Is The Superhero Comics Periodicals Market Rotting From The Bottom Up?



Marc-Oliver Frisch's latest and somewhat dire-seeming testimony as to what's going on with comic book sales is ostensibly aimed at the notion that an October where DC swooped to a finish that included all top six comic book isn't actually the bonanza that it is claimed for it because for DC overall it was a good, not great month. However, I think it further calls into question fears that the superhero part of the market as released in periodical forms through comics and hobby shops has real weaknesses that no one seems to be able to address. The short version -- my short version -- is that the major players' success with trades and with event series may obscure the fact that there's not a lot of strength in individual series, and that this weakness is exacerbated by $4 comic books and the general thrust of the economy right now.

While the response of some fans is to label Frisch a hater, I think there's some substance to his line of inquiry. I think it's been on more minds than would care to say so since DC tried to shift the strength of one of their big-ass cosmic event series into a bunch of reinvigorated regular series. That was an effort that didn't really get over and had the publisher kind of jump-starting right into a similar event series that performed poorly out of the gate and then finding some profitable creative and commercial ground on which to work with their current Green Lantern-focused Armageddon-as-serial-entertainment. I would also imagine that the market is more vulnerable than ever to this kind of thing, as the responsibilities of its core readership, many of whom are in their 40s, are different during a recession now than they might have been seven to ten years ago. Because the clientele is primarily made up of specialty consumers spending a lot of money rather than general consumers spending a little money, folks opting out of certain buying patterns is something that gets protected initially but can lead rather quickly to some big holes.

Personally, I'm not sure of the extent of the problem, let alone the solutions, but I think it's a series of questions we should all be asking.

One thing I disagree with in terms of Frisch's analysis is that in looking at the October performance of its top comics it doesn't matter if the month wasn't stupendous overall: top comics is the currency in which such companies and their fans tend to operate, and it had been a while since DC had scored any points there. According to the just-released Diamond list for top comics in November:

10317812_DCD-Top_Comic_Book__Publisher_NOV09.doc

DC scored seven of ten spots and whether they should or not I bet they feel reinvigorated by such placement. John Jackson Miller has more on the new rankings.
 
posted 8:00 am PST | Permalink
 

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