightened consumer dollars–remain static.

by Marc-Oliver FrischThe big DC Comics release in February was… ah, nothing. The biggest news across the publisher’s various imprints were a new creative team on The Spirit, an Astro City special and a new Johnny DC title. Although DC’s average periodical sales recovered slightly from their gigantic January slump, the company’s DC Universe line is basically holding its breath until April’s DC Universe: Zero one-shot kicks off the new event season. At Vertigo, similarly, three new ongoing series are in the pipeline from March through June. And at WildStorm, the WildStorm Universe line is in the process of another revamp until July, while more licensed and creator-owned titles are on the way.

In other words, DC Comics’ entire periodical business is in the middle of a major transitional phase right now, and it’s going to take another six months to get a reasonably good idea where things are heading. See below for the details, and please mind the disclaimers at the end of the column.

Thanks to Milton Griepp and ICv2.com for the permission to use their figures. An overview of ICv2.com’s estimates can be found here.

—–

6 - ALL STAR BATMAN & ROBIN, THE BOY WONDER
02/2006: –
—————————————
02/2007: –
03/2007: –
04/2007: –
05/2007: All Star Batman #5  — 114,302 (-28.7%)
06/2007: –
07/2007: All Star Batman #6  — 105,991 (- 7.3%)
08/2007: –
09/2007: All Star Batman #7  — 100,582 (- 5.1%)
10/2007: –
11/2007: All Star Batman #8  —  97,037 (- 3.5%)
12/2007: –
01/2008: –
02/2008: All Star Batman #9  —  93,766 (- 3.4%)
—————-
6 months:  n.a.
1 year  :  n.a.
2 years :  n.a.

The book’s first arc concluded in February, after a measly two-and-a-half years. While All Star Batman seems to have settled into a more moderate decline since returning from its hiatus in July, it’s still not exactly what you’d call a stable performer. Given that it’s a Batman comic by Frank Miller and Jim Lee, in any event, these sales are quite disappointing. The fact that it’s still DC’s top-selling title says more about the current weakness of their overall line than about the book’s own merits.

As always, All Star Batman sales were supported with a 1-for-10 variant cover edition, which means that retailers had to buy ten copies of the regular edition to be able to buy one variant comic.

—–
(more…)

By Paul O’Brien

After the chaos of the January chart, we’re back to normal in February. And it’s a pretty quiet month. For Marvel, this is a lull between crossovers. We’ve had the Spider-Man relaunch, we’ve had “Messiah Complex”, WORLD WAR HULK is way in the past, and SECRET INVASION isn’t here yet.

However, we do have a small number of new launches, two of them from Mark Millar. Firstly, he’s reunited with Bryan Hitch as the new creative team on FANTASTIC FOUR. And then there’s KICK-ASS, his creator-owned title, which is appearing under Marvel’s Icon imprint. We’ve also got the first issue of the revived X-FORCE and… well, there are some scattered minis and one-shots too. But basically, this is a month of consolidation, where we start to see how recent launches and relaunches are going to bed down.

As usual, Marvel had the biggest share of the direct market. They beat DC by 38% to 30% in dollar share, and 42% to 33% in units.

Thanks as always to Milton Griepp and ICV2 for permission to use their figures for these calculations.

And so, let us ceremonially crown Mark Millar and Byran Hitch’s FANTASTIC FOUR as the number one title for February.

1.  X-FORCE
02/08  X-Force #1 - 105,149

Oh.

Didn’t see that one coming, to be honest. Aside from the fact that I was expecting FANTASTIC FOUR to top the chart, I had this book figured for the lower end of the top ten. But apparently “Messiah Complex” did a better job of promoting this new series than I gave it credit for, and the variant covers don’t hurt.

Realistically, I don’t see X-FORCE continuing to outperform the other X-Men books. I expect it to settle at a lower level fairly quickly. But this is certainly an excellent start, which suggests the book has a bright future ahead of it. This also bodes well for the upcoming CABLE series, which was also heavily trailed in “Messiah Complex.”

