Current Spider-Man Sales

[wleakr]

Quesada and those before him and now retired.



It's been talked about ad nauseum, but there is no evidence of younger readers being any more pro-OMD or even neutral on OMD. The hate for it hasn't died down even though I wasn't even in high school when it happened.

So if even after Quesada retirement we have the same status quo, which big kahuna(s) retirement would help swing things back to a marraige era in 616?

[Kaitou D. Kid]

So if even after Quesada retirement we have the same status quo, which big kahuna(s) retirement would help swing things back to a marraige era in 616?

Brevoort and (maybe) Cebulski and Lowe.

[Frontier]

Jordan White just left the X-Men...I'm not sure if he's left at Marvel, but I feel like that would be one reason to transition Lowe out but to be honest I'm not sure Marvel is at that point. Editors seem in it for the long-haul these days (which is why it was so surprising when Brevoort jumped ship to the X-Men).

I don't get the sense Cebulski is going anywhere any time soon.

[Mercwmouth12]

Jordan White just left the X-Men...I'm not sure if he's left at Marvel, but I feel like that would be one reason to transition Lowe out but to be honest I'm not sure Marvel is at that point. Editors seem in it for the long-haul these days (which is why it was so surprising when Brevoort jumped ship to the X-Men).

I don't get the sense Cebulski is going anywhere any time soon.

White said a while back he's taking over Hulk and Venom. Brevroot was requested by Buckley to take over the X-Men books. The ones we don't know if Lowe will be moving to something else and he's been on Spider-Man books for about 10 years almost which is the longest someone has edited for so he could or should be moving onto something but may or may not happen. Devin Lewis who edited he Venom books has confirmed he is moving onto something soon, but hasn't said what that is just yet.

[Frontier]

White said a while back he's taking over Hulk and Venom. Brevroot was requested by Buckley to take over the X-Men books. The ones we don't know if Lowe will be moving to something else and he's been on Spider-Man books for about 10 years almost which is the longest someone has edited for so he could or should be moving onto something but may or may not happen. Devin Lewis who edited he Venom books has confirmed he is moving onto something soon, but hasn't said what that is just yet.

Venom has been doing pretty well for itself, so I guess that could be enough to get Spider-Man? Hypothetically speaking.

I would still expect Lowe to be in charge of the next writer after Wells though.

[TinkerSpider]

So the plan is to wait out current Marvel editorial and creatives for retirement thus allowing younger talent to take over those positions to steer the 616 Spider-man ship back into a marraige era?

Well, I guess that could work.

Might be another 5, 10, 20, 30 years, though.

Marvel isn't the auto industry, where folks can't wait and count the days to retire. They are going to stick with the company for as long as they are having fun doing it.

Life has a hard limit and there’s no getting around it.

The end comes for all of us, regardless of one’s profession.

The plan can also work the other way. Marvel can wait until current readers retire and wait on the next batch of readers who will not be as strongly attached to "history".

That was Marvel’s initial strategy. I don’t have time to search for the quote but I believe it was Quesada who said OMD would blow over in five years, or words to that effect.

It’s been 17 years.

Still hasn’t blown over. Marvel has already lost that bet.

And if anything, Late Millennials and GenZ are even more adamant they want to see Peter and MJ together. Gen Z doesn’t have to scrounge together their money to buy back issues whenever they appeared in a local comic book shop. Gen Z can easily buy/access back issues, either digitally or through sites like EBay where they have access to people selling their collections from all over the world. And if they can’t find an issue, there are a myriad of wikis and fan sites to fill in information. Therefore, they can easily binge Peter and MJ’s history. They also see Peter and MJ cemented as OTP in animated series, the films, video games, etc. Even a very recent Funko Pop had Spidey carrying flowers and a box of candy with “for MJ” written on it.

Factually, 616 is the sore thumb that sticks out as being incongruous and out of alignment with the rest of Disney media/licensed product.

[Mister Mets]

Yes, but more fans seem to be buying USM than ASM based on everything we heard from retailers. That suggests Marvel is leaving money on the table with ASM.



I mean, if that's what they think, they're just objectively wrong about that. 616 Spidey is the only version off-brand right now. MCU Spider-Man is in love with MJ and looks like will reunite with her by next film (they won't replace Zendaya). Insomniac Peter and MJ are living together. Peter B is married to MJ and has a child with her. Even if we we believe the rumors about a Raimi Spider-Man 4, Tobey is married to MJ there. USM is way more on brand than Wells' ASM right now.



