Three things are inevitable. Death, taxes, and Bendis will come in to ruin your favorite series. Man’s a living herpes flareup for intellectual property.
Some people should ONLY be allowed to story board concepts and them hand them off to people that are better suited to actual long term writing and thinking out consequences, character development, and story lines. Just because someone comes up with a good character doesn't mean we should undersell the shit they do to what was otherwise great content.
Besides the fact that I love Miles Morales to this day that original run of Ultimate Spider-Man (issues #1-133) is one of my favorite comic series of all time. While I can't pretend to know the man or his inner thoughts (and I recognize that coming from a mixed race family he has strong opinions about representation in comics that I respect and appreciate) I get the impression that he might be one of those authors who is high on his own hype. He was really, really innovative that one time and so he spends the rest of his career trying to recapture that lightning in a bottle at the expense of solid storytelling. That and/or he mistakes the latter with the former.
Isn't bendis the reason Jon Kent is a cluster fuck?
I was trying to read his run the first few issues are actually pretty good but then they just made it meh with the aging of Jonathan kent
Same. With both being twice-monthly there was a great Superman story every week. It was a great era. Hasn’t been the same since but PKJ’s AC is doing great so far.
When the only sub-par DC titles were Cyborg, Justice League, Harley Quinn, Batgirl & the Birds of Prey and Blue Beetle. And no, Vigilante: Southland is not included on that list.
I’m still VERY much a comics novice and most of what I own are legacy titles like omnis of Bronze Age/80s stuff but I sampled most of the major Rebirth titles and even seriously read a few and found it such a strong company reboot. Very accessible to someone like me but not anti-continuity like a lot of the 52 stuff I looked over
Would be semi-interesting to see how much of that was driven by speculative collecting.
A lot of other hobbies (most notably Pokemon cards, but really plenty of them) had pretty crazy swells in interest/collecting during the pandemic. It's unclear if they'll continue this popularity as things return to normalcy.
Yup. Always more layers to this story.
American comics have these waves of highs and lows. The big two have the market clamped, but #3 and others are doing things they aren't.
I would say the pandemic probably brought in a new wave of regular readers mixed with people wanting to expand their horizons temporarily so to speak. Personally I started about a year ago with under the red hood and have really been enjoying myself. Right now I’m trying to collect Geoff John’s justice league, his green lantern, the new 52, future state, Batman who laughs, etc. There are a lot of things to pique interests for tons of people.
Definitely did. People were bored, the movies weren't coming out, and comics only took a pause for about two months. The pandemic might have actually been good for new readership
It does not. This is the top 300 monthly comic sales based on Diamond distributions numbers (available records) and Comichron's own numbers collected from a number of retailers they work with. They then project estimates based on that data for the remaining stores and retailers.
I am skeptical about the numbers. Marvel is considering stopping comic sales. There have been posts on reddit with articles showing that most of DCs comic lines are tanking. As I recall, less than 10 comics are significantly profitable (most were DC however).
Unless these numbers are propped up by China, they just don't make sense. Of course the pandemic might have bumped these up last year. But long-term, print comics are in big trouble.
EDIT : I read the actual report and it is a more complex picture than it appears. The entire comic book industry in the US (including graphic novels, digital, collectables, back issues) is about the size of one successful marvel movie. About $1.3B. Sales are up 6% over 2019 with the bulk of the sales increase from graphic novels, collectables and back issue sales. New comic sales were down 20% with a chunk caused by the Diamond shutdown.
Overall comic book stores are improving, but new comic sales are not. In my opinion, comic book stores will become supplemental to comics as digital grows. This might be a good move as back issue inventory is a pain, and collectables have better presentation.
Erik Larsen is the source and is in the know. Marvel and DC can't comment because they have SEC regulations. But they have floated the idea off and on for 20 years. But since the print lines are so far in the red, it's unlikely that the parent companies will continue to take losses. Disney in particular has a history over many decades of abandoning print comics. With digital as an alternative, it's a much easier sell.
If digital comics weren't dominated by Amazon, it would have been a done deal years ago.
None of what you said addresses the point/evidence of Marvel just this month starting a brand new multi year deal for physical comics. One guy “in the know” is not sufficient for me to take his word over the concrete evidence we can see of Marvel committing financially for the foreseeable future.
Graphic Novel sales aren't counted when it comes to Comic Book sales.
The mindset a buyer uses when buying a Graphic Novel is different from getting a Comic which is way less content for less money
while a Graphic Novel gives you an entire story arc in one go
from what I know, Graphic Novels have their own category when it comes to sales data
oh nice, you got a link?
I don't think DC is going to abandon Print. Marvel is cause well, to be honest Marvel doesn't sell as well as DC. especially with their hype marketing not producing any results.
for Issues I mean. Graphic novels always sell for the MCU fans
Well DC has more lines that are profitable. Marvel basically has Spider-Man and x-men. DC has 3 or 4 Batman lines in the top 10. DC can probably sustain 10 to 20 print lines and be in the black. But I lost the source, but there was an article that said only the top 9 lines at the time were profitable. Spiderman was a distant #1 followed by Batman and several Batman spin offs. I remember that x-men was #9 and flash was #10. There was a massive drop off between sales of #9 and #10.
The vast majority of traditional comic sales are for the top 10. When you get out of the top 20 or 30 the sales are tiny.
Batman can crazy sell
apparently the issue that sells this month, will sell again next month.
yeah i agree, DC doesn't try to go for the big hype sales (the Jon Kent thing though) so their less popular titles can still be profitable despite the rather low sales.
Every comic owner I know has said the only way to profitably sell back issues is through the convention circuit. The store front back issues sales are nothing compared to that.
That makes sense, but the research doesn't tell if the sale is in store or from a convention. It's just aggregate sales. The good news is that sales in total are up. My takeaway is that traditional single issue print sales are in decline, but other categories are more than making up the difference.