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John Jackson Miller does his usual insightful number crunching with February’s sale numbers:

…the February 2008 Top 300 as a group…sold 1.22 million more copies than the February 2001 grouping, an increase of 24%. Why? Mid-list strength. The 5,000-copy mark was at 191st place in February 2001; today, it’s at 226th place. The major publishers are simply offering more titles now than they were then. Last month, DC had 88 offerings in the Top 300, and Marvel had 83. Back in February 2001, DC had 73 — and Marvel had 42!

The major publishers’ slates were actually smaller in February 2008 than they had been in recent months — the top five publishers placed 232 comics in the Top 300, versus 246 in January. The result was that 32 publishers made the Top 300, a larger number than in a while. One new publisher made the list for the first time: the numerically named Th3rdworld, whose Space Doubles #1 came in 300th place.

This is just a tiny TASTE of the analysis Miller offers. For instance, he even looks at a 20-year comparison in sales:

While overall sales projections for individual months of 1988 remain even further off — though there is data, which remains to be crunched — some facts are known about individual issues. With multiple distributors and few reporting sales, determining the top comic book from sales charts is not straightforward, but the top comic book for February 1988 was likely Uncanny X-Men #231.

Marvel sold 260,800 copies of the issue to direct market distributors. Initial orders from Capital City Distribution are known to have been 67,200 copies, or 25.8% of the total direct market orders. The direct market accounted for 64% of Marvel’s sales of the issue, which had final newsstand sales of 99,800 copies of the issue and 48,900 copies in subscription, foreign, and other special markets sales. The total sales for the issue, 409,500 copies, was very close to the average of 408,925 copies Marvel reported to the Postal Service for all Uncanny X-Men issues in 1988. Average print runs for the title for the year were 633,760 copies, suggesting that wastage for Uncanny X-Men #231 in the newsstand market was on the order of 69%. Marvel printed approximately three copies to sell one.

More charts and graphs we can barely understand in the link.

DC COMICS MONTH-TO-MONTH SALES: JANUARY 2008
by Marc-Oliver Frisch

With Justice League of America, DC Comics only had one book selling above 70,000 units in January. As a consequence, the publisher’s average periodical sales saw a steep drop, falling to around 27,000, their lowest level since January 2005. Similarly, average sales of the company’s DC Universe line, which makes up the bulk of their releases, dropped to around 33,000, also the lowest they’ve been in three years. Then again, not much was happening at DC’s mainstream line in January: There just were a couple of Teen Titans spin-off books and new creative teams on Robin and Nightwing. The general consensus right now seems to be that much is hinging on the upcoming Final Crisis blockbuster series for DC’s periodical business. Based on the publisher’s recent performance, it’s hard to disagree.

DC’s Vertigo sublabel, meanwhile, saw the release of Y: The Last Man #60, which marks the conclusion of the imprint’s best-selling periodical. Despite a moderate increase for the final issue, however, average Vertigo sales dropped to yet another historical low in January. At DC Comics’ WildStorm department, things look a little bit more encouraging. With the licensed books World of WarCraft and Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash, WildStorm finally seem to have two much-needed breakout titles in their stable again. On the other hand, WildStorm: Revelations, the latest attempt to breathe new life into the flagging WildStorm Universe line of superhero titles, is being met with total apathy. See below for the details, and please consider the disclaimers at the bottom of the column.

Thanks to Milton Griepp and ICv2.com for the permission to use their figures. An overview of ICv2.com’s estimates can be found here.