With respect, Spider-Man fans love to say this but the math doesn't actually add up. The guys behind OMD were in their forties when they implemented it, so of course things won't go away in 17 years. Not all of them are retired (Brevoort is still there).

The good news is that there is no evidence of the OMD editors and writers having inspired a new gen of editors and writers to keep OMD alive. If anything they seem to be alone in their stance, so it's not a stretch to assume that just like with DC and Didio, it will only take a few a handful of people leaving the company to undo certain things.

If you're trying to persuade Marvel to bring back the marriage, I don't think the argument that there will be a short-term sales boost is effective. Their biggest concern is that a married Spider-Man will not sustain decades of stories, so that would be the argument to focus on.

There is a different point about whether the traditional Marvel Universe is sustainable, especially with the current approach which is still mostly illusion of change.

We don’t know how the overall market is doing.

We don’t know if the market has shrunk or expanded month over month, or year over year.

For example, it’s one thing to be #1 selling pickup truck in North America. That’s a big market.

It’s quite another to be the #1 selling horse buggy in North America. That’s a much smaller market that is currently far from approaching the numbers the buggy market had its heyday.

We don’t know if ASM is selling more this year than last year. We don’t know if X-Men sales have fallen 25% from the time they dominated the market, 75%, or if the book’s sales have grown 1115% but other books have grown even more.

We don’t know if the #2 book sold 5 issues less than the #1 book or 5000 issues less. (We do get an idea from the Bleeding Cool weekly chart, which assigns a ratio to the top 10 books - with USM #1 and #2 a stunning ~40 points ahead of the number two books that week - but the same caveats apply as Bleeding Cool is using the same ComicHub data).

We don’t know how many books ship, which is the real metric Marvel cares about, because once a book is shipped, Marvel has its money. Retailers could set every issue they receive on fire and that would not affect Marvel’s bottom line at all.

The ranking is an unscientific sample of 125 stores/3000+, and does not include digital sales nor does it rank graphic novels and/or manga, which make up the total addressable market and are an indication of additional customers that have a chance of being captured.

ALL the ranking measures is how books rank compared to each other based on sell thru in certain stores - which do not include some very well known retailers in major cities like Midtown Comics in NYC or Golden Apple in LA - over a set period of time. And yes, with those caveats, ASM does very well.

Want to know why one issue of ASM always ranks several rungs below the other each month?

Because one issue has two more weeks on the shelves over the period being measured than the other. In reality, the other issue of ASM may have actually sold more, but the charts don’t show that because they only look at a set period of time. Other books that month may actually sell more as well, but because they came out later in the month, they had less time to get on the chart.

I predict ASM is going to have a hard time hitting the #1 spot from now on. Not because of USM, but because ASM has switched from shipping the 1st and 3rd of the month to the 2nd and 4th weeks of the month, so it won’t have that extra week to sell. I will also point out that USM #2 shipped the third week of the month, so it made the #1 slot with less weeks than when the ASM issue shipped the first week would take the top slot.

However, I’m also going to point out that USM will be shipping the 4th week of March and April. If USM doesn’t dominate the charts those months, it does not mean USM is failing or has lost readers or is falling out of favor:

All it will mean is that USM has less days to chart. Same goes for the ASM issue shipping the 4th week.

Hanging arguments on the rankings on a chart that is pretty much noise with very little actual usable data is…not very productive IMO. All that chart tells you is how well an issue did compared to another issue over a certain period of time in ~125 stores. That’s it. No more, no less. And, no, scientifically, one cannot use the chart to make definitive statements about the market because the data is flawed and biased due to being self-selected. Ask anyone who has a baseline knowledge of statistics.

So why should Marvel want to do things differently?

Because we have additional data points that point to USM not only selling well but tremendously well. And, what one would assume more importantly for Marvel, new faces are picking up USM according to retailer reports. The question of how much money is Marvel potentially leaving on the table is a very valid one.

One can only increase sales by selling more product to the same customer (aka the variant game) before it becomes diminishing returns. The market needs new buyers to thrive.

The problem with saying we don't know how the market is doing is that it gets away from the discussion about whether anything different should be done with Amazing Spider-Man.

If Amazing Spider-Man sells well in a bad market, it doesn't stand to reason that this is the title that Marvel needs to change.