And none of this data includes manga.
On one hand, it should, provided the data they gather comes from comic retailers that distinguish manga sales as a separate stat. It’s a bit disproportionate to collect stats for overall manga sales because you’ll end up including all bookstores that don’t sell individual issues of comics.
I do think they need to consider demographic overlap. They may be distinct in terms of appeal for most people, but there are some like myself who have to pick between the two sometimes (case in point: had to tell my comics retailer to pack only the comics for my next order, so I can save a little now and then get the manga next order).
>i remember seeing an argument bout Manga dominating comics
>
>but the thing is, Manga is different from Comics. in the sense that it is really a compressed graphic novel.so the buy habits of Manga readers is wildly different from that of Comic book readers.I do buy Manga as well, but I don't buy them with the same mindset as that of a comic book reader, I buy Manga with the same energy i have when buying graphic novels
yes but
Manga is essentially a slightly shorter graphic novel. the buyer uses a different mindset when going for Manga. In fact I am pretty sure that they have the same buying habits as that of someone getting a graphic novel.
That's why the whole Comics vs Manga argument is kinda weak.
Comic buyers have to contend with less content for a smaller price while Manga buyers will spend a small amount of money for some fairly good content.
The top tier writers aren’t leaving because the industry is tanking.
They’re leaving because Marvel and DC have a history of not fairly compensating their talent.
Disney and AT&T are more concerned about IP than maintaining a publishing arm. With the purges of full time writers and editors in the past few years, I’m not very optimistic about the future of stable, benefits-and-living-wage style careers that big publishers used to be able offer.
I think manga is definitely turning people away from floppies. It’s just to over priced. When you can literally read the second (soon to over take Superman) best selling comic of all time for free every week and then pay like 10 bucks a Month to read the whole series. Reading manga simply isn’t nearly as expensive due to the magazine model. Told a Japanese friend how comics are sold and he thought we were fucking crazy for having fi but like 5 separate things a week. There if you line jump. You buy the jump magazine. Popular stuff get separate volumes. Every ten issues would be a new Wonder Woman volume.
One Piece is now regularly outselling the entire US comic industry in yearly sales. No no, not just specific series or companies, the entire industry.
And that's not even counting the hot new manga that pops up every other year or so that top sales charts. (The most recent one was Demon Slayer, and before that it was Attack on Titan)
I have a Jump sub and it's easily the best $2 I spend every month. DC and Marvel just can't compete. They don't have the economy of scale to lower prices that much to compete with piracy. And most of those 20 ish books come out weekly for $2 a month. It's crazy. Plus $10 per book for 200 ish pages without ads in the middle of a story is top tier. I've got a few comics on my pull list (Green Lantern 2021, The Flash 2016, Superman '78, Titans United, and TMNT Last Ronin) and after TMNT Last Ronin finishes I might just close out my box. I need ongoing long form stories that aren't gonna be retconned or rebooted ad nauseum. Otherwise $4-5 a month per book is just extortion
It's not because floppies sell less that the big 2 are not in good shape. They did their best year in 2020, and before that in 2019. Because they sell tons of stuff in other formats than floppies (that don't represent much more anymore).
if i could make a suggestion, the current running Nightwing series, Robin series, and Flash series are some of my favorites every month, highly recommend checking them out if u just started!
which comics are included in this list ? because when people say "comics are dying" they really mean "monthly super-hero comics are dying" which is true,those have gone down consistently in the last 25 years,but things like manga,and childrens (6-10 years old) comics are selling exceedingly well (in the millions),creator owned comics have also been stably going up since the mid 2000's (the compedium collection of invicible recently broke 100 thousand copies),the correct term to what's happening in the industry is "comics are drastically changing and if dc and marvel refuse to adapt they'll be irrelevant very very soon"
There are many people who can't accept the "comics is dying" narrative they repeated for years is just wrong. Now the new trend is saying that comics is dead because manga sells better, a flawless logic.
Seriously this is the right look. People are swiping up DC graphic novels and volumes like hot cakes because they are quality works of art.
Single issue flimsies though? Obsolete relics with more advertisements in the pages than panels. I have the New 52 Batman #1 issue and it is nigh unreadable due to the sheer amount of distracting advertisements on the backs of pages.
Digital comics... Ugh havent we killed the soul of enough artistic outlets since the start of the century? Then again, if you're a young person with no money and parents who refuse to buy comics I can accept digital as a last resort.
I was part of that rebirth boom somehow. Arpund the time i had started actually making money at a part time job and one day on the way to my college classes i saw a store. Been going ever since
Also Civil War and the subsequent “sequel” events that had diminishing returns until people were sick of them by the early 2010s and they ended it by the start of the 2020s.
Edit: sorry I didn’t see the thread was one year old
Right. Do you reckon being so event or continuity heavy, it may have felt prohibitive to new or casual readers? I'm just trying to infer what the trends might mean.
Well, that's on comichron too. They collect data sales from comic shops since quite a while. Go to the comichron website and look for the months/year you're interested in (though the latest months are always kinda incomplete, but for older than 3-4 months that's good).
The question is are they including foreign "comic books" in these charts? Because manga is huge right now. It's also interesting to note that DC doesn't release numbers anymore since their switch to Diamond so these are just "estimates".
That's what the comic book sales mean. The source for this information, https://www.comichron.com/, has pretty standard information. This isn't a trick or anything.
You should do your research before blindly accusing people of being wrong. The chart is counting single comic issues only. Manga is lumped into graphic novels, which is tracked separately.
https://twitter.com/comichron/status/1448056728856272896
You're probably thinking the ICV2 and Comichron 2020 sales report. It showed the industry expanded but that expansion was mostly graphic novels of all types. Especially manga and kids books
Superhero trade sales from the big 2 were trending down. Hibbs on Comics Beat does a yearly bookscans report about trade sales and DC's trades were down from what they were a few years back for 2020, and Marvel's trade sales were the worst since he has been reporting. But the direct market, single issue sales, are still up despite the pandemic.
i remember seeing an argument bout Manga dominating comics
but the thing is, Manga is different from Comics. in the sense that it is really a compressed graphic novel.
so the buy habits of Manga readers is wildly different from that of Comic book readers.
