Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION Dr. Gym'll's Cultural Rarities Top 100 Comics Chat "DC Sales in the Crapper"

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repost of final page 5 post:


DC SALES IN THE CRAPPER?


Reboot has posted that sales of SALVATION RUN are not close to what was expected.

Povvins has posted that sales of CATWOMAN are circling the drain.

I was able to check the top 300 comics the other day, and was a little shocked by what I saw.

Sales of minis such as UNCLE SAM/FREEDOM FIGHTERS and CAPTAIN CARROT/FINAL ARK were in the toilet, and S/LSH, BOOSTER GOLD and BRAVE & BOLD were all in the bottom part of the top 100.

Stuff like SHADOWPACT, BLUE BEETLE, INFINITY INC and AQUAMAN was doing very poorly.

COUNTDOWN seemed to be doing okay (I myself have dropped it) but it seemed DC's big 2 were JLoA and JSoA, both in the top 10. The GREEN LANTERN franchise also seemed to be doing well.

So, whaddup with that? Is COUNTDOWN (and the influx of related minis) combined with the influx of 52-related titles on top of the stuff that spun out of INFINITE CRISIS strangling DC Comics' sales? Or is it more of a quality thing? (hard for me to buy, because qualitywise to me, BOOSTER GOLD and B&tB are excellent).

Re: Countdown vs. 52, we're paying more for less... 52 retailed @ $2.50 for the entire run as opposed to Countdown selling at regular prices ($2.99), and the quality was better overall in both story and art. And where the first had very few tie-ins outside the WW3 crud, DC seems desperate for sales with the flood of Countdown-connected mini's and whatnot. Add Marvel's own flood of Civil War Initiative titles, and the wallets are being spread pretty thin.

I honestly don't think it's a quality thing. There are more talented people working in comics than ever before.

The fact that DC and Marvel both try to publish as many titles as they can is part of the reason methinks.

Trust me there are lots of books I like that don't sell well but I know they are aiming it to small audience.

Not enough star power. Though DC did suprise me in sales recently.

It all comes down to one little sentence:

You can only buy so much...

If you have to get Countdown, you can't buy four other issues that month!

We guys over in Europe are a little bit lucky right now cause the Euro gets stronger and stronger -> US comics get cheaper and cheaper every month. Still, books like Uncle Sam or Captain Carrot are way too cheesy to pick up a large audience anyway...

The 2004 Titan/Legion crossover was the first comic I had picked up in over a decade. Throughout Infinite Crisis and 52, I was getting about 20~25 books/month, mostly DC/Wildstorm/Vertigo, plus buying any colleected series from the past 10 years or so.

Now I buy about 10 books/month. Lack of interest in Countdown as a successor to 52 accounts for much of the drop-off. Wonder Woman, Flash, Supergirl, and Atom lost my interest. I never got hooked on GL after "Rebirth."

Y, Ex Machina and Invincible, I buy only in trades.

I'll likely stick with the Legion, LSH31 and JSA for as long as I continue to buy comics, and I'll check out the "next big crisis in the DC universe." I may buy whatever bare-bones requirements are necessary to keep relatively informed about the DC Universe.

But if Countdown is indicative of things to come in comics, I may start reading Dickens or Chaucer in my spare time -- or volunteering at a soup kitchen.

I think the overall quality from DC, in terms of the events they choose to high-profile, such as Countdown and its crossovers and Amazon's Attack, has dropped off significantly in the last half of 2007.

It pleases me that their sales suffer for it.

I hope the quality, and likewise the sales, pick up in 2008.

What is unfortunate is that many of the books they produce that are excellent, such as Booster Gold, Shadowpact and Blue Beetle are not doing so well. GL remains high-ranked, as it should, because its excellent. Ditto for Batman and Detective Comics.

But I believe one of the main problems that DC has, and comics in general, are their marketing, and in two ways: (1) marketing to comic book readers and (2) marketing to non-comic book readers. They are failing at both. Everything they do these days falls under 'cringe-worthy' to me. I mean this by 'marketing' in the purest sense (adds, where DC comics are being marketed, getting people to check out comics), but also the very sense that the product themselves should be easily marketable.