—–

11 - JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA
01/2002: JLA #62            —  63,345*
01/2003: JLA #77            —  60,405*
01/2004: JLA #92            —  58,008
01/2005: JLA #110           —  64,094
01/2006: JLA #124           —  74,069
————————————–
01/2007: –
02/2007: –
03/2007: Justice League #6  — 130,099 (- 1.8%) [131,754]
04/2007: Justice League #7  — 154,984 (+19.1%)
04/2007: Justice League #8  — 130,365 (-15.9%)
05/2007: Justice League #9  — 129,285 (- 0.8%)
06/2007: Justice League #10 — 129,265 (- 0.0%)
07/2007: Justice League #11 — 122,823 (- 5.0%)
08/2007: Justice League #12 — 131,420 (+ 7.0%) [137,181]
09/2007: Justice League #13 — 119,471 (- 9.1%) [124,006]
10/2007: Justice League #14 — 101,763 (-14.8%)
11/2007: –
12/2007: Justice League #15 — 100,234 (- 1.5%)
12/2007: Justice League #16 —  95,557 (- 4.7%)
01/2008: Justice League #17 —  94,712 (- 0.9%)
—————-
6 months: -22.9%
1 year  :   n.a.
2 years : +27.9%

DC’s highest-selling monthly title seems to have found its level upwards of 90k. That’s still a very good level for Justice League of America, historically.

For the record, the lead story in issue #17 was by guest writer Alan Burnett, who also handles the lead story for #18 and the whole of #19. The name change in the solicitations doesn’t seem to have had much of an impact on the orders, though.

And that’s the only DC Comics release selling more than 70,000 units in the North American direct market in January, according to ICv2.com’s estimates. In theory, Justice Society of America, All Star Superman and All Star Batman also fall in the area between 100,000 and 75,000 units. But the latter two don’t come out regularly, and Justice Society was a week late and missed its January shipping date, so this is what we’re left with.

As far as new books which can realistically be expected to shift around - or even close to - 100,000 copies are concerned, well… there’s nothing on the agenda until Grant Morrison and J.G. Jones’ blockbuster series Final Crisis launches in May, it seems.
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by Paul O’Brien

Yes, I know it’s March. But as you may know, the original version of the January charts was way, way off - so crazily haywire that we looked through them and decided not to bother. But then Diamond recalculated, and this version actually makes sense. So here we go.

Marvel had two major projects for January - the new HULK series, and the relaunch of AMAZING SPIDER-MAN as a thrice-monthly title. Elsewhere, “Messiah Complex” continues in the X-books, the Young Avengers are back, and there’s somebody new in the Captain America costume.

Once again, Marvel comfortably beat DC in terms of their share of the direct market. In units, it’s 44% to 31% - in dollars, 41% to 29%. Bit of a thumping, really.

Thanks as always to Milton Griepp and ICV2 for permission to use their figures for these calculations.

1.  HULK
01/08  Hulk #1 - 134,002

Officially, this is a whole new HULK series. However, at the same time, Marvel insist that the previous INCREDIBLE HULK series has been permanently reassigned to Hercules. So actually, this is a continuation of INCREDIBLE HULK, and Marvel have taken the odd decision to launch a new monthly Hercules title through the back door. We’ll see how that worked out later on.

INCREDIBLE HULK peaked at 120K during the “World War Hulk” crossover, so this is a good start for the new creative team of Jeph Loeb and Ed McGuinness. Bear in mind that until the last year or so, INCREDIBLE HULK consistently sold below 50,000, so Marvel’s focus on the character has really paid dividends.
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As previously suspected, January sales figures released by Diamond were elevated due to a technical glitch, ICv2 reports.

Corrected figures are now available and rather than the previously reported 7% gain in periodical sales, they were actually just up 1% over January 2007, while graphic novels were up a modest 3%, not the gaudy 17% that was previously reported. Still nine comic titles sold over 100,000 copies (versus just six in December) and periodical sales did outpace (however slightly) a strong January of 2007, which posted a 26% gain over January of 2006.

The 3% increase in graphic novel sales continued to outpace gains in the sales of periodicals, continuing a trend that was apparent through most of 2007. But the gain in graphic novels was not enough to move the combined sales of comics and graphic novels above the 1% mark.

Corrected figures: Top 300 Comics Actual–January 2008

Top 100 Graphic Novels Actual–January 2008

The Great Bookscan debate continues. Rich Johnston has helpfully leaked the actual chart so everyone can play along at home. ADD, Brian Hibbs and Dick Hyacinth all weigh in with second third or 99th rounds — to be honest we’re beginning to get flustered and lose count.

