Comics Sales numbers

[Citizen_Kaine]

The return of Doom and the FF Zombies are what's going on in UFF right now, I think.

Can anyone sum up what happened in A Death in the Family? I remember hearing how one of the FF would die and stuff, but I guess it never happened?

5 dollars and 99 cents spent on some cliche time travel story (Sue gets killed by some Squidlike creature, Johnny goes back stops it, but leaves before Reed can tell him that he just created an alternate timeline), and a reprint of an already classic and reprinted many a time story.

Just more Marvel hype and bull****

 

[MyPokerShirt]

nice some-up totally agree

 

[Galactus]

Top 300 for June:
http://www.newsarama.com/marketreport/june06charts.html

 

[Donald Thomas]

Remember when covers actually had word balloons and the cover itself was somewhat representative of the contents of the issue in question?

Aloha,
Now you're talking.Wonder who decided to end that.
Spidey rules

 

[Galactus]

If anyone's interested you can find a sales charts archive (going back to September 1996) here: http://www.cbgxtra.com/Default.aspx?tabid=695

 

[Kirk Langstrom]

Top 300 for June:
http://www.newsarama.com/marketreport/june06charts.html

Man, that's GREAT news! Now the top 18 selling books are all moving over 100k units each!

Definitely an upswing for the industry, although the numbers STILL need to increase.

Do you guys think all the comic movies are responsible, or what?

 

[Kraven]

I think that the movies are definately a major cause for the increase, but everything happening in Civil War might be causing people to pick up some new books too. I know people that have never picked up a comic before in there life that after hearing about the unmasking, decided to go and pick up a few recent issues.

 

[Citizen_Kaine]

Yeah, but that sort of thing is dangerous. Tons of looky loo fans grab a particular issue because of outside media hype, be it the movies, New York Times or Joey Q mouthing off on MTV. Bringing a ridiculous amount of sales to the table for a short period, causing x number of books to be over printed and produced, than just collapsing, as said fans peace out. Leaving us with another Death of Superman on our hands

 

[Kirk Langstrom]

Yeah, but that sort of thing is dangerous. Tons of looky loo fans grab a particular issue because of outside media hype, be it the movies, New York Times or Joey Q mouthing off on MTV. Bringing a ridiculous amount of sales to the table for a short period, causing x number of books to be over printed and produced, than just collapsing, as said fans peace out. Leaving us with another Death of Superman on our hands

But that's the thing; I've noticed a very gradual increase in sales for both Marvel and DC comics over the past several months or so...not one big explosion in sales to indicate any one particular event is bringing in "spectators"...

And Trade Paper Backs are also supposedly moving very well, and actually began THEIR upswing about two years ago.

The encouraging thing is that the upswing seems to be fairly consistent as well.

Anyway, i view it as a positive sign, but we still need to get more fans, young and old, interested.

 

[iloveclones]

I listed these over in the Marvel's Business thread linked below, if anyone wants to see them. If you're interested, the Marvel sales numbers/analysis are there stretching back to June 2005 (HoM):

Rank Title Est.Qty
1 CIVIL WAR #2 (Of 7)* 253,856
2 DCU BRAVE NEW WORLD #1 140,844
3 NEW AVENGERS #21 CW 134,278
4 WONDER WOMAN #1* 132,580
5 NEW AVENGERS #20 125,600
6 CIVIL WAR FRONT LINE #1 122,057
7 FLASH FASTEST MAN ALIVE #1 120,404
8 ASTONISHING X-MEN #15 119,991
9 WOLVERINE ORIGINS #3 116,058
10 AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #533 112,982
11 52 WEEK #5** 111,895
12 ALL STAR SUPERMAN #4 111,420
13 52 WEEK #7** 110,188
14 JUSTICE #6 (Of 12) 110,188
15 52 WEEK #6** 110,028
16 52 WEEK #8** 105,107
17 ETERNALS #1 (Of 6) 103,217
18 CIVIL WAR FRONT LINE #2 102,742
19 WOLVERINE #43 CW 97,807
20 ULTIMATES 2 #11 96,751

http://www.superherohype.com/forums/showthread.php?t=162957&page=5

I also doubt this increase has much to do with a particular movie/media event. I doubt people who went to see X-Men or Superman are buying Civil War or New Avengers. Those movies don't even seem to help their parent title all that much. I always watch when a Marvel movie comes out to see if there's a spike in sales. There really isn't. I think this is more (I hope) a case of Marvel and DC getting some "brand/product recognition" and growing their customer base as opposed to what was going on in the 90s: exploiting them.

As much as I don't like how stories are being told to fit TPBs,I can't deny that they are helping comics, by putting them in Barnes and Nobles, and in libraries, something they couldn't really do before. I feel that this, more than anything else, will eventually help grow the industry.

 

[iloveclones]

If anyone's interested you can find a sales charts archive (going back to September 1996) here: http://www.cbgxtra.com/Default.aspx?tabid=695

Great link, Galactus. I'm gonna go post that over in the aforementioned thread!

 

[Galactus]

Top 300 for August:
http://www.newsarama.com/marketreport/aug06charts.html

 

[Donald Thomas]

Remember when covers actually had word balloons and the cover itself was somewhat representative of the contents of the issue in question?

Aloha,
You're dating yourself. Most of these guys weren't around when that happened.
Spidey rules

 

[shinlyle]

Aloha,
You're dating yourself. Most of these guys weren't around when that happened.
Spidey rules

I remember those days....