Never-ending events making it more complex to understand what’s happening unless you’re part of the ‘inside’ group of long-time comic book readers with previous knowledge of DC continuity are a by-product of the very much still alive speculative market. And like all speculative markets, it can do well, or it can turn horribly. Just about 85% of all comics are very hard to penetrate when you open up a random issue off the shelves. This does not mean an entire six panels must be dedicated to a recap, but there should be the sense that if this is your first time reading this comic book, then an introductory process should be occurring for you within the first few pages—even if you’re in the 4th, 5th, 9th, 101st part of a multi-part story.

Too much credence is given by DC and Marvel to please the message boards and internet-based news community with “shock” and “outrage”, when the internet community is only a small, small portion of the much larger readership. Real marketing is not a weekly blog column on newsarama, but making an active attempt to find a portion of the population not reading comic books and find a way to get them product they will want. EDE had a great example of how the Marvel Family could capture the same young audience that might be exposed to Harry Potter books. The same could be applied to other DC properties, and not Rex the Wonder Dog—but Batman, Superman, Flash, etc.

Delays are beyond ridiculous. Publishers and fans are far too generous. Pray I somehow never become a billionaire and buy DC or Marvel. My wrath for delays would make the Robber Barons of the 19th Century giggle with delight.

Honestly, the products themselves are pretty damn hard to market. The following things (1) served only to alienate long-term comic book fans and (2) did nothing at all to bring in new comic book fans:
• Wonder Woman relaunch with numerous, never-ending delays
• Wally apparently gone, Bart as Flash for 12 issues, Bart killed
• Hawkgirl replaces Hawkman as lead feature
• Complete Aquaman relaunch, new writer ten issues later takes book in campier direction
• There are, of course, other examples.

Since I was a kid, I’ve heard the saying “Comics are for Adults”. In fact, the entire 1980’s & 1990’s seemed to be driving that point home. Latest issue of CGB, comics are for adults, Vertigo books on the market, comics are for adults, Frank Miller calls Wizard the devil’s bible, comics are for adults. OK. Comics are for adults too. Then why the hell do these comic book companies run the comic book division like a bunch of damn kids? Grow up and be smart and run your companies the right way--*AND* maintain the artistic integrity of each and every property *all* the time.

Does it seem like a lot? Its not. All of it is easily fixable and we can see it turn around.

Something else else I posted elsewhere - Sales Now And Then: Top 100 November 1997 vs. Top 100 November 2007 - http://forum.newsarama.com/showpost.php?p=4974594&postcount=34 (can't repost here because HTML isn't allowed).

I'm surprised the numbers haven't changed more in the past decade - would have expected a bigger overall decline.

I agree with everything Cobalt said in his latest post.

I disagree a bit about quality BUT I think a major reason a book may be sufferring in quality is due to editors. The last two to three years I've just seen tons of editorial mistakes.

Is it the editors fault? Do they need to hire more editors? Yes.

They keep complaining about how they lost the children in this. Comics are too expensive! They are publishing more titles than ever before and charging more than ever before.

Agree about the price. At $3 a pop, kids won't be wasting their money on expensive comics.

Comics are too expensive AND they are way too complicated too. My brain hurts after reading 52 and Countdown. There are way too many cheesy characters getting way to much screen time doing not that much which would be really... interesting in some way.

I don't see that nowadays kids which are getting pampered by better and better cartoons and vodeo games would spend so much money on an issue which they hardyl can understand whats going on in and in which, due to endless amounts of characters, nothing big is ever happening...

I totally agree with Cobalt Kid that they should finally start putting recaps at the beginning. Peter David does it with X-Factor, and it's a really good feature which makes this pleasant book even more pleasant...

For everyone's b!tc#ing about ULTIMATES 3 #1 and the last chapter of Spidey OMD, Joe Q's gotta be laughing all the way to the bank.

They were 1 and 2 in sales rank...

Didn't read Ultimates, but I quit Spiderman immediately after the OMD conclusion. So I helped it become number two, but I will not support the book any further... and I read ASM since JMS came onboard in 2001...

I wonder where Spidey sales are going to be in 4 months? Slott & McNiven on Spidey is an easy sell though.

I HOPE people drop Spidey in droves to teach Marvel a lesson. Ofcourse I hoped that when Bendis took over Avengers and look where that got me.

1997 was long enough after the speculators' boom of the early 90s, and the industry was climbing out of the post-boom glut. It's possible it climbed a bit higher before starting to decline; I don't know. But the numbers do suggest a reasonably stable level of some sort, amazingly enough. Both 2007 and 1997 were far, far lower than the artificial high of 1992ish, but would have been leaps and bounds better than 1995ish.

