November 8, 2011
Analysts Weigh In With More On October 2011 DM Numbers
The comics business news and analysis site
ICv2.com has offered up their usual array of lists, estimates and analysis regarding the performance of comic books and graphic novels in the Direct Market of comic and hobby shops, this time for October 2011. I totally missed them when they came out.
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Overview
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Analysis
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Top 300 Comic Books
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Top 300 Graphic Novels
My favorite numbers cruncher John Jackson Miller at
The Comics Chronicles has begun his analysis of the month
here. Miller focuses on the reboot but also points out a bunch of records, which he listed in his PR e-mail as:
* Highest dollar sales for the Top 300 comics
* Highest number of titles ever in Top 300 by one publisher
* Highest sales for 300th place book, tops 5k
* Lowest number of publishers represented in Top 300
Those are all worth noting. The last may be of particular interest to readers of this site, and is a reminder of something I think is worth grappling about DC's recent surge as well as mainstream comics' companies success in the DM generally: because of the way they've set themselves up, it can often come at the expense of diversity in that marketplace. It should be noted that some of the smaller publishers have seen gains in the current landscape as well -- nothing is yet settled.
Miller also points out that the six percent aggregate drop #1 to #2 is for the initial numbers for the #1s, without reorders, which I'm not sure is going to get communicated in the PR blitz and the more enthusiastic analysis pieces that will surely follow. That is a very low drop, though, and shows that retailers are really devoted to this initiative. That means a greater risk, but I think it also shows just how effective the DM and its members can be at moving mainstream product when they're motivated and there's a chance for a solid return on that investment.
The writer Warren Ellis
points to the general numbers and suggests that this will be good for competition between the two major publishers, with better comics a potential result. He also indicates through specific example a wrench that could be thrown into that effort from the start: Marvel nickel-and-diming their line to death by doing things like not supporting trade back list and cancelling all but the most guaranteed sales-success series. It should be an interesting next nine months or so.
I've tossed an image of the D+Q
The Death-Ray cover in there for no particular reason other than I was scrambling to find a cover image I liked. Dan Clowes' re-issue of an issue of
Eightball in bookstore-ready form sold over 2800 copies through comics shops, which is really good for a book like that. Fantagraphics sold a little over 1000 copies of its latest
Mickey Mouse and
Prince Valiant volumes into these stores. There was a time when the paperback series of
Prince Valiant that Fantagraphics did was a significant percentage of their overall sales back in the 1990s, but a lot of that I believe was mail-order and of course some of that natural fan base for Foster's work has probably since passed away. Those are really nice books, though.
posted 3:30 am PST |
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