February 2019 Sales

[Prof. Warren]

Venom is outselling Amazing Spider-Man, and is beaten only by three Batman books. That IS impressive.

That Venom issue was the one that sported the Watchmen variant so that really put that issue over the top.

[capandkirby]

At this point I think the "MCU" books are mostly there for the trades rather then the actual issue-by-issue sales.

Supposedly Shuri's trades sell well on Amazon.

Yeah, I think I remember seeing some of the trades listed in my daughter's Scholastic catalogs, too. I'd be curious to look at the figures for trades, actually. I know digital sales make around 14% the numbers that floppies make, but when it comes to trades I haven't seen the figures anywhere.

[Frontier]

Maybe it's because those are two separate crowds that don't have the same expectations nor tastes. The MCU crowd likes the live-action, the special effects and the actors. They don't want to waste time reading comic books (for which they had no interest to begin with and IMO still don't for the most part). The comic books fans go to see the MCU movies to see a live depiction of the characters they have been reading about for years, and the adaptations of the story arcs they have read before. I don't see a day where the MCU fans will come rushing to the stores to buy comic books. It's just not their cup of tea, with maybe one in 50 people being the exception (and I'm being generous here).

It's the same with the cartoons aping the movies so much. They're trying to reach the MCU audiences or people who have expectations of the MCU but it more often then not just doesn't work as well because it's a different medium/beast.

Fun fact: apparently Captain Marvel 's new #1 sold for 111,391 in January, making it the #2 top-seller. In February, it dropped to around 37 000 (which is still good numbers IMO). But it's interesting to see such a drop in the very month the movie came out.

For a second issue of Carol's 5th or 6th relaunch, that's pretty solid.

[Digifiend]

The movie wasn't out yet. Those are February's numbers, remember.

[Snoop Dogg]

I don't disagree. Absolutely everything should be tried. I don't particularly like to see any title fail. There is too much work that goes into producing a comic, too many mouths a single comic feeds. In fact, the industry as a whole can use all the sales it can get. I do find it curious, however, from more of a business stand-point, why it is that Marvel comics cannot seem to draw in any of the MCU crowd. Were I in upper management, I'd be examining ways to bridge the gap.

A. Trades
B. They don't sell comics at theaters
C. That's pretty much it

[Digifiend]

Shuri already has trades?? It's like up to issue #5 so far...

And looking at the charts, there are some books that, while being confirmed to be ongoings, will definitely not last through July... some numbers are abyssimal, books a few years back have been canceled with twice or eve three times those numbers. That's just beating a dead horse at this point. Like capandkirby said, there is nothing wrong in trying things, and I'm glad they still do, but sometimes it's better to try for a mini and let the numbers speak.

Wasn't she Black Panther for a while?

And don't forget trades and digital. Direct market doesn't matter for all books, that's how Squirrel Girl and Moon Girl have lasted so long.

[capandkirby]

A. Trades
B. They don't sell comics at theaters
C. That's pretty much it

They don't sell them at theaters, no. But I bet if they brought back the spinner rack, they'd probably sell more. That's what I would do, anyway.

[your_name_here]

A spinner rack at the cinema is such a great idea, I don’t know why they’ve never tried it.

Venom is doing very, very well. And yet it’s not really talked about here on the boards.

Also thought Immortal Hulk would be a little higher after its many awards.

[Mary Jay]

The movie wasn't out yet. Those are February's numbers, remember.

Good point

[Personamanx]

There was some comics/Dungeons & Dragons crossover discussion a week or so ago that proposed the idea of "Starter Kits" for comic book characters. Easy buys for people who aren't sure what to check out or are looking for gifts for people who have shown an interest in characters. I think that might work if you placed them beyond traditional comics shops or bookstores. It'd be something like two collected editions (One that might detail their history/origin, another a recent jumping on point or similar to the movies), a T-Shirt, a Poster, and a Pin.