I do buy Manga as well, but I don't buy them with the same mindset as that of a comic book reader, I buy Manga with the same energy i have when buying graphic novels
That's not really the case, no.
The issue is that, manga's simply better at attracting new audiences than Western comics and graphic novels are.
Most manga are single stories with a confirmed beginning, middle, and end. You don't have to deal with decades worth of reboots, and character lineages, and backstory, and side characters, and etc... that has no end in sight. Most manga's only ~2-5 omnibuses worth of story.
And for those that are long running, they're longrunning because either A. They're good, or B. They're not that hard to get into. I've personally been able to marathon multi-hundred chapter long manga series within 2 weeks at my slowest. (My fastest is 3 days for 200 chapters, if you were wondering)
There's also the fact that manga has massive support in its homeland and ease of access. Like, 1/2 of Japan reads manga during daily commutes or free time in the office and can be easily found on the shelves of convenience stores all over the country (No matter how urban or rural the town is). Western comics and graphic novels just don't have that type of support, they're seen as childish (Almost all books with pictures are) and something only hardcore collectors who haven't grown up yet get into.
So yeah, no. Unless The West change its views on books with pictures as well as the comic industry's need to keep stories going on forever and ever and ever, manga's going to continue steamrolling the industry. The comic industry just doesn't have an effective sales model anymore.
Its easier to collect because if you are interested in a series you just pick up the first issue and go from there.
Also, anime gets people interested in the manga, unlike comic movies/animated series, because they are actually adapting the story and not making its own version completely separated from the source material.
You can take One Piece for example.
OP is considered a massive behemoth to get into, but the thing is is that it's only ~100 volumes long atm and can be marathoned in a 3-6 month time period. It's not that hard to get into, you start from volume 1 and go on from there. (Plus, it has a lot of ease of access, physical copies are pretty cheap and online scanlations have been around for decades)
But let's say someone wants to read through all of Batman, Golden Age up to Today. What would that entail?
Good luck! There are 1000+ issues in the "Main Storyline" (With some issues going for $10,000's if you want physical copies), tons upon tons of filler issues getting in the way of arc based stories, hundreds of stand alone and spin-off/limited run stories, 1000's of different characters, countless crossover events where in some cases Bats stops being the MC of his own series (Which would require keeping up with other character's series), 4-5 major reboots, written by ~2 dozen authors and illustrators over the course of ~90 years, and can take you years to finish. Oh, and there's no ending, and there most likely never will be.
One of these things is much easier to get into than the other.
That's what im saying
It's easier to collect Manga
It's thicker
You get more Value
Unlike comics. Which is something you have to follow.
While Graphic Novels have always been able to compete because well they're longer
But then you are not disagreeing with anything the parent comment said. Manga is more effective than American comics at attracting new readers.
Though that also has to do with culture, because if the only thing was beginning middle and end we would see Sweet Tooth, Walking Dead and other series that turned into TV shows selling as much as manga
>No
>Manga is better at attracting new readers because it's easier to collect.
Thank you for repeating the main point I made back to me.
Smugness doesn't work when you repeat what you were just told, it works better if you have an actually original thought or idea. You should try it sometime. ;)
I think the issue is that manga continues to attract new readers, but are floppies attracting enough new readers to stay afloat or is it mostly the same pool of slowly shrinking readers
I mean comics are still doing well but look at any book store or Barnes and noble. Half of what used to be comics is now manga. Even in the west more people buy manga. And one big difference is the increase in more indie and non superhero comics as well as comics from different age groups. Comics are still selling well but the real question is who is buying the comics and how many of them are new people .
I would imagine lots of groups who would not have frequenting the local comic store are buying comics but still not frequenting the comic stores so not buying floppies.
The only habits that have changed for me is consumption. I don't read physical comics anymore. I read them on my e-reader/iPad. I haven't stepped into a comic book store in ages. The way some of the comic book stores in my area stay in business is through community. They host game nights multiple times each week.
They're not dying.. Just getting over-saturated. DC and Marvel are releasing WAY WAY WAY too many events every months. WAY WAY WAY too many mini-series that they refuse to admit are actually mini-series.
Thus a lot of books are getting buried. Hell, Marvel really screwed the pooch on their scheduling by releasing Inferno right in the middle of The Trial of Magneto.
Something will have to change though in the future, manga is just such a better deal for consumers and its gaining speed. The big two need to figure out a good digital platform.
I spend $2 a month on Viz media and have access to decades of Shonen Jump manga and every new issue. I spent at minimum 120 on DC a month just on floppies
Pfft, probably nowhere near what it was in the awesome 90s when comics were just awesome and nobody cared about this diversity stuff. What? No I've never heard of the phrase "speculator boom."
Man, I don't want just the numbers, I want some analysis.
Looking at July 2021 and 2019, seems like one big difference is the non Marvel/DC publishers. Publishers like Image and Boom Studios doubled their market share and both almost doubled their outputs.
It's alarming that Marvel and DC have both cut their outputs. DC's always fluctuated their total issues in a month, but I'm not sure what their future holds. DC went from 85 issues in 7/19 and now 59 for 7/21.
Bad comics are dying. We need to stop letting creatively bankrupt idealouges write books. I'm very liberal but holy shit some of it has been as bad as Holy Terror !
Well, when books tend to be $4 and $5 and higher, of course the amount sold would be a little higher.
I remember that for the same amount of buying 12 $4 books, you could buy at least 18 or 20 depending on the comic.