I tend to get frustrated with the perpetual notion of targeting kids - TV, film, music and video game execs know what kids like; comic book execs never have; each of theri efforts come off like talking-down, not being in step with youth culture.

The comic book biz as-is doesn't have the wherewithall to reach kids - at least the comic book biz we all follow. But the manga biz is reaching kids, and in huge numbers; therin lies the future (The manga field is also more adept at sustaining quality and story integrity, owing largely to the strength of the Japanese market).

All the Countdowns and Crises and Civil Wars and what-not are not going to pump up our niche. Universes and continuity (or in DC's case, "Continuity") are less important than good stories and stable creative teams; ongoing series need to be consistent with themselves.

A multitude of creative teams attempting to operate under the same umbrella (universe) need a central autocrat (Stan Lee or Geoprge Lucas or a similar type; a visionary with clear vision and storytelling ability him/herself). Creative peopel going off in every direction and tearing down weach others' sand castles does no one any good. The old axiom "too many cooks" applies here.

Since the 60s, a cohesive universe a la Stan Lee has been the Holy Grail; it's the conventional wisdom. It worked under a one-writer vision; it functioned under an autocrat, but at the expense of creativity (Shooter at Marvel's helm). Universes are obsolete, I would suggest, except for those operating under a single cohesive vision of a creator who is up to the job; even then, 2-to-5 series universes would function better than 20-40 series ones.

I agree completely with Kent. The whole shared universe/obsession with continuity thing is what has destroyed the industry more than anything. Look at how much more successful comic properties have been in other media than the comics themselves have. If people had to watch fifteen different shows in order to follow the plot of Smallville, no one would watch it.

DC basically had close to the right idea with the "All-Star" line, however badly it's been botched in execution.

Wouldn't it be great if DC ditched the unification of it's titles? Instead of stories reaching every book, they are confined to the boundaries of their writers.

If it were up to me DC would launch a whole slew of titles in something closer to the format (not necessarily the style) of manga, basically with relaunches/new versions of their major properties and with each series running largely independently of one another. Maybe eventually there would be crossovers, but not the kind of obsessive shared universe that we have in mainstream comics these days.

I actually think Busiek's basic take on Aquaman would've been great for something like that.

I'm all for a shared universe. But I don't mind other versions outside of that.

The problem is the top selling titles are within the shared universe. The Ultimates and Ultimate Spider-Man are really the only titles that sell that are not part of the Marvel main universe.

The direct market is basically for the shared universe. Right now it's only the hardcore fans buying comics. The fans that are willing to buy $3 comics from a comic store. Those fans for the most part want their comics...the shared universes.

I agree with you guys about manga style. Instead of a series I think comics should be mini/maxi-series'. Have different imprints and lines,etc. We've seen them try it actually and it rarely works. Self-contained stories in their own universe, etc.

Another reason that is though? Marvel and DC want to publish hundreds of titles a month. About 10% of those characters actually sell enough to consistently be published. Many of the titles being publish NEED to be published in the shared universe or they won't survive.

In other words we will get about 30 different Batman, Superman, Spider-Man, Wolverine minis/maxis and that's about it.

Another reason Marvel/DC have so many titles? It gives the pros a job. I would prefer less titles, higher quality each maxi/mini treated as a major production like a film.

A good example of this is Marvel's Dark Tower. I just read the whole thing the last two days. It was an amazing story and art. No way Jae Lee can produce that on a normal schedule. It felt like an event.

Another problem is after a few years of different titles in different universes...sequels not even being in the same universe...well people will really be confused with who is who.

See the paradox is that the hardcore fans want the shared universe stuff, but it has little appeal to anyone outside the hardcore fans. So comics end up stuck as a niche market because they can't do anything to try to reach the more general market without risking alienating those hardcore fans.

I actually think that a lot of titles that currently don't sell too well in the direct market have the potential to flourish if they can actually change who they're marketing it too. Hawkman/Hawkgirl might not sell all that well as a mainstream super-hero comic, but re-tool it as the story of a beautiful alien teenager who dreams she is the re-incarnation of an ancient Earth princess, and comes to Earth to search for the re-incarnation of her prince (and fight crime along the way), and you've got something that could potentially sell to the whole teenage girl manga-market in a way that it never has to the "mainstream" comic fan.