Comments on: Marvel Month-to-Month Sales: November 2007

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By: PrettyFakes » Blog Archive » The End of The Order

PrettyFakes » Blog Archive » The End of The Order — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 20:50:36 +0000

[...] So I suppose my question is, why does Marvel keep green-lighting these sorts of books — books which clearly need time to build a fanbase — if they’re not going to give them that time? I don’t want to give the impression that I’m asking these questions while shaking my fist in a thunderstorm, cursing at the heavens in a fit of entitled-fanboy pique (it’s not a fit, exactly): Marvel has every right and indeed responsibility to protect their bottom line, and if they don’t feel The Order is going to help them do that, then it’s hard to argue they should keep it around. My question is, why give it a shot at all? I can’t imagine there was anything in the pitch that said “Todd McFarlane Spider-Man numbers” to anyone; were they expecting a bigger sales carry-over from Civil War? It should have been clear from the get-go that new characters + relatively dense narrative style = a root fire (to borrow Peter Hughes’s characterization of Get Lonely) of a comic rather than an inferno. Though I note that according to these figures, as of November The Order was selling under 30K a month — not great, but not significantly worse than ongoing series like She-Hulk, and much better than Criminal. Still, one assumes — and assuming motivation is likely a mistake here — that they gave the series the go-ahead knowing that it wouldn’t be a huge seller right out of the gate but also having faith that it would contribute something new to the MU. So ten issues seems a bit soon to pull the plug. The example of The Order brings us back to Charles Hatfield’s question: here we have a creator who is willing to create something new and potentially reinvigorating in the familiar confines of a corporate shared universe, and Marvel has said, at least in this instance, “no thanks.” [...]

By: Somebody

Somebody — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 17:44:30 +0000

And, for the record, Avengers: Initiative #8 came in at 58k, over 8k down on #7, and 12.5% lower. And the Annual, despite being a labelled Secret Invasion: Infiltration issue, was 1k lower than that.

By: Archie Sales Figures » Comics Worth Reading

Archie Sales Figures » Comics Worth Reading — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 03:23:55 +0000

[...] As usual, the digests do much better than the single issues. For comparison with Diamond direct market sales, the ADD’s 104K would make it #5 in ranking (based on this November 2007 list) while Betty would be #164 or so, right next to the last issue of Loners and part of the Howard the Duck miniseries. [...]

By: Somebody

Somebody — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 01:26:12 +0000

Black Panther was being kept afloat by crossovers. Seriously – go back to here – http://tinyurl.com/39ge7c – before Storm, Civil War & the F4:

————————————————————————————-
80. BLACK PANTHER
Feb 02 Black Panther #41 – 19,523
Feb 03 Black Panther #54 – 17,401
======
Feb 05 Black Panther #1 – 69,930
Mar 05 Black Panther #2 – 47,533 (-32.0%)
Apr 05 Black Panther #3 – 44,925 ( -5.5%)
May 05 Black Panther #4 – 40,804 ( -9.2%)
Jun 05 Black Panther #5 – 37,401 ( -8.1%)
Jul 05 Black Panther #6 – 35,256 ( -5.7%)
Aug 05 Black Panther #7 – 42,905 (+21.7%)
Sep 05 Black Panther #8 – 46,239 ( +7.8%)
Oct 05 Black Panther #9 – 40,173 (-13.1%)
Nov 05 Black Panther #10 – 31,987 (-20.4%)
Dec 05 Black Panther #11 – 29,327 ( -8.3%)
Jan 06 Black Panther #12 – 27,933 ( -4.7%)
Feb 06 Black Panther #13 – 26,054 ( -6.7%)
6 mnth (-39.3%)
1 year (-62.7%)

The other half of the big wedding, and it continues to drop like a stone. At these levels it really can’t afford to keep shedding almost 2,000 readers an issue, but that’s what it’s doing. Marvel evidently have tremendous faith in the book, but the direct market doesn’t agree with them, on the strength of these numbers.
————————————————————————————-

It’s just back on that trend at last, now that the endless propping up from other books has all-but-ended (Storm’s still in the book, but she’s also back in Uncanny X-Men and any references to BP in there are trivial – even when they had the “new F4″ appear, it was just Ben & Johnny, not BP).

By: Vitor Coelho

Vitor Coelho — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 23:52:00 +0000

Marvel sales have begun to reflect the fact that there is simply too many books being offered, specially team books. The drops in books like Ghost Rider, Moon Knight, Ms. Marvel, Black Panther, the Ultimate line who used to have more stable sales in the previous year is reminiscent of the last time that Marvel output was this massive. The constant reshuffling of the X-titles in the last 3 years is proof that there isn´t a market for so many X-titles, they always end canibalizing each other´s sales.

By: Vitor Coelho

Vitor Coelho — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 23:46:10 +0000

M. Youssef Says: (And it’s not consistently losing 10% a month. Con•sis•tent: (adj) able to maintain a particular standard or repeat a particular task with minimal variation.

