Analysts: November 2010 DM Estimates

The comics business news and analysis site ICv2.com offers 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 November 2010.

* Overview
* Analysis
* Top 300 Comic Books
* Top 300 Graphic Novels

My favorite numbers cruncher John Jackson Miller at The Comics Chronicles has begun his analysis of the month here.

The number aren't strong, to say the least, but there are caveats. One of the standard figures used to measure DM sales is to compare a month's sales to the same month in a previous year. November 2009 had very strong sales because of the debut of the successful Blackest Night series, including a purchasing option that included a collectible ring that was very popular. It's also worth noting that a bump in trade sales -- which may be due to Walking Dead seeing TV show-related interest -- is not only a factor that mitigates against the overall sales declines it's something you can argue was necessary in and of itself to help staunch recent losses category-wide.

I'm still sort of personally worried by the decline in sales near the top of the chart. It's great that comics on the tail end of the top 300 are selling more than they used to, it really is. Still, it seems to me that the present periodicals market is designed in great part to deliver bigger hits at the top end, and that a top 25 comic book has dropped to around the 45,000 comic book level indicates something troubling even if some -- and we have to say "some," because the number are down overall -- of the sales slack is taken up by the comics in the #240 to #270 positions. Further, I suspect there's no easy way out of this except the kind of slow-build strategies the major players have all but abandoned in favor of market-share games and individual title manipulation, strategies to which they'll now pay less attention with the new focus on managing properties and the rise of multiple, alternative sales venues. I wish I had more to offer you than Obi-Wan Kenobi style proclamations, but it's difficult to divine what the workings of one comics shop actually mean, let alone the same from a few thousand. Still, something feels wrong, and not necessarily in the cheap, flip "hey, everything's screwed" way.
 
posted 7:00 am PST | Permalink
 

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