Now that ICv2 has posted hard numbers, better comments and analysis can take root. Thanks!
Overall comic sales were down versus this point in 2010, but only by about 1.5%, which is close to holding level. Still...the #100 book in the Top 100 didn't even sell 17,800 copies. That's CRAZY.
Note that FEAR ITSELF #1's debut of over 128k is the best selling comic since July 2010, it is still a weaker debut than SIEGE #1, which sold in the 130k-135k range. To be fair, the first few issues of SIEGE were returnable, which caused Diamond to under-report sales by about 20% for the first few issues. SIEGE's sales dropped with #2 but held steady over 110k an issue. It does look like that the days of crossover comics selling north of 150k, or heaven forbid 200k and up, are behind us.
What doesn't bode well is that even two issues in, buzz online is still of confusion and dismay that the story is so simple. Marvel promoted the story with a series of images that are likely never to appear in the book, yet Tom Brevoort almost gets huffy answering questions about them online. The audience probably expected a plot or theme more complex than what would have sufficed for an episode of "CHALLENGE OF THE SUPERFRIENDS", only played straight. Thus, the story Marvel promoted is not the same as the story they are selling; when a mom and pop grocery store does this, it's called "bait and switch" and the manager can go to jail over it.
Wow Bendis' Avengers books are sinking like rocks.
To a degree, yes. Bendis' AVENGERS and NEW AVENGERS have seen steady, consistent "diminishing returns" at larger rates than one would expect for the man who was the top selling ongoing series writer for years. At this point, both books' declines are only slowed by variant covers, which have become the norm for Marvel. The normal rate of "diminishing returns" per month for many (Marvel) comics is 1-3% a month. Some months of Bendis Avenger comics without variants have seen drops of 4-6%, which are large for books running so long with such a "big" writer.
AVENGERS #12 sold at under 63,500 copies in April; in March, it sold over 66k, with the benefit of a Capt. America variant cover. Without it, it sold 63k in February.
In April, NEW AVENGERS sold over 61k. That is actually a boost from March, where it sold over 59k. Still, these are historic lows for NA. A year ago it was selling over 75k, which is where GREEN LANTERN sells lately.
Now, in an overall comic market that is "soft", these are still good enough numbers to be Top 5-10 sellers. But it can be said that without the aid of variant covers, Bendis has slipped from his perch. Geoff Johns is now the best selling writer of ongoing series in comics, and Hickman and Fraction have outsold him lately. I will thus be curious to see how well MOON KNIGHT #1 debuted this month.
Some have said that this is due to Bendis' Avengers titles no longer being the be-all and end all of Marvel's direction; if so, then it merely proves that promotion and "importance" matter as much as name power and talent in terms of sales.
I think what has slowed the decline is that it used to be Daredevil's book. If T'Challa didn't take over Daredevil's book and was launched with a new #1, this book would have sunk faster than the Titanic.
True. Marvel has done these sort of "stealth relaunches" before; having INCREDIBLE HERCULES take over for INCREDIBLE HULK and having Daken take over for WOLVERINE with DARK WOLVERINE. The first time, it took readers a while to notice and drop off, namely because the story was also good. With Daken, it was a disaster from which WOLVERINE's sales have still not recovered. Did any of us think we'd be alive to see the day when WOLVERINE struggles to sell in the Top 30, yet ASM is in the Top 10?
However, like every short term gimmick trick that Marvel has, if it worked once, they overdo it until it doesn't. In theory, BLACK PANTHER: MAN WITHOUT FEAR is holding steady; April is the second month it has sold north of 23k. But it still shed about 600 copies from March, and is thus still seeing drops per month of 2-2.5%. That is okay for now, but if that remains steady it will be in cancellation range within a year. That's about average for T'Challa.