We would agree that the argument over the definition of terms like mainstream, indie and art is getting a little silly, and everyone’s pre-existing conditions are making themselves heard loud and clear, as when ADD turns this

Also worth considering is how perception of Bone has changed over time. When it first debuted, it was so different, so much better than the vast majority of comics, that I think one might have been justified in lumping it in with Eightball or Yummy Fur (I know I did, back in my late teen years). Today, with the massive success of the Scholastic printings and the sheer number of similar works (many inspired by Jeff Smith), it’s harder to classify it that way.

into this

Dick Hyacinth looks at the Bookscan kerfuffle, and is sharp enough to understand exactly why Bone is an art comic, which some people you would think would know better weren’t able to quite wrap their brain around.

It’s getting so we’re almost ready to turn it all over to the brave few like John Mayo and John Jackson Miller who just crunch numbers on a higher, Euclidian plane.

Just to beat out own hobby horse again, yes, we know that Bookscan figures don’t tell the whole story, and they shouldn’t be used to paint a much-beloved graphic novel as a failure just because it sold “only 5000″ copies according to Bookscan. The point is that D&Q and Fantagraphics are publishing very successful books that are selling healthy amounts of copies even though they sell “only 5000″ copies on Bookscan. In that regard, this piece from Slate by Daniel Gross from a few years ago is must reading: Why writers never reveal how many books their buddies have sold.:
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In case you missed the discussion going on in our comment section, the comparative sales charts for January have been delayed because the numbers from Diamond are a bit odd. Marc-Oliver Frisch explains:

For the record, if you’re waiting for the January month-to-month sales columns, it’ll probably be a while. Since everyone’s fairly sure now that there’s been a glitch in Diamond’s source data, we’re holding off on the columns until the numbers have been corrected.

Looking at the Top 300 charts, there are a few very odd things going on. Not only does there seem to be an inexplicable five-percent increase across the board, as I noted a few days ago, but the index points for individual books also seem to be a mess.

We’ll keep you posted.

Newsarama has started a new columns by noted sales figure collector John Jackson Miller. there is much to absorb in his maiden outing, but here’s a snippet: then and now.

January 2008 sales are up over those of January 1998, a month from deep in the comics recession when the “dead quarter” very definitely lived up to its name.

Jan. 2008 final orders versus Jan. 1998 preorders (est.)
Top 300 units: +3% (7.18 million copies vs. 7 million copies)
Top 300 dollars: +34% ($22.33 million vs. $16.6 million)
Average cost of comics in the Top 300: +23% ($3.22 vs. $2.61)
Average cost of comics in the Top 300, weighted by orders: +31% ($3.11 vs. $2.38)

Most, but not all, of the difference in dollars represented by the Top 300 comes from the increase in cover prices. But the overall market is certainly larger today — Diamond did not release indexed trade paperback data for the month, but the category was certainly far smaller than it is now.

Perhaps the biggest thing to happen while we were away was this wholescale lid-ripping by Brian Hibbs who gets hold of the Bookscan graphic novelssales chart for all of 2007 and analyses the top 750 items. We’ve seen Dirk’s response, and a briefer analysis by Tom Spurgeon, but we’re still digesting the numbers and don’t want to rush our own findings.

In any event, Hibbs does the unthinkable and reveals actual sales numbers on a ton of books — we’ve seen numbers from time to time, but this is a wholescale rumble. We’ll have our own comments tomorrow but in the meantime, here’s the most quoted part of Hibbs’ piece:

Not one of the Minx titles makes the Top 750, nor does any CMX title except for Megatokyo, which is OEL. Looking deep into the Long Tail, Minx’s Plain Janes sells 3201 copies, none of the other four Minx titles even manages to crack a meager 800 copies sold in the bookstore environment. Aren’t those books specifically designed for the bookstores, and the customers that shop there?

