ICv2.com: October ‘07 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 October 2007.

* Overview
* Analysis
* Top 300 Comic Books
* Top 100 Graphic Novels

The big news this month is in what I'm tagging as the analysis article, where ICv2.com points out a surge in their estimates for comics and graphic novels down the charts: better performances for books at lower chart positions. This goes against conventional wisdom that the Direct Market's recent relative health has been driven by top of the charts successes to the detriment of lower-selling titles.

I don't have an easy explanation for this, to be honest. A potential key that immediately suggests itself is some sort of market reaction to a collective dip at the top of the charts. Eyeballing the respective top 25s in 2006 and 2007, there's about a 175K difference in the 2006 estimates over 2007 from that subset of overall sales. Looking at what was being sold that month in the top 25, it looks like a lot of Civil War crossovers from Marvel and a still healthy 52 from DC in 2006; a more standard array of titles plus a zombie series launch from Marvel and a weaker performer in Countdown from DC in 2007.

However, this can't be a simple swing in consumer spending, the notion that without hot tie-in titles to buy comics fans are freed to buy comics down the line. I don't know any serious study that suggests fans do this. There's enough anecdotal conflict between the notion of consumers that spend a certain amount every week and the snapshot of consumers bearing a monomaniacal fascination with certain titles that will buy those comics and only those comics no matter how many come out for me to distrust a claim that either behavior is dominant. Even if you buy the "same money no matter what" model, there's nothing that indicates this money wouldn't be purchased on other top 25 titles as opposed to lower-selling ones. Besides, these are retailer figures, not consumer spending figures, and that's a difference worth noting here.

If I had to guess, I would say this is the continuation of a much more moderate trend stretching back to 2002 of full-chart growth that looks more awesome than usual because October 2006 was a strange month. The optimist in me says that this shows the ability of the DM to recover from over-stuffed months like that from one year ago and continue to see growth across the board. The pessimist in me says that the growth down the charts doesn't address massive imbalance in a way that works towards healthy stores long-term, what we might be seeing are comics entering the market better suited to secure lower positions at a higher level, and that given a choice the market drivers would choose a month that looks like 2006 rather than 2007 100 of 100 times. The suicide-risk in me notes a boost in purchases by stores down the charts may be the sign of a temporary consequence of a sudden inability of the big-time comics makers to make books people want to buy, a bigger decline in interest than the charts indicated because of the conservative nature of sales over time, and that a ripple effect that is already driving some books from the market entirely could become quite nasty in the next 36 months or so.

But really, at that point, I'm sort of making stuff up. I think it's enough for now to note that there's evidence that suggests growth since 2006 and, more importantly, since 2002, has taken place at several points in the market, and that our snapshots of how the DM works need to start taking that into account.
 
posted 8:10 pm PST | Permalink
 

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