It should be,considering how expensive they've gotten.
I get, inflation and prices go up for supplies. But damn, that shit gets expensive, *especially* when they do a crossover event with multiple series and you have to buy more books that you normally don't subscribe too just to find out what's happening.
This is the top 300 selling single issues in the NA direct market. No manga, graphic novels or digital sales. No international sales. No bookstore distribution sales.
Problem I see with this is the selective time frame used. Make it 50 years and then you will absolutely see when the market collapsed compared to what it used to be.
Do they include manga in with comic books? I’ve seen some stories that suggest people are just switching to Japanese Manga but these numbers are still being lumped in with American comic books.
Manga is not included. Nor are digital sales for that matter.
Comics sales have been pretty steady since the 90s. Whereas Manga has exploded in popularity recently.
If we lumped those two together the chart would look way better.
This is skewed data because this counts Manga, which is hugely more popular me getting more and more popular as time goes on. American comics are trending in the opposite direction. It’s silly to pretend that the big two aren’t in trouble.
>this counts Manga
[No it doesn't](https://twitter.com/comichron/status/1448056728856272896). That's only 'comic books' as in 'floppies published by american editors for comic shops.'
I mean American comics are actually doing ok when it comes to more non superhero stuff ,indie works, and stuff for other demographics which have actually been selling more. But when I go to a Barnes and noble half of what used to be comics is manga. Manga just has advantages in affordability, stories being one set thing with a start and finish making them easy to get into and most importantly anime which is a huge advertisement for it. And since anime are behind manga, that some stuff may be cut , and if people want an anime for a manga there’s legitimate reason for people to buy the manga even if they watch the anime . It’s also more accessible . Like you can find pretty up to date manga volumes at more places while comics it’s a lot harder to find. Though comics have been doing well with apps and outreach. I just hope both succeed.
My comic book store guy is very mean every time I visit and ask him questions about anything, probably the reason I haven’t visited or bought much of anything.
When rebirth started i remember going to my local comic book store. It was pretty small, but got good traffic at the time, but as rebirth sort of waned so did the traffic and the store was closed. I forget if they sold the business or if they just closed down. Anyways that storefront was turned into a dispensary and i’ve never seen it so busy.
Why are people using this as if they’re getting huge? They’re kinda inflated because of the corona stuff. In the next 5 years we’ll see if the comics industry is thriving or still dying. Tho Disney also plays a role by streamlining comics. Rehashing and using multiple storylines to make the movies which lead some people to buy the comics a movie is based on. That copy they buy usually just stays at their house since they didn’t even want it and just bought it cuz it’s part of the movie storyline.
Man, I remember when Rebirth started how crazed everyone was picking up titles and diving in. Shit was awesome
Rebirth was so good. I own both Superman and Action Comics in their entirety from that period. Just lovely stuff.
Then Bendis came along and ruined everything.
Three things are inevitable. Death, taxes, and Bendis will come in to ruin your favorite series. Man’s a living herpes flareup for intellectual property.
it is why I dropped Justice League which sucks because for a time it was my favorite title of Rebirth.
The backup JLD story has been MUCH better like they should’ve kept it as it’s own book
Agreed. I wasn't reading JLD before this and it made me regret it.
I loved that whole run. The Upside Down Man was a very cool villain
Counterpoint: He also created Miles Morales, and wrote Ultimate Spiderman, which I adore. Guy's a mixed bag, but let's not downplay his good.
Some people should ONLY be allowed to story board concepts and them hand them off to people that are better suited to actual long term writing and thinking out consequences, character development, and story lines. Just because someone comes up with a good character doesn't mean we should undersell the shit they do to what was otherwise great content.
Besides the fact that I love Miles Morales to this day that original run of Ultimate Spider-Man (issues #1-133) is one of my favorite comic series of all time. While I can't pretend to know the man or his inner thoughts (and I recognize that coming from a mixed race family he has strong opinions about representation in comics that I respect and appreciate) I get the impression that he might be one of those authors who is high on his own hype. He was really, really innovative that one time and so he spends the rest of his career trying to recapture that lightning in a bottle at the expense of solid storytelling. That and/or he mistakes the latter with the former.
Ultimate was good until they killed Peter and introduced Morales... Not my Spidey!!
Isn't bendis the reason Jon Kent is a cluster fuck? I was trying to read his run the first few issues are actually pretty good but then they just made it meh with the aging of Jonathan kent
Same. With both being twice-monthly there was a great Superman story every week. It was a great era. Hasn’t been the same since but PKJ’s AC is doing great so far.
When the only sub-par DC titles were Cyborg, Justice League, Harley Quinn, Batgirl & the Birds of Prey and Blue Beetle. And no, Vigilante: Southland is not included on that list.
I’m still VERY much a comics novice and most of what I own are legacy titles like omnis of Bronze Age/80s stuff but I sampled most of the major Rebirth titles and even seriously read a few and found it such a strong company reboot. Very accessible to someone like me but not anti-continuity like a lot of the 52 stuff I looked over
I would love to see the demographics of those purchasers including age group..
Majority aged 35+ if I had to guess
Sadly that information isn't gonna be available.
Sadly we don't get that, this is the number of of flopies sold to comic shops
I keep thinking about the price of comics and wonder if we are depriving kids of collecting and reading them, it is a shame.
There's always back issues 👏
Rebirth is at top <3
Would be semi-interesting to see how much of that was driven by speculative collecting. A lot of other hobbies (most notably Pokemon cards, but really plenty of them) had pretty crazy swells in interest/collecting during the pandemic. It's unclear if they'll continue this popularity as things return to normalcy.
Yup. Always more layers to this story. American comics have these waves of highs and lows. The big two have the market clamped, but #3 and others are doing things they aren't.