There’s a lot of conventional wisdom that suggests that things like the Minx and Vertigo books sell oodles and oodles better in the bookstore market than the do in the DM, but I have to tell you, now that I’m looking at the “full” BookScan list, I can guarantee you that this is simply false. Now that I can see into the Long Tail, what I can tell you is that, while the bookstore market can (potentially) sell more copies of the “top” of the “bookstore-oriented” material, on anything else the DM beats them handily.

Here’s just one example: none of the three American Virgin trades charted more than 400 copies sold on BookScan; we can pretty definitively state that each of those three sold at least 2000 copies in the DM (because their first month, alone, sold-in more copies than that) Many many Vertigo titles are selling 3-5x as many copies in the DM, as they did through BookScan.

Discuss. Meet you back here tomorrow.

Technorati Tags: The Industry

Over at CBR, John Mayo does a monthly sales analysis which charts the ups and downs of sales trends. His report on the December figures cuts right to the chase:

A friend of mine is planning on opening up a comic book store in the near future and we had a recent exchange on the health of the comic book industry. His reasoning was that since the total sales of the top 300 comics have been trending up over the past few years, then the industry must be doing well. My monthly analysis focuses more on the sales trends of the individual titles over how the total sales of the top 300 comics and top 100 trades are doing. While the total sales do seem to be trending up, most individual titles are trending down. As a result, I’m not convinced that the industry is doing well.

Mayo’s column is as fine a primer on comics seeming downward sales spiral as we’ve seen. Over all sales are UP due to events and new #1’s and so on. But more books than ever are down.

In December 2007, the total of the advances was 30,618 units and the total of the declines was 507,048 units. That works out to an average of 1,530 units for each of the 20 advances and 2,654 units for each of the 191 declines. The net difference is a net decline of 476,430 units as compared to the previous issues of each individual title. Note that this is not the change in the total for the top 300 comics from the previous month. The total estimated sales for the top 300 comics in December 2007 was an estimated 7,024,971 units which was an increase of approximately 74,081 units from the estimated total of 6,950,890 units for the top 300 comics for November 2007.

This seems a bit confusing, but as Mayo points out, “They just measure different things.” Mayo goes over a lot of territory in his column, so you’d best go over and read the whole thing. What it does seem to point to (der) is the fact that regular creators on a regular book for a reliable reader experience is almost besides the point in today’s drop it like it’s hot market. Nothing will ever be the same again!

by Marc-Oliver Frisch

DC Comics’ successful “Sinestro Corps War” and “Resurrection of Ra’s al Ghul” crossovers both concluded in December, and with Green Lantern #25 and Justice League of America #15, two bestselling stragglers from November helped to touch up the performance. The big new launch in December was the weekly Countdown: Arena miniseries, whose numbers don’t particularly impress, but are better than those of previous Countdown spin-offs. In other news, Birds of Prey and The Legion of Super-Heroes got new creative teams, and the Western miniseries Bat Lash debuted. The average periodical numbers of the mainstream DC Universe line weren’t especially high compared to the rest of the year, but were up from their low point in November.

The publisher’s Vertigo and WildStorm imprints continued a slow recovery in December, meanwhile, in terms of average periodical sales. At Vertigo, the modest increase was due to Brian Wood’s ongoing Viking saga Northlanders, which launched with fairly decent numbers. At WildStorm, as there were no new launches in December, the slight upturn was mostly due to the absence of a number of low-selling titles. Overall, DC’s average sales in December were stronger than they had been for most of the year, rebounding from their low point in November. It’s safe to say that 2007 wasn’t a banner year for DC’s periodical business, compared to previous years and to the competition, but they’re ending it on a moderately optimistic note.

Thanks to Milton Griepp and ICv2.com for the permission to use their figures. An overview of ICv2.com’s estimates can be found here.