Presumably there aren't too many readers lighting comics on fire so that Marvel gets paid, but the figures don't show up on Comicshub. I do remember different sales arguments that the estimates were inaccurate because it doesn't include sales to customers, which incentivizes short-cuts to goose estimates.

Comicshub figures also include sales of comics sold that were released earlier, so we'll quickly get a sense of how many people pick up the book in the next calendar month.

[Kaitou D. Kid]

If you're trying to persuade Marvel to bring back the marriage, I don't think the argument that there will be a short-term sales boost is effective. Their biggest concern is that a married Spider-Man will not sustain decades of stories, so that would be the argument to focus on.

My argument is that it will boost long-term sales as long as the comics continue to stay good after they undo OMD.

Also, action speaks louder than words. I don't think any argument anyone makes online would convince Marvel more than USM's sales success right now.

There is a different point about whether the traditional Marvel Universe is sustainable, especially with the current approach which is still mostly illusion of change.

Then the current approach (illusion of change) should be called into question.

[QUOTE]If Amazing Spider-Man sells well in a bad market, it doesn't stand to reason that this is the title that Marvel needs to change.[QUOTE]

If USM outsells ASM (which it has), it stands to reason that ASM is leaving money on the table by not addressing the elephant in the room.

[wleakr]

If USM outsells ASM (which it has), it stands to reason that ASM is leaving money on the table by not addressing the elephant in the room.

Let's revisit this at issue 6 or 7 of USM. We're looking way too far into this at issue 1 & 2.

[TinkerSpider]

The problem with saying we don't know how the market is doing is that it gets away from the discussion about whether anything different should be done with Amazing Spider-Man.

Anyone who has ever worked in marketing or business development would disagree.

When a market starts to decay, the very last thing one should do is stay the course. That's a very good strategy to become obsolete.

Comic retailers have been vocal, including in reliable sources such as Publishers Weekly, about the current weakness of the market. That's why knowing the MoM or YoY numbers is important.

If Amazing Spider-Man sells well in a bad market, it doesn't stand to reason that this is the title that Marvel needs to change.

Sure, if you want to be the last person to turn off the lights as the market dies.

Presumably there aren't too many readers lighting comics on fire so that Marvel gets paid, but the figures don't show up on Comicshub.

ComicHub doesn't measure sell-in, or how many copies are sold to retailers - but Marvel makes its money off sell-in.

Marvel gets paid as soon as the comics are ordered and paid for by the retailer. Retailers, readers, whoever could destroy the comics once they arrive at retailers or in readers' hands and that wouldn't affect Marvel's bottom line.

I do remember different sales arguments that the estimates were inaccurate because it doesn't include sales to customers, which incentivizes short-cuts to goose estimates.

I'm not sure I follow.

ComicHub is reporting sell-thru rankings, or the rankings of comics sold at the cash register at 125/3000+ stores.

However, that's how stores make their money, not how Marvel makes its money.

Both Sell-in AND Sell-Thru numbers are necessary to have an accurate picture of the market.

Sell-Thru absolutely is goosed by releasing incentive variants. That's why Marvel does it, to encourage stores to order more copies than they usually would in order to get the more rare variant they can sell at a markup. It's a valid sales distribution strategy, even if it runs the risk of wearing out the customer and leading to diminishing returns.

Both Sell-in and Sell-Thru numbers are goosed by regular variants (and individual retailers goose their individual sell-thru - which helps to goose Marvel's Sell-in - by commissioning retailer variants), because Marvel AND the retailer are both counting on selling multiple versions of the same product to the same consumer by switching the cover only. (That can be read as an indication that the market strength is slipping, because Marvel is relying on selling more product to the same customer instead of trying the increase the number of customers. Same goes for the price hike. Marvel is trying to increase its bottom line not by increasing the number of customers, but again by extracting more money from the same customer they already have).

We have neither Sell-in NOR Sell-thru numbers. When Diamond had a distribution monopoly, we got reliable Sell-In numbers, but there was a gap in getting insight into Sell-Thru numbers. Now, all we have is a Sell-thru ranking over a set period of time.

My point is that all arguments over sales using ComicHub are unproductive because the ComicHub rankings are mostly noise and bordering on specious as hard market data.

Comicshub figures also include sales of comics sold that were released earlier, so we'll quickly get a sense of how many people pick up the book in the next calendar month.