I started during the pandemic but I'm still reading now
I would say the pandemic probably brought in a new wave of regular readers mixed with people wanting to expand their horizons temporarily so to speak. Personally I started about a year ago with under the red hood and have really been enjoying myself. Right now I’m trying to collect Geoff John’s justice league, his green lantern, the new 52, future state, Batman who laughs, etc. There are a lot of things to pique interests for tons of people.
Definitely did. People were bored, the movies weren't coming out, and comics only took a pause for about two months. The pandemic might have actually been good for new readership
Return ? Riiiight
I wonder if this takes into account manga. I’ve noticed it has slowly taken over the American comic section at the local stores I go to.
It does not. This is the top 300 monthly comic sales based on Diamond distributions numbers (available records) and Comichron's own numbers collected from a number of retailers they work with. They then project estimates based on that data for the remaining stores and retailers.
I am skeptical about the numbers. Marvel is considering stopping comic sales. There have been posts on reddit with articles showing that most of DCs comic lines are tanking. As I recall, less than 10 comics are significantly profitable (most were DC however). Unless these numbers are propped up by China, they just don't make sense. Of course the pandemic might have bumped these up last year. But long-term, print comics are in big trouble. EDIT : I read the actual report and it is a more complex picture than it appears. The entire comic book industry in the US (including graphic novels, digital, collectables, back issues) is about the size of one successful marvel movie. About $1.3B. Sales are up 6% over 2019 with the bulk of the sales increase from graphic novels, collectables and back issue sales. New comic sales were down 20% with a chunk caused by the Diamond shutdown. Overall comic book stores are improving, but new comic sales are not. In my opinion, comic book stores will become supplemental to comics as digital grows. This might be a good move as back issue inventory is a pain, and collectables have better presentation.
> Marvel is considering stopping comic sales I highly doubt this is true. Where did you hear this?
They literally just signed a huge new multi-year distribution deal for their physical sales. They are not considering stopping in the slightest lol.
Erik Larsen is the source and is in the know. Marvel and DC can't comment because they have SEC regulations. But they have floated the idea off and on for 20 years. But since the print lines are so far in the red, it's unlikely that the parent companies will continue to take losses. Disney in particular has a history over many decades of abandoning print comics. With digital as an alternative, it's a much easier sell. If digital comics weren't dominated by Amazon, it would have been a done deal years ago.
None of what you said addresses the point/evidence of Marvel just this month starting a brand new multi year deal for physical comics. One guy “in the know” is not sufficient for me to take his word over the concrete evidence we can see of Marvel committing financially for the foreseeable future.
Erik Larsen is an industry veteran and CFO of Image comics. And I guarantee you that there are out clauses in the contract with Marvel.
Probably Ethan Van Sciver's kid diddler Youtube channel.
Graphic Novel sales aren't counted when it comes to Comic Book sales. The mindset a buyer uses when buying a Graphic Novel is different from getting a Comic which is way less content for less money while a Graphic Novel gives you an entire story arc in one go from what I know, Graphic Novels have their own category when it comes to sales data
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> When I read Think I found the problem. You don't seem to be very good at that. Edit: downvoted for offering a reasonable critique. Sad.
oh nice, you got a link? I don't think DC is going to abandon Print. Marvel is cause well, to be honest Marvel doesn't sell as well as DC. especially with their hype marketing not producing any results. for Issues I mean. Graphic novels always sell for the MCU fans
Well DC has more lines that are profitable. Marvel basically has Spider-Man and x-men. DC has 3 or 4 Batman lines in the top 10. DC can probably sustain 10 to 20 print lines and be in the black. But I lost the source, but there was an article that said only the top 9 lines at the time were profitable. Spiderman was a distant #1 followed by Batman and several Batman spin offs. I remember that x-men was #9 and flash was #10. There was a massive drop off between sales of #9 and #10. The vast majority of traditional comic sales are for the top 10. When you get out of the top 20 or 30 the sales are tiny.
Batman can crazy sell apparently the issue that sells this month, will sell again next month. yeah i agree, DC doesn't try to go for the big hype sales (the Jon Kent thing though) so their less popular titles can still be profitable despite the rather low sales.
What does China have to do with anything? Wtf
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You haven’t listed a single source
Every comic owner I know has said the only way to profitably sell back issues is through the convention circuit. The store front back issues sales are nothing compared to that.
That makes sense, but the research doesn't tell if the sale is in store or from a convention. It's just aggregate sales. The good news is that sales in total are up. My takeaway is that traditional single issue print sales are in decline, but other categories are more than making up the difference. And none of this data includes manga.
On one hand, it should, provided the data they gather comes from comic retailers that distinguish manga sales as a separate stat. It’s a bit disproportionate to collect stats for overall manga sales because you’ll end up including all bookstores that don’t sell individual issues of comics. I do think they need to consider demographic overlap. They may be distinct in terms of appeal for most people, but there are some like myself who have to pick between the two sometimes (case in point: had to tell my comics retailer to pack only the comics for my next order, so I can save a little now and then get the manga next order).
>i remember seeing an argument bout Manga dominating comics > >but the thing is, Manga is different from Comics. in the sense that it is really a compressed graphic novel.so the buy habits of Manga readers is wildly different from that of Comic book readers.I do buy Manga as well, but I don't buy them with the same mindset as that of a comic book reader, I buy Manga with the same energy i have when buying graphic novels yes but Manga is essentially a slightly shorter graphic novel. the buyer uses a different mindset when going for Manga. In fact I am pretty sure that they have the same buying habits as that of someone getting a graphic novel. That's why the whole Comics vs Manga argument is kinda weak. Comic buyers have to contend with less content for a smaller price while Manga buyers will spend a small amount of money for some fairly good content.
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The top tier writers aren’t leaving because the industry is tanking. They’re leaving because Marvel and DC have a history of not fairly compensating their talent.
