Tag: Sales Charts

And as the month's charts and solicitations roll out, here's ICv2's analysis for August. It is an unsettled time in the universe with...

Yes, that's right: Image. I know I usually do the DC Comics sales summaries here at The Beat, but while Heidi looks for someone to step in and handle the Indy comics chart I volunteered to do a column focusing on Image. With around seventy titles each month they're about as large (titles-wise) as Marvel or DC, so I figure they should have their own column, yes? Warning: The commentary may be even more mis-informed than usual...

The important thing to remember when looking at Image's sales numbers is that they're not really playing the same game as other comics companies. My understanding (and I'm sure you'll all correct me if I'm wrong in the comments below...) is that Image charges a flat fee for producing, listing and distributing comics, so that after that fee and the printing costs, whatever is left over goes directly to whoever supplied the comic. (This may be different for the official Image partners...)

We've already seen today that just jumping on a new, fresh direction isn't enough to make a sales success, but what about over at Marvel? As I've noted their whopping sales have been led by the astonishing success of their Star Wars comics, but variant covers are also strong in this one. Star Wars #1 had over 100 variants, for instance. The upcoming hip hop variant program wasn't just problematic from a creator standpoint, however, it's also set new levels of frustration for retailers who have to order high on other books just to be able to ORDER copies of the variants, as revealed on Reddit by retailer Calum Johnston and explained at the Outhouse. Apparently a frustrated retailers posted the above annotated order sheet for the variants, showing how high order would have to be.

by Xavier Lancel

Welcome to a new analysis of the Marvel sales. Reminder: I'm French, that's why I'm talking funny. Please address your complaints to my over-drugged cyclists country.
Reminder: those sales are estimates, sales to comics shops located in North America. American comics do get sold somewhere else in their original floppy edition. Keep also in mind that just because a copy is sold to a shop doesn't mean it's sold to a customer. This would be way too easy. Digital sales are not taken into account.

This month, a horde of mini-series (or ongoing, who knows, Marvel hasn't been very clear on that) is invading the Marvel chart. Only one thing is sure: everything will be relaunched (or should I say renumbered) past Secret Wars (SW). The Last Days banner, supposed to frighten customers ("Oh, look, that's his last adventure in the old MU! "), is working like a charm for titles who were struggling to stay alive.

As always, tons of Star Wars franchise comics are sold, reordered, repackaged. The $5 price tag is less predominant this month but the test worked: customers are ready to pay $5 for, not caviar in a nice box, but paté wrapped in journal paper: you'll have to do your own cover, cut the ads and add the still missing 2 pages that were lost "to keep the prices low "...

As we all know, Hajime Isayama's Attack on Titan has been the shock trooper in the recent manga bounce back here in the US...

As you may know, I keep a little feed of Amazon's best selling graphic novels in my desktop, just to see what's charting. It's usually the same seven or eight books—Klling Joke, Watchmen, The Dark Knight, Saga, Fun Home, Persepolis and so on. But this week, along with a strong week for anything by Scott Snyder about Batman, there is a new #1 book, and it comes with a whiff of the new: Fart Wars by J.B. O'Neil. O'Neil who has self published this and several other volumes in The Disgusting Adventures of Milo Snotrocket series, has found a formula so profound it's truly astonishing no one came up with it before: mix one part Star Wars parody, one part Wimpy Kid simple drawing, and 20 parts fart humor and you have something that is smelling, er, selling briskly in the Kindle format.

Greetings, sales charts fans! It's time once again to look at DC's sales figures.

After last month's large (with an asterisk) sales in the first month of Convergence, things calm down somewhat in May. Nothing that wasn't expected as the second half of the weekly and the second issues were bound to sell less than the first, and the drop-offs were fully within expectations.

Marvel's Secret Wars crushed it for periodical, while Images graphic novels crushed it in June sales just released by Diamond. Secret Wars #3 was the top over all comic, and Marvel had 7 or the top 10 slots and held a commanding 15% lead over DC in both units and dollars. DC You seems to have yet to find its footing. The other stat that jumped out at us: GN's were wayyyyyy up for the month -- like 31.35% up. Image was the reason and normally you see this kind of leap when a new Walking Dead comics out, but this time it was Wytches by Scott Snyder and Jock, along with a strong debut for Fraction and Ward's ODY-c—and perhaps more interestingly, a month of Marvel titles, including perennial Civil War and a new Thanos GN by Jim Starlin. Could Marvel actually be shoring up their backlist?

For the second year, ICv2's Milton Griepp and Comichron's John Jackson Miller have released a joint report on comics sales in the previous year, and they report that the state of the union is good, with graphic novel sales hitting a 20 year high. Sales are up in all channels except newsstand sales, where Marvel jumped ship and DC may have as well. SO STOP TELLING US TO GO BACK TO NEWSSTANDS, OKAY? Comics are doing just fine without "newsstands."

By John Jackson Miller -- Marvel's Secret Wars revival made a big splash in the comics market in May, moving more than 527,000 copies to comic shops in North America. That's according to Comichron's estimates for May 2015 comics sales based on information released by Diamond Comic Distributors. You can find the report here. That's enough to place the issue fourth on the list of best-selling comics of the century, and it could go higher with reorders. It came in a month when strong six-figure launches from A-Force and Old Man Logan, and a dominating performance from Batman: Earth 2 Vol. 2 on the graphic novel charts helped push the market to a 13% increase.

by Xavier Lancel—

Welcome to a new analysis of the Marvel sales. Reminder: I'm French, that's why I'm talking funny. Please address your complaints to my sinking-in-the-middle-age country.
Reminder: those sales are estimates, sales to comics shops located in North America. American comics do get sold somewhere else in their original floppy edition. Keep also in mind that if a copy is sold to a shop that doesn't mean it's sold to a customer. This would be way too easy. Digital sales are not taken into account.

This month is again lead by the Star Wars franchise at Marvel, but, more surprisingly, it is literally invading the lower portion of the chart with 10k to 20k reorder activity on several issues! There really are a lot of Marvel floppy comics on sale this month (a little more than 100!!). There were so many different variant covers things going on this month that I didn't bother trying to understand it.

Marvel is leading the way as the most expensive publisher of floppy comics, its customers have never been asked to spend so much in a month. Well, until next month and its invasion of #1 and famous crossovers!

by David Carter Greetings, sales charts fans! It's time once again to look at DC's sales figures. Last month (March 2015) was the worst month for DC sales since the start of the New 52, but this month was quite a turnaround! Convergence has turned out to be a sales success for DC: Each issue of the core weekly Convergence title sold over 110K (though note that each issue was returnable...) The first issue of each Convergence tie-in title sold between 30K & (nearly) 70K, with most in the 30K to 40K range. While 30K - 40K might not seem like a lot, compare that to the fact that in March there were twenty-four regular DCU titles that sold below 30K. So essentially the Convergence event resulted in DC lopping off the lower end of their DCU sales and replacing them with moderately-selling comics, which rises the average sales considerably. Not bad for a stunt that was allegedly conceived simply as a way to give DC's regular editorial team a two-month break to move across the country to their new West Coast headquarters!