Michael Doran over at Newsarama put up this frankly terrifying sales analysis. Comics sales dropped 24.45% from December to January. Now December is a big month, so that happens, but total comic and graphic novel sales for January 2011 are down almost 23% from January 2010.
Ouch.
We've heard story after story of sales drops and struggling retailers. Lots of people have weighed in with their opinions, some saying this is cyclical. Some saying it's a result of bad stories, or high cover prices, and of course this endless recession we've experienced. It took a while for all this to kick in, but according to all these factors, it doesn't seem like a little flutter of bad sales, but a continuing trend. It's pretty close to a tailspin, and everyone in comics is wondering how we're going to get out of it.
Solutions are being attempted. DC is going to "Hold the line at 2.99" while starting up their Flashpoint event. Marvel is sticking to their pricing guns, and going back to full on event status with Fear Itself. There were layoffs and restructuring at Image and Top Cow. Retailers have complained, but no one seems to know what to do to stem the tide. You'd think that after a decade of massively successful comic book films, everyone would be doing pretty well, but that didn't trickle down.
I'm not saying the ride is over. It's never going to be, but this year is going to be a big one in terms of how the comic industry goes about their daily business. Can they continue to rely on the same shrinking business model, catering to less and less hardcore fans in order to maintain their market percentage, even as gross revenue goes down? The line for books on the bubble will definitely shrink, and I think we'll see less ancillary titles that sell low numbers. Of course, it'll be harder than ever to break in to comics for a while, at least for writers.
What can you do? Support the comics you love, and sing their praises. Fight the fight for comics and share the things you love with others, and don't be surprised when things change. I don't mean to be obtuse, but I really don't know what the solution is. I can't imagine, however that the people in charge can let this go on without attempting some kind of course correction.
Hold on to your butts.
Find us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter
Subscribe to our RSS Feed
Some rights reserved.
Weren’t Blackest Night and Siege going on in January ’10? That could account for some of the droppage, since this years events have yet to kick in.
The end is nigh?
Hurm.
Like any industry sales go through cycles. But to say the end if nigh is a bit much, yes? In tough economic times entertainment is the first thing to suffer. Movies sales are down even the massive WWE is having a drop in it’s Pay Per View sales. It happens but it isn’t the end.
Your suggestions on what we fans can do is spot on and something we should ALWAYS do, not just during a low sales point. I push Fables all the time because that book is AWESOME!
Maybe because none of the distributors delivered the books on time to the stores because of the blizzards? No one went out to buy them, they just said F it and downloaded it.
its tough for everyone. Even in my business (advertising/design) things are getting cut back across the board. Clients are getting cheaper, looking over every line item and cutting things out. Its insane. Luxury items are always the first to get cu tback and i’m sure we’re all pinching our pennies. I’m spending waaay less than i was last year at this time.
After all this talk about supporting indies and all that, it totally sucks that sales are trending down so much. I hope publishers don’t start folding.
It would have been clever to have thought out how they were going to launch on an iPad before it actually came out. Everyone knew it was coming for years. Now the industry is playing catch up and “experimenting”.
I’m sure Force Works digital scans are popular and all but they need to figure out day and date and have them update like podcasts.
Creator commentary tracks or process pages where you can remove the word balloons and color and inks at the flip of a switch.
Maybe even alternate colorist and inkers takes on certain pages as bonus materials.
Like say a Breitweiser version of FF #5 etc. Or Udon studios doing Amazing Fantasy #15.
The current model clearly isn’t working. Now it’s just like the music industry. Putting everything on Beiber and Taylor Swift and kissing their lucky dice.
“You’d think that after a decade of massively successful comic book films, everyone would be doing pretty well, but that didn’t trickle down.”
This is gonna have to turn around within the next few years if I’m going to win a bet I made in 2008. I have till 2013 before I’m proven wrong. 😛
@Zarathos81 The headline was kind of a joke. Watchmen…
Deep, I know.