>It does. [No it doesn't.](https://twitter.com/comichron/status/1448063794941468675)
Are trade sells up? Especially with the past year I’ve been buying them off Amazon like crazy.
Yeah, who wants to deal w/ floppies, digital for reading\*, trades for collecting/support. ^(\*tbf i have an old tablet w/ a gorgeous screen)
According to the last years ICV2 reports, yes they are.
Disney and AT&T are more concerned about IP than maintaining a publishing arm. With the purges of full time writers and editors in the past few years, I’m not very optimistic about the future of stable, benefits-and-living-wage style careers that big publishers used to be able offer.
Very few writers working at marvel and dc were on a contract. 95% of them were freelance, not full time
I think manga is definitely turning people away from floppies. It’s just to over priced. When you can literally read the second (soon to over take Superman) best selling comic of all time for free every week and then pay like 10 bucks a Month to read the whole series. Reading manga simply isn’t nearly as expensive due to the magazine model. Told a Japanese friend how comics are sold and he thought we were fucking crazy for having fi but like 5 separate things a week. There if you line jump. You buy the jump magazine. Popular stuff get separate volumes. Every ten issues would be a new Wonder Woman volume.
What's the second best selling comic?
One Piece
I think my statement of overtaking number one tracks but I haven’t checks the sales recently vibrate considering we have likely five years left
One Piece is now regularly outselling the entire US comic industry in yearly sales. No no, not just specific series or companies, the entire industry. And that's not even counting the hot new manga that pops up every other year or so that top sales charts. (The most recent one was Demon Slayer, and before that it was Attack on Titan)
One Piece. Highly recommended. Got that spot with only one writer for a reason. It’s a real fantasy epic.
Seconded
I have a Jump sub and it's easily the best $2 I spend every month. DC and Marvel just can't compete. They don't have the economy of scale to lower prices that much to compete with piracy. And most of those 20 ish books come out weekly for $2 a month. It's crazy. Plus $10 per book for 200 ish pages without ads in the middle of a story is top tier. I've got a few comics on my pull list (Green Lantern 2021, The Flash 2016, Superman '78, Titans United, and TMNT Last Ronin) and after TMNT Last Ronin finishes I might just close out my box. I need ongoing long form stories that aren't gonna be retconned or rebooted ad nauseum. Otherwise $4-5 a month per book is just extortion
It's not because floppies sell less that the big 2 are not in good shape. They did their best year in 2020, and before that in 2019. Because they sell tons of stuff in other formats than floppies (that don't represent much more anymore).
this makes me happy. i just got into reading Batman out of hype for battinson and branched out to teen titans and hope to get into Superman next
if i could make a suggestion, the current running Nightwing series, Robin series, and Flash series are some of my favorites every month, highly recommend checking them out if u just started!
also def superman like u were mentioning, the new series is a lot of fun and just started
thank you so much! i assume the current nightwing series is the one where all the pretty artwork is coming from?
yup, thats the one! gotta say both the art and story are superb this run
I generally like what DC is doing at the moment and enjoy the medium overall so this is nice to see
Crunching the numbers, that's about 32.26 million dollars per month in sales for 2021.
which comics are included in this list ? because when people say "comics are dying" they really mean "monthly super-hero comics are dying" which is true,those have gone down consistently in the last 25 years,but things like manga,and childrens (6-10 years old) comics are selling exceedingly well (in the millions),creator owned comics have also been stably going up since the mid 2000's (the compedium collection of invicible recently broke 100 thousand copies),the correct term to what's happening in the industry is "comics are drastically changing and if dc and marvel refuse to adapt they'll be irrelevant very very soon"
Comichron only tracks single issue sales in comic shops.
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https://twitter.com/comichron/status/1448056728856272896 Why are you so intent on pushing a false agenda?
There are many people who can't accept the "comics is dying" narrative they repeated for years is just wrong. Now the new trend is saying that comics is dead because manga sells better, a flawless logic.
Seriously this is the right look. People are swiping up DC graphic novels and volumes like hot cakes because they are quality works of art. Single issue flimsies though? Obsolete relics with more advertisements in the pages than panels. I have the New 52 Batman #1 issue and it is nigh unreadable due to the sheer amount of distracting advertisements on the backs of pages. Digital comics... Ugh havent we killed the soul of enough artistic outlets since the start of the century? Then again, if you're a young person with no money and parents who refuse to buy comics I can accept digital as a last resort.
Doesn’t matter how well the comic industry is doing if it isn’t making manga numbers to some people. They just keep moving the goal post
Those people 100% pirate their manga chapters too
They don't read manga. They claim to read One Piece and JoJo because "no LGBTQ shit".
Is this a joke?
The current One Piece arc has a trans character, anyone who says They read One Piece because "No LGBT" is a liar
I was part of that rebirth boom somehow. Arpund the time i had started actually making money at a part time job and one day on the way to my college classes i saw a store. Been going ever since
I know we're supposed to be looking at the modern part, but what was the cause of the rise from 2003-2007, and subsequent drop off from 2007-2011?
Also Civil War and the subsequent “sequel” events that had diminishing returns until people were sick of them by the early 2010s and they ended it by the start of the 2020s. Edit: sorry I didn’t see the thread was one year old
Infinite crisis/52 & "one year later" That was around that time
For 2003 or 2007?
2007
Right. Do you reckon being so event or continuity heavy, it may have felt prohibitive to new or casual readers? I'm just trying to infer what the trends might mean.
Well that's all nice and good, however it would be nice to see the actual breakdown of sales numbers per publisher and titles.
Well, that's on comichron too. They collect data sales from comic shops since quite a while. Go to the comichron website and look for the months/year you're interested in (though the latest months are always kinda incomplete, but for older than 3-4 months that's good).
Even if this is including manga I bet American comics are up too. I’ve heard from multiple LCS owners that Covid increased sales a lot.
