MAYO REPORT: Analyzing the Marvel NOW! Relaunches

[CBR News]

In a special MAYO REPORT, John takes a look at Marvel's increasingly common tactic of relaunching series to boost sales numbers.


Full article here.

[Stryfe8]

This is what I've been saying since marvel started this relaunch nonsense (only without the statistical data)

One point not mentioned which causes even more loss, is that the older fan, the ones who used to have hundreds of issues of one volume are losing interest, and stop buying.
So while in the past you could always count on the core fan base, that fan base is diminishing as well, and will be much harder to get back

[Ceebiro]

The sales are trending downwards in most cases with or without relaunches.

A diminishing fanbase for superhero comics specifically, increased prices, double-shipping, decreased print quality, events and crossovers and a shift to more creator-centric publishing are probably doing much more damage than the relaunches themselves.

[Shingen]

The sales are trending downwards in most cases with or without relaunches.

A diminishing fanbase for superhero comics specifically, increased prices, double-shipping, decreased print quality, events and crossovers and a shift to more creator-centric publishing are probably doing much more damage than the relaunches themselves.

How do you square this contention with the fact that sales were up across the board for each of the last two years?

[Teek]

I'll just throw my anecdotal experience out there. When Marvel relaunched Uncanny, I stopped buying monthly books completely and switched exclusively to TPBs.

Granted, it was probably a long time coming, but that's what it took to push me over the edge. And now, since I'm no longer buying monthly books, I've watched my buying habits turn away from Marvel almost completely. About the only thing I still buy is Mark Waid's Daredevil.

[RobinFan4880]

Comics as a medium are becoming more and more popular however, the way people purchase comics is changing.

A large number of readers (dare I say small majority?) buy at least a few comics digitally. Right off the bat that is going to drastically reduce the sales numbers we get to see. Even if only a ten to twenty present of potential customers switch to digital then that will have a significant impact on Diamond's charts. If your comic would normally sell 80,000 copies but 20% of your readers are digital, then suddenly Diamond only lists 64,00 issues sold, which drops a solid book down to slightly above mid-tier.

Beyond that, there is much more competition with indy producers. Even if they are only capturing a tenth of the sales of the big two, that will have a massive impact on Diamond's numbers (especially when coupled with digital purchases).

Prices are also an issue. The jump for 3 dollars to 4 dollars means that, if a customer was on a budget, he is now purchasing vastly fewer titles. For example, say someone has a budget of 50 dollars a month. At 3 dollars a comic, he was purchasing 16.6 comics. With the jump to 4 dollars, he is now purchasing 12.5. That is nearly 4 fewer issues a month.

Due to this across the board price hike, many are dumping floppies and instead focusing on trades. It only takes a small minority of people to make that switch to suddenly see large drops in Diamond's charts.

Added on top of this, we are now seeing far more comics with faster release schedules. Double Shipping and Weekly are becoming quite normal. Every comic purchased for a double shipped or weekly title means 2 to 3 fewer issues sold for other titles.

There are a lot of issues at play here and, unfortunately, we do not have all the facts or figures.

[Wildfire2099]

Comics as a medium are becoming more and more popular however, the way people purchase comics is changing.

A large number of readers (dare I say small majority?) buy at least a few comics digitally. Right off the bat that is going to drastically reduce the sales numbers we get to see. Even if only a ten to twenty present of potential customers switch to digital then that will have a significant impact on Diamond's charts. If your comic would normally sell 80,000 copies but 20% of your readers are digital, then suddenly Diamond only lists 64,00 issues sold, which drops a solid book down to slightly above mid-tier.

Beyond that, there is much more competition with indy producers. Even if they are only capturing a tenth of the sales of the big two, that will have a massive impact on Diamond's numbers (especially when coupled with digital purchases).

Prices are also an issue. The jump for 3 dollars to 4 dollars means that, if a customer was on a budget, he is now purchasing vastly fewer titles. For example, say someone has a budget of 50 dollars a month. At 3 dollars a comic, he was purchasing 16.6 comics. With the jump to 4 dollars, he is now purchasing 12.5. That is nearly 4 fewer issues a month.

Due to this across the board price hike, many are dumping floppies and instead focusing on trades. It only takes a small minority of people to make that switch to suddenly see large drops in Diamond's charts.

Added on top of this, we are now seeing far more comics with faster release schedules. Double Shipping and Weekly are becoming quite normal. Every comic purchased for a double shipped or weekly title means 2 to 3 fewer issues sold for other titles.

There are a lot of issues at play here and, unfortunately, we do not have all the facts or figures.

I think fans of digital greatly overestimate it's impact. Take a look at the 'pull list' number for Comicology... the top pulled titles are in the 3-4000 range... that's on 5%-10% of most Marvel and DC titles print sales. I find that most people that talk about digital purchase (away from CBR) are buying old stuff when it's .99 and things like that. They might get a new comic or two, but I don't think it's nearly as common as people think.