The sequential art medium will continue to live on and evolve with the times. However, the floppy monthly that focuses on superheroes is a product of it’s time which, unfortunately, is over.
I’ve found that there haven’t been many captivating stories of late. I used to pick up twice as many books, but I want them to be good. I’ve been making a point to pick up at least one indie book each week in order to support those folks. I still love the capes, but the best writing is with the independent stuff for sure.
@ResurrectionFlan Those are all things that would apply to the current fan base, uber geek comic enthusiasts. To succeed, comics need to regain old and new audiences, and stop catering to the current one.
This is of course, like scaling Everest, because people generally don’t read much, and when they do, it usually isn’t comics.
January was an incredibly “light” month for releases. No Batman Inc., last month’s number 6 book. No Green Lantern, last month’s number 2 and number 5 books. No Flash, last month’s number 12 and 18 books. No Batman: the Dark Knight, last month’s number 1 book. Shocking that the numbers were low.
You have to give to get!
I went through my long boxes and got ride of 2 boxes full not bagged and bordered plus 10+ trades. They were books that I would have never gone back and read or incomplete arcs. From all ages books to MAX lines. I offered them to ANYONE. Some went to smaller kids who were so in love with them that they (and thier mom) are now going to be new comic buyers (after mainly watching movies and tv shows and owning action figures.) Another taker was a casual fan and decided after given a stack of books decided to start a trade collection and has already picked up 8+ trades in the past couple weeks and came with me to the live pick of the week podcast. I also lent my original Wildstorm print of the first six issues of the Boys to a friend and 2 weeks later he went and picked up the entire run up to date and the minis! It took a little work to sort out the boxes but the greatest payoff really was knowing I have gotten new people into or back into comics!
I SUGGEST THAT FOR EVERYONE!
But also, even though being unemployed I have had to cut back my comic consumption down, but with DC price cuts, I will be picking up some Flashpoint titles because they genuinely sound interesting and the price cut DOES help. I plan to pick several of those up, but am not going to try any Fear Itself from Marvel. I really was done with BIG EVENT books, but DC won me over with the prices and the actual books.
At my store, sales are not close to as good as a few years ago despite the quality of books being higher. The store owner blames the economy and ill-timed $3.99 pricing and I think delays really take their toll as well. I mean, if someone interested in Batman picks up Batman: The Dark Knight #1 and comes back a month later, and doesn’t see it, then whatever. But when he/she comes back two months later? Fuck it.
Also, y’know, shitty stores.
Not everyone can live in the Bay Area or New York and have access to great stores. I hear much too many complaints about stores on this site.
If your store is not:
A) Stocking anything other than Marvel/DC/Licensed books, forget about them.
B) Providing a somewhat normal or likeable shopping experience, forget about them.
C) Ordering books for you if they do not stock them, forget about them. They may ask for you to pay in advance or whatever. That’s fair. But they should at least offer to order them if they’re available.
I’m just saying, if we put more money into good comic book stores, then we’ll get less bad experiences from new readers and a more diverse comics consumer culture. Let the bad ones kill themselves off and wonder how it happened. Oh and ignore the crazy ones as well (Heavy Ink and Larry’s).
Geez, there were like a million Marvel books that came out the last week of Jan, too.
@CMWhittington You hit it on the head buddy.
With all of the iPads and tablets, they need to embrace digital. Same day release. Who wants to read a comic published three years ago?
Promote comics with movies. Marvel owns a studio now. Put a trailer before Thor about the new Thor comic that can be downloaded to your iPad that day, and cheaper than $2. That price point is way too high for first time readers. Warner Bros can do the same thing. It is like they aren’t even trying to get new readers.
It’s as simple as you’ve stated here: People don’t want what is being sold. It is up to the publishers to change their product and change quickly to recapture the market. The delivery system (digital vs. paper, etc.) is ancillary. It’s not either / or – it’s both / and. But the consumer does not see the value of the product (it’s entertainment!) and so, they don’t buy. In a marketplace as competitive as this one, you must present something compelling. The quality is just not there.
any word on how trade sales are compared to 2010?