I remember seeing all guest stars named on the cover, or a silhouette saying "Guess who", and all sorts of fun, comic-style stuff. Funny....comic books are the only thing trying NOT to be comic books anymore. Movies mimic them....TV shows copy them....even print ads and commercials borrow comic-style themes and such. Weird, huh?

 

[SpideyInATree]

Man, it's such a shame to see such quality books ranking so low on the sales chart.

Like 100 Bullets...that is probably one of the best comic books being put on the shelves and it sold like 13,000 copies. That's just ridiculous.

But it's good to see Moon Knight is selling pretty strong still.

 

[imdaly]

Top 300 for August:
http://www.newsarama.com/marketreport/aug06charts.html

Wow. I have to say, I'm quite impressed and surprised that Marvel still outsold DC in August, even though there were no no issues of "Civil War" released that month.

Very nice job, Marvel

 

[Dragon]

Wow. I have to say, I'm quite impressed and surprised that Marvel still outsold DC in August, even though there were no no issues of "Civil War" released that month.

Very nice job, Marvel

Um.. Are you being sarcastic? Because Most of the books in the top ten are DC titles (That 52 thing is selling pretty damn high numbers), and there are like 10 CW connected titles on the list.

What I don't get is why ASM isn't listed.

 

[Galactus]

What I don't get is why ASM isn't listed.

Wasn't the August-issue delayed until September?

 

[imdaly]

Um.. Are you being sarcastic? Because Most of the books in the top ten are DC titles (That 52 thing is selling pretty damn high numbers), and there are like 10 CW connected titles on the list.

What I don't get is why ASM isn't listed.

http://www.newsarama.com/marketreport/aug06sales.html

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Looking closer at Market Share, Marvel led 41.02% Unit Sales to DC's 38.98%, and 38.98% to DC's 36.30% in Dollar Share.

[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]

Sure DC had 6 of the Top 10 books. But even still, Marvel as a company had more marketshare overall. And by "no Civil War book out this month" I mean not the actual "Civil War" comic, not the tie-ins. So even with DC having 4 of their BIG EVENT books out this month and Marvel not having it's out, Marvel STILL edged by the competiton. So yes, I have to say I'm very impressed and surprised.

And there's no sarcasm there


[/FONT]

 

[Doc Destruction]

Still, DC is all up in Marvel's grill. I'd be doing a tapdance if I were DC right now.

 

[Dragon]

http://www.newsarama.com/marketreport/aug06sales.html

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]

Sure DC had 6 of the Top 10 books. But even still, Marvel as a company had more marketshare overall. And by "no Civil War book out this month" I mean not the actual "Civil War" comic, not the tie-ins. So even with DC having 4 of their BIG EVENT books out this month and Marvel not having it's out, Marvel STILL edged by the competiton. So yes, I have to say I'm very impressed and surprised.

And there's no sarcasm there


[/FONT]

Actually DC even beat Marvel in the top twenty 11 to 9. And the few percentage points by which Marvel sold in the overall isn't much.

And many of the books for Marvel were still big in sales because of CW, Such as FF. 5 out of the 9 titles in the top twenty were CW related.

 

[Dangerous]

Man, it's such a shame to see such quality books ranking so low on the sales chart.

Like 100 Bullets...that is probably one of the best comic books being put on the shelves and it sold like 13,000 copies. That's just ridiculous.

But it's good to see Moon Knight is selling pretty strong still.

Definatley, 100 Bullets is better than any Marvel book right now.

 

[Galactus]

Top 300 for September:
http://www.newsarama.com/marketreport/sept06charts.html

 

[Galactus]

Top 300 for November:
http://www.newsarama.com/marketreport/nov06sales.html

 

[Galactus]

Nostalgic corner:

1966 (first year Amazing Spider-Man was tracked)

1) Batman DC 898,470
2) Superman DC 719,976
3) Superboy DC 608,386
4) Superman's Girlfriend Lois Lane DC 530,808
5) Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen
DC 523,455
6) World's Finest Comics DC 513,201
7) Archie Archie 491,691
8) Action Comics DC 491,135
9) Adventure Comics DC 481,234
10) Justice League of America DC 408,219

11) Detective Comics DC 404,339
12) Metal Men DC 396,506
13) Treasure Chest Catholic Guild 348,305
14) Walt Disney's Comics & Stories Gold Key 346,250
15) Betty and Veronica Archie 342,295
16) Amazing Spider-Man Marvel 340,155
17) Tarzan Gold Key 338,052
18) Flintstones Gold Key 332,362
19) Fantastic Four Marvel 329,379
20) Flash DC 325,404

Whatever else you may think about the Batman TV show on ABC, there's no doubt that it made a huge difference to the comics, nearly doubling sales for the Caped Crusader's main title. Looking at the drops in the Superman titles, however, it appears that Adam West's coattails in comics seem to have been limited to the character he played.

Also significant about 1966 is that Marvel finally ran its first figures for Fantastic Four and Amazing Spider-Man, in issues #61 and #47 respectively. By this time, both titles were well established, many classic stories having already appeared — and we find Spidey selling over a third of a million copies. We don't know what sales were for these titles between 1962-1965, but it's interesting to note that while they grow throughout the rest of the 1960s, that growth is not dramatic. This year also finds Marvel changing Journey into Mystery's title to Thor.