[Park Slope Pixie]

There are a lot of issues at play here and, unfortunately, we do not have all the facts or figures.

To be fair, we have the one set of figures that do matter. Digital sales are irrelevant, as much as champions of that medium would have you think otherwise.

Price increases and the age old floppy v. trade argument are just business as usual bits of overhead.

[Pinsir]

Its ogre for Marvel. Oh well at least they have their movies.

[CenturianSpy]

Prices are also an issue. The jump for 3 dollars to 4 dollars means that, if a customer was on a budget, he is now purchasing vastly fewer titles. For example, say someone has a budget of 50 dollars a month. At 3 dollars a comic, he was purchasing 16.6 comics. With the jump to 4 dollars, he is now purchasing 12.5. That is nearly 4 fewer issues a month.

I think it's the #1 issue. I've cut my titles by one quarter.

[RobinFan4880]

I think it's the #1 issue. I've cut my titles by one quarter.

Same here, really. Thankfully Green Lantern books have stayed at 3 bucks a pop. I dread the day all of them get bumped to 4 dollars as I will have to cut other books I like to keep up with my favorite franchise.

To be fair, we have the one set of figures that do matter. Digital sales are irrelevant, as much as champions of that medium would have you think otherwise.

Price increases and the age old floppy v. trade argument are just business as usual bits of overhead.

We have one set of figures that matter for public perception, not the companies.

I think fans of digital greatly overestimate it's impact. Take a look at the 'pull list' number for Comicology... the top pulled titles are in the 3-4000 range... that's on 5%-10% of most Marvel and DC titles print sales. I find that most people that talk about digital purchase (away from CBR) are buying old stuff when it's .99 and things like that. They might get a new comic or two, but I don't think it's nearly as common as people think.

I do not use the pull list feature on ComiXology. I buy my issues through the app itself and avoid the main site in general. My purchases are thus not counted as apart of that total. I imagine I am not in the minority when it comes to this (although that may change now that many are being forced over onto the site to make purchases).*

*I believe that is the way the pull system works. If not then, I suppose digital is a tiny minority compared to print.

[RobinFan4880]

I have to agree with the Mayo Report in that Marvel is ruining the "special-ness" of a relaunch. They should be rare in occurrence. If we get a new Wolverine volume every year, then it becomes ho-hum and boring. It defeats the intended goal of renumbering.

[Shingen]

They are definitely overlooking the specialness of buying an issue 50 or 100, and how rewarding it is to a reader to say, "Hey I've been with this title a long time!"

One potentially overlooked fact is that some of these titles sans relaunches would have continued a decay into cancellation; the relaunch may only be back to normal sales 6 months later, but if they would have been at cancellation numbers instead then there is an actual gain for Marvel.

The chart also doesn't take into account the variation in creator teams. Unsurprisingly, the combination of popular team+famous writer does best, right? Could the loss of sales be halted or less extreme if the creator teams were more famous? It seems to me that sampling of number 1s is more likely with less known talents.

Also to be considered: sheer number of titles. Most comic fans have a static number of books they can buy. I, for example, had a huge pull list when the last wave of Marvel Now relaunches went through, and couldn't really make much room for new titles, even ones I was interested in. At some point releasing tons of new titles will crowd out others and force buyers to make choices, choices which tend to favor bigger names in both character and talent.

[Mia]

One point not mentioned which causes even more loss, is that the older fan, the ones who used to have hundreds of issues of one volume are losing interest, and stop buying.
So while in the past you could always count on the core fan base, that fan base is diminishing as well, and will be much harder to get back

On the contrary, I'm an 'older' fan. I just gave away some of my more favourite books two months back. I was lucky to find a vendor who was willing to give me X amount of dollars worth of some of his in house stock. When he asked me if I was no longer a fan of Batman. I told him that I can't go around lugging long boxes of comics whenever I move. They take up too much space. Further it's easier to have the collected editions, and just pull them off a book shelf when I want to read a story. And collecting comics aren't a good investment for the future, I tried selling my collection and no one bit.

I don't mind the relaunches at all. If this is a way that Marvel can boost sales and make money, I don't begrudge them of that. I would rather them do relaunches as opposed to shock-and-awe events or resort to a complete (lazy) reboot of their line like what DC did. As long as I know in which book to find and read about my beloved characters I good with that.

[JediMindTrick]

Its like I've been saying for a couple of years ever since Marvel went on their double shipping and relaunch craze: they are sacrificing long term viability for short term gains. It makes sense in a way if you look at it from the perspective of those making these decisions: they are getting paid and will maintain their jobs based on current sales so of course they are willing to mortgage the future. However its killing the industry slowly but surely.