When do I start looting? WHEN?
99 Cent Digital Comics that Will Work On Any Device. One Format like .mp3 for Music, Go to .cbr or something, one format that can work on any platform for 99 cents an issue. $1.29 for larger issues.
I would love to see some proposed business models for free online comics that are 100% ad-supported. It could take the form of a website OR perhaps an app on your device du jour. That way you can read your comics for free, but every third page you have to sit through a banner ad or see some pre-roll video. Even better, you could pay a monthly fee to get your comics commercial/ad free. I would be all over that.
@nmoline
Exactly why I haven’t bought any digital comics. I want it for a fair price (99 cents for 20-22 pages is about right) in a format that I actually own and that can move around with me. The Comixology crap is not working.
@RapidEyeMovement I started ten minutes ago, Hurry up, our you’re going to miss all the good TVs.
#1: Poor marketing by DC and Marvel don’t attract new users. When was the last time you saw a series of ads or promotions encouraging comic book readership.
#2: Restrictive availability limits the attraction of new users. Everybody should be able to buy a comic at Wal Mart. This restrictive practice is archaic and devastating.
#3: Electronic consumption is up. Paper consumption is down.
#4: Events help.
Survival of the fittest? Can’t wait to see what rises from the ashes.
This is odd for me since I just got back into comics the last 6 months or so after being out since 96-97. I started off with some trades then got a small pull list. Now my pull sits around 7-11 depending. So there ya go comic industry, you got a fan back and I’m here to stay 🙂
January was also a small month. There wasn’t shit that came out last month.
@mikeandzod21 I agree. Having helped out my local shop in a limited capacity, almost every week seemed like a small week. They were looking for all sorts of ways to fill the shelves because there just didn’t seem to be the product to put out there.
@mikeandzod21
Yeah, I was considering the same thing. I am sure it has nothing to do with Josh’s actual point, but I did think about the fact that my weekly loads have been significantly smaller than in previous months, but not for lack of trying on my end. So small, in fact, that I’ve been buying about 5 extra books a week just because I like to get at least 8+ books a week.
For myself I love the writing of Fraction, Hickman and Lemire, but I’m not buying their superhero titles. It just feels like there are no stakes in Big 2 owned characters’ books anymore.
Are there comics at toy stores? Wal-Mart? Grocery store checkout lines? If not, those seem like the prime place you’d want to be to get Joe Consumer’s kids buying. I’m sure they’re trying everything but I guess the market just isn’t there and the social stigma is too much against comics. What’s the trend in non-comic books?
Eh. Reading sales are down across the board, music sales are down across the board. I think that it is a stead trend in the way entertainment is consumed by the public. Comics and music have been some of the slowest to adapt to the new world. Therefore they will suffer the most. That’s my theory anyway.
I’m less concerned about the December to January declines as I am the January 2010 to January 2011 declines. But either way you slice it, any positive spin on this is putting lipstick on a pig.
Let’s not panic just yet… As John Kackson Miller has pointed out more than once at blog.comichron.com:
“All months in comics are not created equal. A strong August erases six weeks of winter.”
@dkbrain
#1: Poor marketing by DC and Marvel don’t attract new users. When was the last time you saw a series of ads or promotions encouraging comic book readership.
I find this profoundly strange. Why don’t the two publishers with the deepest pockets do some general public advertising? Targeted TV spots on cable can be had for fairly cheap these day. Or sponsor a show on SyFy or something. Does anybody have a window into the minds of the marketing departments at the Big 2?
@NaveenM Yeah, the window is that the comic book companies DON’T have deep pockets and can’t afford that kind of advertising.
Last year they were down 8% from 08 so its not JUST Blackest Night/Siege to blame. They were falling even with them.