The irony is out of all of Marvel's lessons and stunts from the last decade, the one they have failed to learn from and imitate is the lesson of THOR. They canceled his title in 2004 due to historic low sales for the character. The series wasn't anywhere near, say, SPIDER-GIRL sales, but for THOR it was seen as embarrassing. Marvel initially planned to relaunch it right away with Mark Millar and then Neil Gaiman at the helm. But plans fell through, and THOR remained off the stage longer than anticipated - 3 years, at least, with no new THOR in 616 (there were some flashback mini's set in the past). Yet, what happened? This gave the market, and audience, enough time to genuinely miss THOR, because he'd been gone so long. It also gave the unspoken but obvious message to retailers that Marvel wouldn't relaunch THOR just because - they were going to wait until they did it right and it mattered. Thus, when THOR returned with JMS (then at the peak of his popularity) in 2007, sales were high and remained high for years. Yet the only lesson Marvel learned was an old one - hot creative team on a big franchise equals sales. But the bigger lesson was that people can't miss something if they aren't given enough time to do so.
Maybe Black Panther could benefit from that. He'd been out of print a few years when the Hudlin/Romita Jr. series launched. But we'll never know if Marvel just keeps reviving him less than 7 months after his last stab dies.
More thoughts:
- Now that hard figures are in, AVENGERS ACADEMY #12 actually saw a small decline since March; approximately 56 copies. It has sold over 23,500 copies for four straight months, which is a sign of stability. Marvel likely expects a boost for the 5 issue FEAR ITSELF tie in, but I doubt that will be as much or last as long as Marvel hope. The real key will be how consistent Academy's small audience is. The drops between issues continue to diminish; the sales drop from February's issue to March's was approximately 76 copies (or 0.3%). This is also a title that continues to see short term sales spikes of 1-4% due to a variant cover, but those are, again, short term. The best selling issue of the last 6-7 months remains AVENGERS ACADEMY #7 - the issue that Pym became Giant-Man again, which was the ONLY issue since the first that happened to be promoted in any extra way. It also had a TRON cover. Still, AVENGERS ACADEMY becomes one of few launches from Marvel to feature less than A-List characters to survive past a full calender year. Hopefully Marvel is rewarded for it's editorial investment in it. It's a great title. I will be very curious how well the $7.99 AVENGERS ACADEMY GIANT-SIZE sold. I know it was a rare item around Brooklyn.
- VENOM #1 debuted at just under 54k, and #2 dropped to just above 41k. That's a drop of about 13k readers, or around 23-25%. That's not too bad considering, say, WOLVERINE: THE BEST THERE IS's second issue dropped over 40% and keeps sliding. By the numbers it has had a stronger two issue debut than AVENGERS ACADEMY did, and that title will at least see a 20th issue. This is easily the best ASM spin off debut in years and a solid relaunch performance from Marvel, thus far. Given that this isn't the Brock version, and even in his prime in the 90's, VENOM never had an ongoing series (just a train of mini's), this is good news indeed. It shows that ASM can be used to effectively launch something, at least post-BIG TIME. Given that SPIDER-GIRL has been canned, it's success rate in that regard is 1:2, which is better than some franchises I could mention.
- HERC #1's debut at over 38,700 copies is actually quite strong. In Jan. 2009, as INCREDIBLE HERCULES, it was selling around 31k. The shift to $4 priced mini's actually caused sales to diminish; the final issue of PRINCE OF POWER fell to 17k; that could have also been because it was starring Amadeus Cho, who may be a popular supporting character, but he can't sell on his own. CHAOS WAR #1 debuted at 34k and finished at 24k, which is very consistent - sales barely dropped more than 25% for the whole mini series. While I could be gasping a bit if HERC #2 sells below, say, 25k, at least for now this is the best selling issue of Pak/Van Lente Hercules material in close to two years. That's an accomplishment. Reasons? Years of positive word of mouth could be having an effect; over at DC, two of Gail Simone's ongoing series have seen modest gains for absolutely no reason other than that. Also, the trade paperback for CHAOS WAR sold in the Top 10 list of Graphic Novels in April, at over 2,500 copies. It was the only trade collecting a 616 story from Marvel to perform that well; is this a coincidence? Retailers always complain that releasing a trade of the prior arc so soon before the next hurts back issue sales; if so, then why has THE WALKING DEAD, which has one of the fastest and overprinted trade collections in history, gained sales almost every month for 5-7 years?
