April 2019 sales

[cranger]

There's reorder activity throughout the whole run too across the top 500. Seems to be getting a lot of praise as a quality book to be reading at the minute which I imagine caught a lot of people out. Always good to see a book pick up readers as it goes along rather than shedding them.

This is true, I have noted that in other posts but I thought to keep it specific to a near 40K jump in orders, which is not just because the book is picking up steam.

[Aahz]

OK, here's something I think is interesting. I did some number crunching of the APRIL 2019 TOP 500 COMICS and put together a chart for AVERAGE SALES BY COMPANY.

Looking at it, we can see that the company with the highest average sales per title is DC, not Marvel. Maybe this is why DC has cut its production.

Yes, it affected the market because it shrunk the overall pie (although Marvel's increase offset that a bit), but it doesn't make sense for a major company to publish lots of low-selling titles just to get a higher market share number. Marvel is publishing lots of low sellers just to get that market share.

Each company has to have its own business strategy, I guess, but Marvel's excesses are dragging down its per-title average.

I don't find it that surprising, I mean DC has usually a similar number of books in the top 10 as Marvel, despite publishing less books, and Marvel has a lot of really low sellers. And a lot of DCs really low sellers are part of some imprint.

[married guy]

I just crunched numbers for the Flash from April 1999 to April 2019.
So 20 years ago the Flash averaged a tick over 37,000 copies per issue
The Convergence issues were almost identical with Speed Force #1 (Wally & the twins) selling 42,977 copies compared to Flash which sold 45,414 copies. (Which I thought was impressive considering Wally hadn't been seen in the DCU for years by then)
And now??
With the book double shipping each month - it STILL averages a tick over 37,000 copies a month!!!
Makes me wonder what a second title featuring Wally and the rest of the Flash family would have sold....

[Frontier]

I just crunched numbers for the Flash from April 1999 to April 2019.
So 20 years ago the Flash averaged a tick over 37,000 copies per issue
The Convergence issues were almost identical with Speed Force #1 (Wally & the twins) selling 42,977 copies compared to Flash which sold 45,414 copies. (Which I thought was impressive considering Wally hadn't been seen in the DCU for years by then)
And now??
With the book double shipping each month - it STILL averages a tick over 37,000 copies a month!!!
Makes me wonder what a second title featuring Wally and the rest of the Flash family would have sold....

Probably like some of the Spider-Man spinoffs, so mid to high 20K in my opinion, while starting high 30-40K depending on what the book was about.

[kjn]

Interesting observation, married guy. So from the viewpoint of Flash, the character moved about as many comics today as 20 years ago; a less than 5% drop is hardly anything to speak about on this timescale. However, the market as a whole has diminished. In 1999, the 39,824 copies gave it #59 on the bestseller list. 38,064 copies of Flash in 2019 put it at #36.

It's also interesting that the number of titles selling more than 100,000 copies were three in April 1999 and April 2019. What has diminished is rather the "width of the breadth".

[Aahz]

Wonder Comics doesn't really seem particularly successfull appart from Young Justice.

And I'm wondering Justice League Odysses will continue past the first story line. The sales don't look that great for a Justice League book.

[Konja7]

Wonder Comics doesn't really seem particularly successfull appart from Young Justice.

Young Justice doesn't seem so successfull.

I mean 31,319 for Young Justice #4 isn't a bad number, but that sales can still fall.

[Aahz]

I mean 31,319 for Young Justice #4 isn't a bad number, but that sales can still fall.

But with that number it seems at least likely that sales will stay above the 20k mark for some time, the other wonder comic books have already fallen below that.

[Vampire Savior]

Bendis essentially has no sales power in DC.

[Noodle]

Bendis essentially has no sales power in DC.

Well, if we're being honest, he didn't have much of it at the end of his Marvel tenure either.

He waited to long to jump ship to DC. If he jumped ship two or so years ago his sales would be higher. He was just kind of spinning wheels near the end at Marvel and it turned some of his fans off which, for a guy that's already polarizing in the comics fandom, is not good.

[Lee Stone]

Well, if we're being honest, he didn't have much of it at the end of his Marvel tenure either.

He waited to long to jump ship to DC. If he jumped ship two or so years ago his sales would be higher. He was just kind of spinning wheels near the end at Marvel and it turned some of his fans off which, for a guy that's already polarizing in the comics fandom, is not good.

Yeah, I think he's at the point where he's going to have 'Earn his spurs' all over again.
DC readers could care less of what he did at Marvel.
He needs to be put on something that fits him like a glove. Something that will give him a stronger recognition at DC.

He excels at non-powered heroes, down-to-Earth street-level drama and character interaction.
I think the best thing DC could do is spin him out of Event Leviathan into either a new Green Arrow title or a team book with Green Arrow, Question and other street heroes.

Of course, you haven't really 'made it' at DC until you write Batman. So, maybe give him a year on one of the Batman titles.

[Frontier]

Yeah, Bendis books sell nowhere near as much as they used to back in his prime. It was the same for some of his Marvel work before he left.

I don't think even Johns' books sell as well as they used to to be honest, Doomsday Clock aside (but that's special).

[Noodle]

Of course, you haven't really 'made it' at DC until you write Batman. So, maybe give him a year on one of the Batman titles.

He did technically write Batman for the Walmart 80pg giants. We'll see how that sells when DC puts out the single issue collections in a few months. Although, honestly, it being re-printed material is kind of against it. People that wanted to read it would have found a way to by now. The trades will sell well in book stores, though.

I don't think even Johns' books sell as well as they used to to be honest, Doomsday Clock aside (but that's special).

Johns' issue is that greatly diminished his output over the past few years to work on media stuff. Both DC and the fans kind of moved on from him.

[cranger]

Johns' issue is that greatly diminished his output over the past few years to work on media stuff. Both DC and the fans kind of moved on from him.

Yeah, there seems to be a way that the bulk of the audience tends to be attracted to what seems to be the driving force(s) at the time and the next up-and-comer(s).

[Scott Taylor]

However, it's interesting to note that even though DC's numbers were half of Marvel's, DC also published about half the number of comics that Marvel did (106 comics for Marvel vs. 52 for DC). This might mean that the average DC title sold just as well as the average Marvel title. It will be interesting to see if this bears out when the full figures are released. Does this mean it was smart of DC to cut its line?

Well it works out to 0.49 percent dollar share per title for DC and 0.43 percent dollar share per title for Marvel. Considering that Marvel has a much higher overhead with twice as many titles, I'd say DC is doing fine with less titles.