Question: Do record/dvd stores in the US carry trades? Not sure what the major retailer in the States is, but here it’s HMV. A couple years ago they started carrying books (mostly pop culture and books adapted for film). So when the Watchmen film was coming out, they started carrying the trade. So we all know how that sold, and pretty soon they added a few more titles… V for Vendetta etc etc, mostly movie properties that tied into the DVD’s they were selling. Now the trades section is huge, every store has it’s own kiosk section with a huge selection. Everything from Walking Dead to Blackest Night, All Star Superman to Essex County. I looked online and they carry over 200 titles between all their stores.
I’d be really curious to know what percentage of Canadian sales come from these record shops. I mean, if we are trying to market comics to curious fans who like the movies, aren’t they the perfect place? People come in to buy Iron Man 2 or RED or Kick-Ass on Blu-Ray, and there is the trade staring them in the face, every one of them 15-20% off the cover price. Obviously as a retailer HMV feels they are making $ off them too, considering the explosion in their selection in just a couple years…
@NawidA –nice sentiments, but if all the shops in your city are crap then you are SOL. Right now mom and pop businesses are struggling to stay afloat. Comic shops are largely solo operations so when you compound that with a shrinking niche market and the fact that many shop owners are better geeks than businesspeople…you have disaster.
I do hope out of all of this a publisher figures out a way to sell outside of the Direct Market. Something new needs to happen.
@conor – I guess that means the publishing wing of these companies is kept financially seperate from the rest of the company? Marvel pulls in tens of millions in revenue from its licensing per quarter. They were a publicly traded company acquired by Disney for $4 BILLION.
For comparison purposes, I took a quick look at the January dollar sales (Top 300 comics) from 1998 to present:
Year $ Sales Top 300 YOY % Change
Jan-98 16.66 x
Jan-99 15.73 -5.6%
Jan-00 14.28 -9.2%
Jan-01 14.40 0.8%
Jan-02 16.74 16.3%
Jan-03 15.54 -7.2%
Jan-04 14.49 -6.8%
Jan-05 13.88 -4.2%
Jan-06 16.61 19.7%
Jan-07 20.88 25.7%
Jan-08 21.03 0.7%
Jan-09 19.17 -8.8%
Jan-10 19.36 1.0%
Jan-11 15.10 -22.0%
As you can see, we haven’t seen a decline of this magnitude in the Diamond era (if ever), with the 2000 drop off after the 90s crash “only” being a 9% YOY decline. So is this significant? Yep, looks like it. But might the DC (Flashpoint) and Marvel (Fear Itself) event push help offset some of this weakness? Potentially. One month does not an industry make. But if this kind of decline persists, it WILL be a major problem.
@s1lentslayer Wal Mart is not the answer for comic book sales , unless readers want Wal Mart to dictate editorial imput in stories.
They do it in music , they’ll do it in comics.
No thanks.
@NaveenM Your general idea is correct IMO. Based on the revenue generated, a reasonable ad budget is affordable.
Personally, I’ve seen zero.
Every movie featuring a comic character should have had a major comic book tie-in.
@Naveen…When Marvel was an independent public company, its publishing division was VERY MUCH the third leg of the stool. In fact, few a number of quarters I would go back into the earnings transcripts just to see how many times they even uttered the word “comic” and it usually was once or twice, tops. And they would always spend most of the call detailing the movie/media business, followed by toys/licensing, and then spend a very short time on publishing. And even the analysts would treat publishing as a “legacy” business that was “nice to have” so long as it held its own in terms of profit margins. So considering Marvel itself thought so little of publishing on a relative basis, you can imagine how little importance Disney proper will put on it IF (and that’s a big if), it stops producing juicy margins and cash flow.
@conor To your point, large corporations assign marketing budgets based on sales. For example, the budget for Fresca, a small brand within a large company (The Coca-Cola Company) may be dwarfed by a large brand Dr Pepper at a medium sized company.
As @ChrisNeseman is fond of saying, the Big Two’s characters are intellectual properties that exist only as grist for movie pitches. As long as they maintain the same stagnant pondwater, no one is going to care about monthlies — paper, digital, or otherwise.
@dkbrain Well said.
