The Web Haunt of Ryan K Lindsay

There’s something about statistics that I just love. When I’m writing something I want to know how many words it is, what the Flesch reading ease is, and once I’m done I average out how long it took to write, and on average what I wrote per day/week. It’s my idea of fun. I have a list of every book I’ve read since the mid-90′s, and from that a master lists of how many pages that is, how many pages that averages per yer, and pages per good per year and in total. I told my Year 5 class about that and I saw a few eyes light up, the proposal of data ongoing for the rest of your life, so long as you keep reading.

Then there’s comic book sales data, it was always going to be a perfect match for me. The estimated sales, the rise or dip on sales from the last issue in both numbers and percentage, the prices and profits. I love it, but alas it is a harsh mistress. Looking over the sales estimates for September I noticed some annoying nuggets of information, allow me to show them to you. I wish I could assemble them in formaldehyde jars on shelves like two-headed goat fetuses in some macabre carny sideshow, but all I can do is bullet them down a page, a quaint charm all its own.

-The number one selling comic is from a DC event, Blackest Night. I am not reading it but from what I have heard it’s okay, nothing really that awesome, but it seems to have renewed major interest in the Green Lantern character, and universe. I cite this because people keep talking of event fatigue, but then they rush out and buy it like it has to be good. Me, I don’t hate events, but I don’t buy into every one, actually I rarely buy any. It has a $4 price tag, so that’s a lot of dough.
-Four of the top ten comics have $4 on them, and one has $5. That sucks, but is actually better than I thought it would be. DC has two Blackest Night tie-in comics in the top ten and they’re $3, Marvel would have them for $4 for sure. In fact, only DC’s main event is $4, all their other top tier titles are $3, whereas all of Marvel’s input to the ten is $4, and none of it is major event material. I could Cap: Reborn as a series not an event, and the Old Man Logan Giant finale is only an event of ridiculous proportions and skills. Seems Marvel loses the whole price point war, but they win in the end because it doesn’t harm their sales.
-It’s not until we get to position 31 that we get something that isn’t Marvel or DC. It’s Dark Horse’s Buffy Season 8, a comic which used to be top ten material. It seems to have plateaued well enough, I guess.
-Wednesday Comics seemed to sell strongly in the mid-30k’s which I think is actually pretty darn successful all things considered. But for the final issue they lost 344 sales. Who the hell didn’t want to stick around for that final page for each story?
-The only other non-Big Two inclusion to the top 100 was Archie #601, which I am pretty sure is the second issue in the whole Archie getting married debacle of a story.
-I have only heard amazing things about The Incredible Hercules but it sells at the 98th position. Granted, I’m not buying it, but I only buy four Marvel hero properties. I am more flabbergasted that there could be market enough for eleven different Bat-family titles, not including the Justice titles, and seven Super-family titles.
-The Marvels Project was a series I strongly considered buying but ultimately my budget and the $4 price kept me boxed out. Seems as if that might have happened for a lot of people considering the story looks awesome, it’s by Brubaker, but between issues #1 and #2 is lost nearly half of its sales with over 40k dropping out. Yikes, maybe I should pick it up, but I know it will look so good in HC or trade.
-My pull list for the week ranked 42, 45, 102, 114, 117, 137, 139, 144. Does that make me an outsider, I’m clearly not in and up on the latest trends.
-The Immortal Weapons series is selling way down at only 17k, but is holding steady there. Can the Iron Fist ongoing come back from this sort of holding pattern. I think the $4 price point is hurting it, and the fact that the Iron Fist back up isn’t exactly stellar.
-Strange Tales from Marvel only got 16k, maybe that’s because it was $5, which was a monumentally stupid move, though didn’t stop me from getting it.
-The first issue of Jeff Lemire’s Sweet Tooth was only $1 yet only managed to rustle up 18 and a half k in response. C’mon, who didn’t want to throw that on top of their weekly stack. Yeah, I didn’t think it was very good, but I wanted to show them that the whole $1 introduction thing is a great idea and have them keep doing it.
-It just astonishes me that drek that is openly and unanimously panned like; Old Man Logan, Hulk, Superman Secret Origin (heads up, when we’ve heard it about a bajillion times it’s not such a secret), hell even Magog can outsell smaller titles that garner insane praise most/all of the time like Incognito, The Walking Dead, The Boys, Ex Machina, Air, Agents of Atlas, Chew, Mice Templar. I don’t read all of those titles, though I do get a majority, but I would try them over the latest big ticket creator issue that is just empty and frustratingly priced against the name not the actual product.

I think that comics readers need to look at their buying habits, and yeah I know I’m not the first to say this at all. They stick with shitty titles for far too long and they are too reticent to pick up a title if they didn’t get in on that glorious first issue. They need to just pick up what they like, enjoy the comics for the reading not the collecting part. I just picked up Weapon X on the 6th issue because I thought the storyline had promise, and boy was I right, see my review from before. I’ve dropped titles if they didn’t deliver what I wanted anymore. And I’ve tried a hell of a lot of new stuff.

Though this can be shown through the trade paperback sales data, which is surprisingly comprehensive. They show you the total estimated sales of any one item and I was pleased by what I saw. Watchmen came in at number one all time on the list with 230k items shipped over time, whereas another classic hit from the same time, Dark Knight Returns, only shows 35k of sales, so that’s a massive difference, and one that actually shocked me, I thought DKR would be higher. The Joker hardcover has pushed 40k which is higher than I thought it would, or should, be, and Marvel’s Civil War has pushed over 70k, but otherwise it’s not the Big Two dominating all time sales here. It’s Image, and Vertigo, and yeah Vertigo is DC but it’s not mainstream universe so I’ll separate for this discussion. Marvel and DC might have saturation, but some other titles have the longevity and acclaim to take them further.
-The first Walking Dead trade has pushed 92k which is huge considering the monthly titles gets about 24k on average right now. The first Y: The Last Man trade has 50k to its name, and that series finished over a year ago. From there they keep on keeping on.
Walking Dead 2 – 46k Y: The Last Man 2 – 19k
Walking Dead 3 – 42k Y: The Last Man 3 – 23k
Walking Dead 4 – 37k Y: The Last Man 4 – 20k
Walking Dead 5 – 31k Y: The Last Man 5 – 30k
Walking Dead 6 – 32k Y: The Last Man 6 – 22k
Walking Dead 7 – 28k Y: The Last Man 7 – 22k
Walking Dead 8 – 29k Y: The Last Man 8 – 24k
Walking Dead 9 – 26k Y: The Last Man 9 – 24k
Walking Dead 10-19k Y: The Last Man 10 -30k

This sort of thing paints a better picture than what might be happening in monthlies. At least people are getting these stories somewhere. Trades don’t always have longevity in their life, but these two titles, and Fables, have managed it quite well. Good on ‘em.

I’m just annoyed that the comic that I know I will award the honour of being my pick of 2009 didn’t sell anywhere near as much as it should have, though it was still a raging success, but it’ll never beat out Hulk stories that people don’t even like reading, or a tie-in story to an event that people don’t need. At least I can control what comes onto my shelves, and I’ve enjoyed a lot of what I’ve bought this year.

Posted on November 3rd, 2009 by ryan
Filed under: comics