- Whether the .1 Initiative is a success or failure depends on who you ask at Marvel. In November 2010, VP of sales David "You Must Have Misquoted Me" Gabriel stated that the intent was to draw in new readers, and thus it'd be a success if sales for the ongoing series picked up "dramatically" afterward. This has not happened, and if that is the measure, it was a failure. However, Tom Brevoort considered it a success because the .1 issues sold close to the same level as a regular issue did - or, better than most annuals or spare one-shots sell (although that pesky fact hasn't stopped Marvel from selling either). If this is true, than the .1 Initiative was a method of selling more product, which is in line with Marvel's market flooding techniques of the last 2-3 years. Since Marvel see it as a successful gimmick, they will thus spam it until it no longer works. Notice that ALPHA FLIGHT and GHOST RIDER are getting .1 issues before #1 issues, because Marvel has so belittled the worth of a new #1 lately that they need something else. While the ASM .1 issue has seemed to have successfully launched VENOM, most of the .1 issues were annuals under another name, that sold better than annuals used to. Not that Marvel doesn't still print annuals. They'd print a shopping list if it meant out-publishing DC by 15-30 comics a month. It was once said that the definition of Puritanism is "the fear that someone, somewhere, is happy." To Marvel, their business strategy is the fear that someone, somewhere, will publish more comics a month than them.
- Look at a few of those spare THOR comics below the Top 125.
- THUNDERBOLTS has slid to 25k, but that's about where it sold in February without a variant cover; it is still down from earlier in the year, where it sold 26k. Still, for such a long running series, it has hung tough fine.
- ANNIHILATORS #2 sells at over 24k; the first issue debuted at 26k. That's a very small second issue drop, showing that the space audience remains small, but loyal. Hence why Marvel are unlikely to completely pull back from it.
- HEROES FOR HIRE sold at 21,815. That is approximately only 13 copies less than in March. That is a pleasant sign of stability, since 19k is usually "the dead zone" at Marvel. While Abnett & Lanning haven't matched their space audience here, they may have a loyal audience in general.
- IRON MAN 2.0 is down to 20k, which is 4k less than in March. It doesn't look stable and even with double-shipping may be lucky to last 10 issues. It seems calling WAR MACHINE something else didn't fool anyone. If DAKEN has to be relaunched, expect Marvel to call it WOLVERINE 2.0.
- I would say it isn't a good sign when FEAR ITSELF: HOME FRONT #1 can't sell above 32,700 copies. It was the first spin off of FEAR ITSELF and while that isn't bad for an anthology mini, but given that FI #1 scored 128k, you'd have expected it to debut at maybe 45k at least. This is why I don't think FEAR ITSELF will perform or boost as well as Marvel may hope. I can imagine someone will be pushing a panic button if FEAR ITSELF #7 just barely sells over 100k.
- AVENGERS: THE CHILDREN'S CRUSADE seems to be holding steady just under 32k. Still way down from the prime of the series, but better than the time-filling AVENGERS: THE CHILDREN'S CRUSADE: YOUNG AVENGERS #1 did in March.
- THE WALKING DEAD now outsells INCREDIBLE HULKS. You can see why it's "ending" to be relaunched.
- For the second month, two issues of ASM have sold north of 58k, which is above it's average. The Top 10 seller sold at 61k. That's the best selling issue since the start of BIG TIME in November. Perhaps the tie-in with FF helped.
- FF #2 sold at over 69,700 copies. The first issue sold 114k, so that was a hefty drop. However, the last time Fantastic Four sold anywhere near 69k was in early 2008. It was over 6k above FANTASTIC FOUR #588, the "final" issue. Axing off a major character and leaking it to the media can continue to be a cash in move. At any rate, let it be said that Hickman, not Millar, has been able to really boost this franchise.