Disney might have a ton of revenue, but they probably don’t see much potential in dropping huge dollars into the publishing division of Marvel Comics when the expected return is so low.
Man I could really go for a fresca right now
I’m still buying comics and so does everyone else in this thread seem to do.
Let’s focus more on that then the theme of: WE’RE DOOMED!
@TNC I like it! Good point though, all of us aren’t going to solve anything. We shouldn’t have to be junior economists/business analysts either. We should only have to continue buying what we like. Marvel DC, and the rest of the comics industry are big boys, if they are worth anything, and this problem has a solution, they will figure something out. We don’t get the paychecks after all, they do.
quick junior business anyalyst here though: DC deserves to fail if they can’t get their heads out of their asses, grow up, and realize where this industry is going. Get your collected editions out, get them out quickly, organize them with some sense, and figure out exactly what you want to do with digital and do it quickly (same with Marvel on the digital)
Is Hastings part of the Direct Market?
They killed the Sentry and everything just went to hell. Hope you haters are happy.
@conor Warner Brothers and Disney don’t have deep pockets? Poppycock!
@AquaPimp82 That’s not how business works. DC and Marvel are divisions of each company with their own budgets based on their own performance and revenue.
Personally, I have cut right down on my comic spending.
It seemed to like the recent lot of comics were just incredibly mediocre. I just lose the willingness to spend cash on unfulfilling stuff like that
@edward I don’t think you’re alone. A lot of “fandom” feels that way.
@nmoline Agreed. 99 cents is a fair price, especially for a 3-year-old book. Maybe the new issues could be $1.29-1.49 and then drop after a while.
So, Conor and those in the know, at what price point per issue would digital publishers not make any money? I mean, the art and writing is done for the print edition, so it’s not an added cost. There’s no printing cost or physical distribution. Seems almost like free money, but I’m sure there are some costs. Maybe you should do an article on digital publishing (or link to one if you already have!).
@MountNJ Good on you for paying it forward! Surely you have some good comic karma headed your way.
As far as I can tell, the movie/TV and licensing divisions aren’t creating any original intellectual property. The characters were all developed within the publishing division (even Deadpool!).
So if the publishing wing dies, while it may not be much skin off the backs of the parent companies in the short run, it may hurt them when it comes to looking for new/fresh ideas (I know, I know, Hollywood and fresh ideas? Who are you kidding?!)
But I know how corporate execs think: why even try when characters like Spiderman and Batman can keep generating the revenue they do.
I’ve learned my lesson. I’m gonna believe you and not think you’re paranoid.
Since I became in possession of an iPad, I have not stepped foot in the LCS. And I’m buying way less due to lack of available titles. I know not if I am indicative of anything.
If the decline continues to happen, we could see the companies begin to use the properties in non-comics media while continuing to decrease the publishing side. Personally, I’m just enjoying what’s coming out and trying to do my part to keep the funnybooks alive. That’s about all I can do at this point.
Lots of people talk about how the distribution system is broken, and the market needs to expand, and obviously that’s all true. But even if you could somehow magically drop the price point and make comics available to the general public in drug stores or as digital downloads or whatever, still you have to have content that appeals beyond the “fanbase” or it’s pointless. People will just pick up or download an issue and say “WTF?” and they won’t come back.
@josh Sorry, didn’t get the reference. Watchmen was just plain boring to me. Couldn’t make it very far into it.
Even the movie was boring.
Personal opinion.
@Wood Where are these numbers from? On Comichron.com they share this:
Here’s the estimated change within the Top 300 comics dollar sales from December to January from 1997 to 2009-2010:
December 1996 to January 1997: -15.3%
December 1997 to January 1998: -27.7%
December 1998 to January 1999: -15.2%
December 1999 to January 2000: -18.5%
December 2000 to January 2001: -8.9%
December 2001 to January 2002: -3.6%
December 2002 to January 2003: -4.8%
December 2003 to January 2004: -19.9%
December 2004 to January 2005: -26.7%
December 2005 to January 2006: -17.0%
December 2006 to January 2007: -4.8%
December 2007 to January 2008: -7.0%
December 2008 to January 2009: -24.36%
December 2009 to January 2010: -13.96%
December 2010 to January 2011 (all comics): -27.7%
Basically showing January as a normal drop off month. Makes sense, after the holidays there isn’t a lot of money available, until after your rebates come in and your returns are complete.