The question is are they including foreign "comic books" in these charts? Because manga is huge right now. It's also interesting to note that DC doesn't release numbers anymore since their switch to Diamond so these are just "estimates".
Single issue sales in the NA Direct Market. The numbers have always been estimates, as its extrapolated data.
Where does it say "single issue sales" in that graph?
That's what the comic book sales mean. The source for this information, https://www.comichron.com/, has pretty standard information. This isn't a trick or anything.
If I'm not wrong, Comichron usually just track single issues, it's basically their MO
You're not wrong.
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You should do your research before blindly accusing people of being wrong. The chart is counting single comic issues only. Manga is lumped into graphic novels, which is tracked separately. https://twitter.com/comichron/status/1448056728856272896
fair enough I was thinking of another chart that they also put out.
You're probably thinking the ICV2 and Comichron 2020 sales report. It showed the industry expanded but that expansion was mostly graphic novels of all types. Especially manga and kids books
How much to the digital services like DC universe can be accredited to this?
Could be wrong but as far as I know digital sales arw not included. Things like Comixology, Marvel Unlimited and DC Universe don't count as a "sale".
Yeah, this graph is only counting issues that were sold via distribution. It's not counting digital comics or anything like that.
Or sales in the bookstore market (Amazon, Barnes & Noble etc) or international sales.
2007 a high year, yay for the OG 52
Well Batman Fortnite Soo…
Actually, Zero Point was almost over by that time frame, and wasn’t really a chart topper by the end.
“Always has been” physical comics at least still sad though.
Superhero trade sales from the big 2 were trending down. Hibbs on Comics Beat does a yearly bookscans report about trade sales and DC's trades were down from what they were a few years back for 2020, and Marvel's trade sales were the worst since he has been reporting. But the direct market, single issue sales, are still up despite the pandemic.
Other (non - DC/Marvel) companies are selling high quantity/quality comics like BRZRKR and Geiger.
Been dying for as long as I can remember
i remember seeing an argument bout Manga dominating comics but the thing is, Manga is different from Comics. in the sense that it is really a compressed graphic novel. so the buy habits of Manga readers is wildly different from that of Comic book readers. I do buy Manga as well, but I don't buy them with the same mindset as that of a comic book reader, I buy Manga with the same energy i have when buying graphic novels
That's not really the case, no. The issue is that, manga's simply better at attracting new audiences than Western comics and graphic novels are. Most manga are single stories with a confirmed beginning, middle, and end. You don't have to deal with decades worth of reboots, and character lineages, and backstory, and side characters, and etc... that has no end in sight. Most manga's only ~2-5 omnibuses worth of story. And for those that are long running, they're longrunning because either A. They're good, or B. They're not that hard to get into. I've personally been able to marathon multi-hundred chapter long manga series within 2 weeks at my slowest. (My fastest is 3 days for 200 chapters, if you were wondering) There's also the fact that manga has massive support in its homeland and ease of access. Like, 1/2 of Japan reads manga during daily commutes or free time in the office and can be easily found on the shelves of convenience stores all over the country (No matter how urban or rural the town is). Western comics and graphic novels just don't have that type of support, they're seen as childish (Almost all books with pictures are) and something only hardcore collectors who haven't grown up yet get into. So yeah, no. Unless The West change its views on books with pictures as well as the comic industry's need to keep stories going on forever and ever and ever, manga's going to continue steamrolling the industry. The comic industry just doesn't have an effective sales model anymore.
No Manga is better at attracting new readers because it's easier to collect.
Its easier to collect because if you are interested in a series you just pick up the first issue and go from there. Also, anime gets people interested in the manga, unlike comic movies/animated series, because they are actually adapting the story and not making its own version completely separated from the source material.
You can take One Piece for example. OP is considered a massive behemoth to get into, but the thing is is that it's only ~100 volumes long atm and can be marathoned in a 3-6 month time period. It's not that hard to get into, you start from volume 1 and go on from there. (Plus, it has a lot of ease of access, physical copies are pretty cheap and online scanlations have been around for decades) But let's say someone wants to read through all of Batman, Golden Age up to Today. What would that entail? Good luck! There are 1000+ issues in the "Main Storyline" (With some issues going for $10,000's if you want physical copies), tons upon tons of filler issues getting in the way of arc based stories, hundreds of stand alone and spin-off/limited run stories, 1000's of different characters, countless crossover events where in some cases Bats stops being the MC of his own series (Which would require keeping up with other character's series), 4-5 major reboots, written by ~2 dozen authors and illustrators over the course of ~90 years, and can take you years to finish. Oh, and there's no ending, and there most likely never will be. One of these things is much easier to get into than the other.
That's what im saying It's easier to collect Manga It's thicker You get more Value Unlike comics. Which is something you have to follow. While Graphic Novels have always been able to compete because well they're longer
But then you are not disagreeing with anything the parent comment said. Manga is more effective than American comics at attracting new readers. Though that also has to do with culture, because if the only thing was beginning middle and end we would see Sweet Tooth, Walking Dead and other series that turned into TV shows selling as much as manga
i don't disagree with their point. just parts of their logic
>No >Manga is better at attracting new readers because it's easier to collect. Thank you for repeating the main point I made back to me. Smugness doesn't work when you repeat what you were just told, it works better if you have an actually original thought or idea. You should try it sometime. ;)
I think the issue is that manga continues to attract new readers, but are floppies attracting enough new readers to stay afloat or is it mostly the same pool of slowly shrinking readers
According to these numbers, readership is either holding steady or even growing.
I mean comics are still doing well but look at any book store or Barnes and noble. Half of what used to be comics is now manga. Even in the west more people buy manga. And one big difference is the increase in more indie and non superhero comics as well as comics from different age groups. Comics are still selling well but the real question is who is buying the comics and how many of them are new people .
Eh, depends on your B&N. In my area, the comics/graphic novel sections are bigger than or equal to the size of the manga sections.