—–

6/8 - JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA
12/2001: JLA #61 — 67,491*
12/2002: JLA #76 — 61,557*
12/2003: JLA #91 — 58,981
12/2004: JLA #109 — 63,791 [64,747]
12/2005: JLA #123 — 76,899
————————————–
12/2006: Justice League #4 — 136,709 (- 3.0%) [139,123]
12/2006: Justice League #5 — 132,460 (- 3.1%) [133,924]
01/2007: –
02/2007: –
03/2007: Justice League #6 — 130,099 (- 1.8%) [131,754]
04/2007: Justice League #7 — 154,984 (+19.1%)
04/2007: Justice League #8 — 130,365 (-15.9%)
05/2007: Justice League #9 — 129,285 (- 0.8%)
06/2007: Justice League #10 — 129,265 (- 0.0%)
07/2007: Justice League #11 — 122,823 (- 5.0%)
08/2007: Justice League #12 — 131,420 (+ 7.0%) [137,181]
09/2007: Justice League #13 — 119,471 (- 9.1%) [124,006]
10/2007: Justice League #14 — 101,763 (-14.8%)
11/2007: –
12/2007: Justice League #15 — 100,234 (- 1.5%)
12/2007: Justice League #16 — 95,557 (- 4.7%)
—————-
6 months: -24.3%
1 year : -27.3%
2 years : +27.3%

As Justice League of America catches up with its schedule, another top-selling DC title drops below the 100k mark (as far as the estimates are concerned, at any rate; given that they’re traditionally a little on the low side, the real number may still be slightly above 100,000). And, as before with titles like All Star Batman, All Star Superman, Justice, 52 or Superman/Batman, there’s nothing on the horizon that looks like it could plug the resulting gap.

That said, the drop-off was to be expected after star writer Brad Meltzer’s departure, and it’s also worth mentioning that the current run, unlike Meltzer’s, isn’t supported through variant cover editions. Bearing all this in mind, the book is still holding up quite well.

—–
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By Paul O’Brien

The big new launch for December was ULTIMATES 3, returning after a seven month hiatus with the new creative team of Jeph Loeb and Joe Madureira. And thanks to the magic of delays, December, also saw AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #545, the concluding part of “One More Day.” Otherwise, it’s a relatively quiet month. “Messiah Complex” continued to boost the X-books, and ULTIMATE IRON MAN returned for its second miniseries.

Once again, Marvel took the top spot in the direct market by a comfortable margin. They beat DC by 39% to 33% in dollar share, and 43% to 37% in units. DC’s one-off lead from a few months back seems to have been a blip.

Thanks as always to Milton Griepp and ICV2 for permission to use their figures for these calculations.

1.  ULTIMATES
12/02  Ultimates #9        - 101,811
12/03  Ultimates #12       - 104,572
12/04  Ultimates 2 #1      - 146,271
12/05  Ultimates 2 #9      -  94,493
=====
12/06  —
01/07  —
02/07  —
03/07  —
04/07  —
05/07  Ultimates 2 #13     - 105,745  ( +6.2%)
06/07  —
07/07  —
08/07  —
09/07  —
10/07  —
11/07  —
12/07  Ultimates 3 #1 of 5 - 131,401  (+24.3%)
                              6 mnth  (  — )
                              1 year  (  — )
                              2 year  (+39.1%)
                              3 year  (-10.2%)
                              4 year  (-25.7%)

You won’t be surprised to hear that the two big titles charted at numbers 1 and 2. And naturally, ULTIMATES gets a healthy boost for its new series. It’s not quite as good as ULTIMATES 2 #1 from December 2004, but 130K is a fine number by any standards.

The interesting question is whether it can sustain those sales. In its favour, ULTIMATES has big name creators, and a large inherited audience. On the other hand, ULTIMATES has previously been sold more on the strength of Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch (and their style) than on the characters as such, and the new book is quite different. And, let’s be honest, the reviews haven’t exactly been stellar.

I suspect sales will hold up pretty well for the duration of this five-issue miniseries, but I’m not so sure what will happen after that. Much depends on how well Marvel can build interest for the upcoming “Ultimatum” event, which is clearly intended to revitalise the flagging Ultimate imprint, and has to be seen as something of a make-or-break story.

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