@Neb I was actually thinking the same thing. If this keeps up I wonder if we could see them selling off publishing rights to 3rd parties or trimming back so much that even the top tier creators can’t make a living in the market any longer.
@Zarathos81 He was comparing each january to the previous one. So Jan-2011 was expressed as a percentage of Jan-2010. Wood’s data gives a look at the overall health of the market because it compares year to year sales figures within the same time frame.
I would really like to know how the TOTAL market is doing. It doesn’t appear to me that Comics Chronicles have updated their yearly summary just yet.
Here’s my read: comics and graphic novels are IN, as in they’ve gone MAINSTREAM … but folks just aren’t shopping at local specialty comic book stores anymore.
These are Diamond numbers we’re looking at, correct? If I read Comics Chronicles correctly, the Diamond direct market (distributing to all those LCSs) has been stagnant (i.e. relatively flat) for over a decade, while the TOTAL market size more than doubled over the same period. I remember Josh or Ron writing a piece about this at some point in 2010.
The problem isn’t that the comic book industry is dying. The problem is that the specialty retailers and Diamond simply haven’t capitalized on the EXPONENTIAL growth in the TOTAL market. They’ve let the huge box chains and independent bookstores ride the wave of growth in the total market and reap the profits.
Walk into any Barnes and Noble. You’ll find shelf after shelf after shelf devoted to trades, manga and graphic novels. I can’t find any new bookscan numbers at CBR, but in 2008, six of the top ten books sold were MANGA.
The sky isn’t falling IMO … the sun is just shining on a different street.
In addition to stocking what the market is buying, I’d bet that specialty stores with online storefronts are probably doing fairly well. I walk in at Mile High Comics and another local comic shop in Denver from time to time, but I do nearly all my comic book shopping from DCBS, TFAW, Mile High Comics, and mycomicshop.com.
Oh yes … someone else mentioned quality … Right now I limit myself to one monthly book each from Marvel, DC, Dynamite, Boom!, and Image. And I pick stuff up when I hear Ron, Josh, Conor, Vince B., Chris Neesman, Jason Wood, or David Price raving about something.
what this means on the street of my city is my comic shop was forced to close for two days out of the week
Denver lost one shop that was just a few blocks from the state capitol building. Another about a mile down Colfax is having a tough time as well. But a recent start-up has been sponsoring community events like 24-hour, in-store creator writing/drawing anthologies and the local comic convention. They seem to be doing well.
Its my fault, I switched to trades as part of my new years resolution. Sorry everybody.
i still buy comics! i try to share them with others and have gotten a few back in.this i believe is a start to fix this problem.support your local shop. im in california and we have lost a many(sad).
Ok, been thinking on this for a few mintues and Why NOT START A PANIC!!!!! I mean really, what the industry needs is someone to come around and say that Action Comics is going to miss it’s 1000th issue, because Comics won’t be around in 5 years. Someone needs to do the math and make a chart and show that, at the rate we are at, comics are gone in X amount of time. I say this just to see what happens. I’m sure that someone at DC and Marvel has already done these things, that’s why books come and go so quick, but let the fans know how close to doom we are and see what they do. It’ll be one of two things.
Someone invents something awesome, and it gets what it needs because panic makes risk taking seem that much more reasonable.
or everybody dies and our lives move on.
Personally, I feel there are just too many comics on the market – especially from Marvel and DC.
The majority of this glut of comics is substandard quality – definitely not worth the $$$.
When a book is high quality and a good read – that’s when I believe new people get hooked on comics and the industry grows. But I gets the feeling that DC/Marvel like to just throw everything into the market simply for the chance to get the next big marketable franchise.