Denying reality doesn´t stop it from happening. The persistent drop in A:TI is worrying, specially when you take into account the hints being dropped that a book in the top20 will be canceled not due to sales, but to skrulls.

By: Somebody

Somebody — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 01:44:39 +0000

It’s consistently losing [at least] 10% a month on the basis that the only two issues without some sort of major crossover or pseudo-crossover branding have both lost 10% or more.

Crossovers (and, as I said, Initiative seems to have been treated as a crossover for the purposes of ordering based on the sales of all the books bannered as such), as you and just about everyone else who reads the charts will know, tend to put a square wave in the trends – they bump up hugely, but only during the crossover, when the vast, vast majority of them drop straight back down to where or below where they were before. The only books in recent memory which IIRC bucked that trend in any way without a post-bannered issues relaunch were Cable & Deadpool and Thunderbolts (which was relaunched five months after the CW banner had gone away and so has post-CW, pre-Ellis data), who both held 5k or so above their pre-crossover levels the month after and took a few months to reach where they were.

And A:TI, of course, HAS no baseline for retailers to cut back to. So they hacked away a huge chunk post-crossovers to see where they were, found themselves with a big excess still, and hacked away some more. What are the odds, with that sort of trend, that they won’t be hacking away for a month or two more at the very least before they find some sort of level that won’t leave them losing money?

The glass may not be down to half quite yet, but there’s big hole in the bottom.

By: M. Youssef

M. Youssef — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 14:32:21 +0000

According to the DC Month-to-Month numbers posted on The Beat, outside of 4 titles, it’s a glass that’s outselling every other glass in the DC line. That’s a pretty big glass.

(And it’s not consistently losing 10% a month. Con•sis•tent: (adj) able to maintain a particular standard or repeat a particular task with minimal variation. How is a 19% drop from a first issue with a varient cover a minimal variation from a 2.6% bump during a crossover? Do you have enough data to show a consistent trend for this book?)

By: Paul O'Brien

Paul O'Brien — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 14:19:12 +0000

A glass that is consistently losing water at 10% a month is half-empty.

By: M. Youssef

M. Youssef — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 21:12:25 +0000

Mr. O’Brien,
If that’s the case, then the average drop on Avengers: The Initiative over 6 months would go down to 8.5%. If the drop is less than 10%, and the 6 month average is even less, what will you attribute the leveling out to? The start of a new story line? The addition of Gage to the creative team? The introduction of Taskmaster or Ant-Man? A combination of those factors?

If at least 60,000+ readers stay with the title for 9 months, doesn’t that say something? That puts Avengers Initiative in the same range as titles like Detective Comics, in the middle of a major Bat crossover.

You can point to the numbers of readers who have left and opine that it was because “it was nothing like Bendis’ New Avengers”. If that is true, then what about the converse? What about the 60,000+ readers who’ve stayed? What does that say about an audience that large who are still following a Marvel title about new characters and c-listers?

I guess what I’m asking is, if that 10% drop doesn’t occur like you’ve predicted, and the book continues to stay in the Top 25, will you start seeing the glass half full instead of half empty?

By: Paul O'Brien

Paul O'Brien — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 18:46:21 +0000

I think it is more likely than not that the December sales will show a further drop of 10%, yes.

By: Somebody

Somebody — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 03:25:48 +0000

Considering that the last two issues, the first two without any “crossover” banner (Initiative – which they took the opportunity to make the book like an Initiative tie-in issue of plain Avengers for…. – technically not being a crossover despite being ordered like one) dropped by 14 & 10%, I’d say a c. 8% drop for #6, and – barring a bunch of high-selling titles not shipping – yes, it’ll drop out of the Top 25.

By: M. Youssef

M. Youssef — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 01:02:59 +0000

No. It’s factually inaccurate.

That poster said: “Well, having no legs is losing 10% of readership each month.”

And Avengers the Initiative hasn’t lost 10% of its readership each month. It’s fluctuated. It went UP around 2.5% when it took part in the World War Hulk crossover. It went down over 14% when it came out of the crossover. There’s context that you’re not bringing to the table when you make blanket statements like it’s “losing 10% of readership each month.”

In your last post you agree that the book would have to take close to a 20% drop next month for that average to hold. And you’ve been doing this long enough to know that a book usually takes its biggest drop from issue #1 to issue #2, especially if the first issue had a varient cover.

Do you think that the book will take that steep of a drop going from issue #7 to #8? Do you think the 10% average will exist next month? Do you think that the book will drop out of the Top 25?

By: Paul O'Brien

Paul O'Brien — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 00:04:11 +0000

“Unless the next issue of Avengers Initiative takes that much of a drop (19%), that figure will not hold when doing your 6 month assessment.”

True, but you’re the one who told another poster that it was “factually inaccurate.” And it isn’t. It’s totally accurate.