First, ComicHub figures are not actual sales, but a ranking. We have no idea how many people pick up a book because we have no idea if the #1 book sold 50K copies or 5000 copies. We have no idea if the #2 book sold 3 copies less than the #1 book or 3000 copies less.

We also have no idea how books sell from month to month. The #1 book in January could have sold 165K copies. The #1 book in February could have sold 45K copies. But even though both books are #1 in their respective months, the January book far outsold the February book. All #1 rankings are not equal.

Second, unless you pay for a pro account on icV2 or you work for ComicHub/Marvel, we only see the top 50 rankings. A book could be released in the 4th week and have only 4 days to make the chart and come in at #30. It could continue selling and come in next month at #51. However, the book still could have sold better than the #20 book, which came out at the beginning of the month and had more time to make the chart. But people will only see that the book came in #30 in its first month and make their arguments accordingly.

Again, ComicHub tells us nothing but how well a title ranks against other titles in a set period of time in a sample of ~125 self-selected stores. That's it. No more, no less. The data is too imprecise and too biased due to self-selection of the sample to be used in any other manner.

However, in the case of USM, there is additional data that points to how well the book is performing. The data is also not as hard as one might prefer, but one can add up the information to support the thesis that USM is well outperforming other titles in the market AND bringing in new customers, not just selling multiple variants to speculators and current customers.

And I also agree it is still early days. We'll get a better idea this month and next, when ASM and USM go head to head.

[Kaitou D. Kid]

Let's revisit this at issue 6 or 7 of USM. We're looking way too far into this at issue 1 & 2.

No reason to think sales would drop as long as the quality stays good (especially if ASM continues to dissapoint a huge portion of fans), but I have no problem making the same point 6 or 7 issues from now.

[wleakr]

No reason to think sales would drop as long as the quality stays good (especially if ASM continues to dissapoint a huge portion of fans), but I have no problem making the same point 6 or 7 issues from now.

The sales will definitely drop as the first issue noise will go away.

It's a matter of how much will it drop.

[Kaitou D. Kid]

The sales will definitely drop as the first issue noise will go away.

It's a matter of how much will it drop.

It's a question of whether or not it will have a meaningful drop, though. Yes, #1's usually sell the best with new relaunches, but so far there is no evidence of a meaningful drop between USM #1 and #2.

(That is if any drop between USM #1 and #2 occurred in the first place. Like TinkerSpider said, we don't actually know the number of copies sold.)

[Dan Slott]

I think it's an unfair metric to judge USM's success off of whether or not there's a drop from #1 to #2.
There will be a drop from #1 to #2. That's just the nature of initial comic sales for every book.
Same goes for the less steep (but inevitable) drop from #2 to #3. Again, this is for all books.
The issue that will give you a true measure of how a new book is doing is #4.
That's when retailers have had time to gage how well the book has been performing in their store before placing their orders.
The first three orders they placed were based on their gut and how they thought the book might do.
#4 is when they're making their first educated estimate.

That said...

In the case of USM, I think it's silly to ask whether it's a success or not. When the book goes to 4 printings on its first issue, I think you've got your answer. ;-)

[Mister Mets]

Anyone who has ever worked in marketing or business development would disagree.

When a market starts to decay, the very last thing one should do is stay the course. That's a very good strategy to become obsolete.

Comic retailers have been vocal, including in reliable sources such as Publishers Weekly, about the current weakness of the market. That's why knowing the MoM or YoY numbers is important.



Sure, if you want to be the last person to turn off the lights as the market dies.



ComicHub doesn't measure sell-in, or how many copies are sold to retailers - but Marvel makes its money off sell-in.

Marvel gets paid as soon as the comics are ordered and paid for by the retailer. Retailers, readers, whoever could destroy the comics once they arrive at retailers or in readers' hands and that wouldn't affect Marvel's bottom line.



I'm not sure I follow.

ComicHub is reporting sell-thru rankings, or the rankings of comics sold at the cash register at 125/3000+ stores.

However, that's how stores make their money, not how Marvel makes its money.

Both Sell-in AND Sell-Thru numbers are necessary to have an accurate picture of the market.

Sell-Thru absolutely is goosed by releasing incentive variants. That's why Marvel does it, to encourage stores to order more copies than they usually would in order to get the more rare variant they can sell at a markup. It's a valid sales distribution strategy, even if it runs the risk of wearing out the customer and leading to diminishing returns.