Just something that could generate interest without having to do too much homework. A foundation has to be built before jumping into singles IMHO, I'd like to see something like that happen.

[capandkirby]

This is what I would do were I in Marvel's position: bring back the spinner rack, insert it in places like Walgreen, CVS, Target, Walmart, etc. Put just the really popular titles on it. Spider-Man, Avengers, F4, X-Men, Thor, Cap, Iron Man. Let them serve as a the "gateway drug". Give exclusives to the CBS, like events, variant covers, etc. Advertise the hell out of the upcoming events in the popular titles sold on the spinner rack. But in these popular titles I would so do this...

Start utilizing unlikely character combinations, then create an arc around that combination in the popular titles. Marvel wants to bring back Namor's prominence, then first put him in the Cap title, have him and Steve solve a case together, then give him his own run. Pair Riri with Thor for an arc in Thor's title. Put Kate Bishop with Hulk (just grabbing random examples here).

No matter the platform they're appearing on, the strongest asset Marvel has is it's characters. The first thing you do is set up a parasocial relationship between audience and character. Get the audience to want to follow the character across platforms. You do that a number of ways.

Accessibility, that's important. The spinner rack would make them more accessible.

The second way is so simple, yet everything... empathy. The heroes have to be relatable. And how do you do make them relatable? Through their relationships with other characters. No character can exist in a vacuum. A superpowered being, by themselves, wouldn't be comparable to the human experience. But when these superpowered beings: love, laugh, argue, admire, etc. with other characters, *that* is something we all relate to. The act of loving, the act of arguing, the act of admiring, that is the human experience. Isaac Asimov, the godfather of science fiction, once advised his friend Gene Roddenberry, who had a fairly new show on the air in Star Trek, that the best way to get Star Trek's audience to invest in the show's lead Kirk, the same way they had latched onto Spock early on (Spock being half human, half Vulcan and ostracized by both species for it, struck a chord with people), was to have Kirk and Spock save each other's lives, have them hang-out, make them a unified team, that way fans of one would then become fans of the other. That advice holds up.

So that's what I would do to solve the problem of stagnant sales and lack of new readers.

[Mary Jay]

Wasn't she Black Panther for a while?

And don't forget trades and digital. Direct market doesn't matter for all books, that's how Squirrel Girl and Moon Girl have lasted so long.

I can't believe that the direct sales and digital sales for a book are this drastically different that the survival of a title is settled by digital sales. I just can't fathom that, for example, Moon Girl sells for 6 000 in direct sales and somehow as much, or more, in digital. As for the trades, again, same thing. I could see sales up because elementary schools libraries order them to stack up on, but to explain the survival of a title by that... I have a hard time understanding it. I'm not saying you're wrong, I just can't wrap my head around the notion.

[comicscollector]

Odd that Conan the Barbarian by Jason Aaron is just in the Top 40.Such a great comic book.
But great that Amazing Spider-Man,Venom,Fantastic Four,Avengers,Immortal Hulk and sort of Savage of Sword of Conan are some of the best sold comic books of February.Because for Savage Sword of Conan there were two issues published in February,the first and the second issue.

[Prof. Warren]

They don't sell them at theaters, no. But I bet if they brought back the spinner rack, they'd probably sell more. That's what I would do, anyway.

A spinner rack at the cinema is such a great idea, I don’t know why they’ve never tried it.

Bringing back the spinner rack, whether in a movie theater or 7-11's or anyplace else is a terrible idea. Spinner racks were already dying in the late '70s/early '80s.

Fans who think that today's kids' eyes will light up at the sight of these antiques are thinking through a haze of nostalgia.

[Snoop Dogg]

If one in every 20 people picked up a comic tangentially related to the movie they're about to watch at the theater and one in every 50 of those people came to the shop for more, the DM would explode. But as it is now, it's on the shops to make those kinda deals with their local theaters themselves.

Spinner racks aren't a very good display option, though. They look way too busy. Comics now are designed for you to see the whole thing on a shelf, so they should try something like that.