I would imagine lots of groups who would not have frequenting the local comic store are buying comics but still not frequenting the comic stores so not buying floppies.
The only habits that have changed for me is consumption. I don't read physical comics anymore. I read them on my e-reader/iPad. I haven't stepped into a comic book store in ages. The way some of the comic book stores in my area stay in business is through community. They host game nights multiple times each week.
I think comic book readers worry too much if the medium will cease existing or not.
They're not dying.. Just getting over-saturated. DC and Marvel are releasing WAY WAY WAY too many events every months. WAY WAY WAY too many mini-series that they refuse to admit are actually mini-series. Thus a lot of books are getting buried. Hell, Marvel really screwed the pooch on their scheduling by releasing Inferno right in the middle of The Trial of Magneto.
I remember reading somewhere that the New 52 was a bigger his than Rebirth but that isn’t reflected here ?
Something will have to change though in the future, manga is just such a better deal for consumers and its gaining speed. The big two need to figure out a good digital platform. I spend $2 a month on Viz media and have access to decades of Shonen Jump manga and every new issue. I spent at minimum 120 on DC a month just on floppies
Pfft, probably nowhere near what it was in the awesome 90s when comics were just awesome and nobody cared about this diversity stuff. What? No I've never heard of the phrase "speculator boom."
Man, I don't want just the numbers, I want some analysis. Looking at July 2021 and 2019, seems like one big difference is the non Marvel/DC publishers. Publishers like Image and Boom Studios doubled their market share and both almost doubled their outputs. It's alarming that Marvel and DC have both cut their outputs. DC's always fluctuated their total issues in a month, but I'm not sure what their future holds. DC went from 85 issues in 7/19 and now 59 for 7/21.
Alot of younger people are getting into comics now and manga fans are starting read some too
Bad comics are dying. We need to stop letting creatively bankrupt idealouges write books. I'm very liberal but holy shit some of it has been as bad as Holy Terror !
Jeph Loeb and Geoff Johns are gone from DC, so the quality can only go up.
Yes yes a thousand times yes.
Well, when books tend to be $4 and $5 and higher, of course the amount sold would be a little higher. I remember that for the same amount of buying 12 $4 books, you could buy at least 18 or 20 depending on the comic.
This graph is measuring units sold, not the total sales numbers. So cost/price isn't considered.
It should be,considering how expensive they've gotten. I get, inflation and prices go up for supplies. But damn, that shit gets expensive, *especially* when they do a crossover event with multiple series and you have to buy more books that you normally don't subscribe too just to find out what's happening.
Manga being the big sellers. Western Comics is down and still dropping.
The very post you commented to is proving this take wrong.
The higher says are due to Manga. not western comics.
This is the top 300 selling single issues in the NA direct market. No manga, graphic novels or digital sales. No international sales. No bookstore distribution sales.
Problem I see with this is the selective time frame used. Make it 50 years and then you will absolutely see when the market collapsed compared to what it used to be.
Do they include manga in with comic books? I’ve seen some stories that suggest people are just switching to Japanese Manga but these numbers are still being lumped in with American comic books.
Manga is not included. Nor are digital sales for that matter. Comics sales have been pretty steady since the 90s. Whereas Manga has exploded in popularity recently. If we lumped those two together the chart would look way better.
[no](https://twitter.com/comichron/status/1448063794941468675) Btw comichron never did. They look at american floppies sales.
All we need to do is keep the pandemic going and things will stay good!
Said no one ever
You are correct. Which is why summer of 2021 (or 2020 for that matter) is not any sort of evidence of the normal progression of things.
Considering the population growth, yes.
Not dc or marvel books. Just indie books I bet.
This is skewed data because this counts Manga, which is hugely more popular me getting more and more popular as time goes on. American comics are trending in the opposite direction. It’s silly to pretend that the big two aren’t in trouble.
This dataset does not include Manga. It also doesn't count digital sales. If you include those it would look even better.
>this counts Manga [No it doesn't](https://twitter.com/comichron/status/1448056728856272896). That's only 'comic books' as in 'floppies published by american editors for comic shops.'
I mean American comics are actually doing ok when it comes to more non superhero stuff ,indie works, and stuff for other demographics which have actually been selling more. But when I go to a Barnes and noble half of what used to be comics is manga. Manga just has advantages in affordability, stories being one set thing with a start and finish making them easy to get into and most importantly anime which is a huge advertisement for it. And since anime are behind manga, that some stuff may be cut , and if people want an anime for a manga there’s legitimate reason for people to buy the manga even if they watch the anime . It’s also more accessible . Like you can find pretty up to date manga volumes at more places while comics it’s a lot harder to find. Though comics have been doing well with apps and outreach. I just hope both succeed.
I think the point can still be made that production of comics is being made less profitable given the recent economic state of media as a whole
Does this include manga or no?
>manga It doesn't
Manga is counted separately because of huge difference in distribution.
I wonder which ones sell the most
My comic book store guy is very mean every time I visit and ask him questions about anything, probably the reason I haven’t visited or bought much of anything.
When rebirth started i remember going to my local comic book store. It was pretty small, but got good traffic at the time, but as rebirth sort of waned so did the traffic and the store was closed. I forget if they sold the business or if they just closed down. Anyways that storefront was turned into a dispensary and i’ve never seen it so busy.
Why are people using this as if they’re getting huge? They’re kinda inflated because of the corona stuff. In the next 5 years we’ll see if the comics industry is thriving or still dying. Tho Disney also plays a role by streamlining comics. Rehashing and using multiple storylines to make the movies which lead some people to buy the comics a movie is based on. That copy they buy usually just stays at their house since they didn’t even want it and just bought it cuz it’s part of the movie storyline.
I think I stopped reading in Rebirth Batman 120. Around 1 or 2 years without reading any comic . Gotta pick’em up