Both Sell-in and Sell-Thru numbers are goosed by regular variants (and individual retailers goose their individual sell-thru - which helps to goose Marvel's Sell-in - by commissioning retailer variants), because Marvel AND the retailer are both counting on selling multiple versions of the same product to the same consumer by switching the cover only. (That can be read as an indication that the market strength is slipping, because Marvel is relying on selling more product to the same customer instead of trying the increase the number of customers. Same goes for the price hike. Marvel is trying to increase its bottom line not by increasing the number of customers, but again by extracting more money from the same customer they already have).

We have neither Sell-in NOR Sell-thru numbers. When Diamond had a distribution monopoly, we got reliable Sell-In numbers, but there was a gap in getting insight into Sell-Thru numbers. Now, all we have is a Sell-thru ranking over a set period of time.

My point is that all arguments over sales using ComicHub are unproductive because the ComicHub rankings are mostly noise and bordering on specious as hard market data.



First, ComicHub figures are not actual sales, but a ranking. We have no idea how many people pick up a book because we have no idea if the #1 book sold 50K copies or 5000 copies. We have no idea if the #2 book sold 3 copies less than the #1 book or 3000 copies less.

We also have no idea how books sell from month to month. The #1 book in January could have sold 165K copies. The #1 book in February could have sold 45K copies. But even though both books are #1 in their respective months, the January book far outsold the February book. All #1 rankings are not equal.

Second, unless you pay for a pro account on icV2 or you work for ComicHub/Marvel, we only see the top 50 rankings. A book could be released in the 4th week and have only 4 days to make the chart and come in at #30. It could continue selling and come in next month at #51. However, the book still could have sold better than the #20 book, which came out at the beginning of the month and had more time to make the chart. But people will only see that the book came in #30 in its first month and make their arguments accordingly.

Again, ComicHub tells us nothing but how well a title ranks against other titles in a set period of time in a sample of ~125 self-selected stores. That's it. No more, no less. The data is too imprecise and too biased due to self-selection of the sample to be used in any other manner.

However, in the case of USM, there is additional data that points to how well the book is performing. The data is also not as hard as one might prefer, but one can add up the information to support the thesis that USM is well outperforming other titles in the market AND bringing in new customers, not just selling multiple variants to speculators and current customers.

And I also agree it is still early days. We'll get a better idea this month and next, when ASM and USM go head to head.

If Amazing Spider-Man sells okay in a poor market, that suggests Marvel should do more to overhaul the other titles.

There are issues that may affect the entire industry, and Amazing Spider-Man sales could increase as those issues (costs, distribution models, overall direction) are fixed, but those issues would be unlikely to unique to Amazing Spider-Man.

Comicshub information is incomplete, but we'll get some data. We may not know the gap between Ultimate Spider-Man #2 and the second best-selling comic that month, but we'll get information about best-selling comics of 2024 at the end of the year and the charts will tell us something. If Ultimate Spider-Man is always the best-selling comic of the month, that's a major indication of astounding success. If a previous month's issue of Ultimate Spider-Man has significant sales of leftover copies the next month, that will also pop up in the charts.

And we look at the Comicshub information in the context of other data.

I'm not going to get a Pro subscription to ICV2, but it doesn't seem that exclusive at 12 bucks a month or 120 bucks a year. If there's something especially unusual under the hood about the numbers, I think it'll come out.

No reason to think sales would drop as long as the quality stays good (especially if ASM continues to dissapoint a huge portion of fans), but I have no problem making the same point 6 or 7 issues from now.

I really don't think you want to imply that if sales drop, even if sales stabilize at a decent place, it implies the quality of USM is not good.

My argument is that it will boost long-term sales as long as the comics continue to stay good after they undo OMD.

Also, action speaks louder than words. I don't think any argument anyone makes online would convince Marvel more than USM's sales success right now.



Then the current approach (illusion of change) should be called into question.

If Amazing Spider-Man sells well in a bad market, it doesn't stand to reason that this is the title that Marvel needs to change.

If USM outsells ASM (which it has), it stands to reason that ASM is leaving money on the table by not addressing the elephant in the room.

The success of the first issues of USM doesn't mean it's going to work in the long-term, or that Amazing Spider-Man can sustain decades of stories if Peter and MJ's relationship is calcified.

The main alternative to the illusion of change is either stories with no change or radical change. At a certain point, it's different from the series you enjoyed. That may be part of its new charm, but there are trade-offs.