When is a series truly in danger of cancellation?

[Grimm911]

Hi guys serious question; we all know that a comic series will only continue to run as long as it sells well, but recently I've been wondering about the actual cut off number of sales that means for the comic to stay afloat in Marvel. We can all agree the danger zone is usually around 20,000 units in sales, but I get the feeling that unwritten rule has changed in the recent years. There are some series that should be on the chopping block due to sales numbers a long time ago but have continued on without a problem.

I realize that when we usually see post of unit sale estimates of series 9 times out of 10, those numbers aren't including digital sales which has only gained in popularity. Then there are series that, although popular, have a firm ending (Like the breakout series "Vision"). Plus, Marvel now has the financial backing of freaking, Disney, so they are free to take more risks. So here is my question.

Should we the fans and readers of all things, Marvel reevaluate the prerequisites that are required for a comics series to be in danger of cancellation? And if so, what is the new norm for us to look for in terms of predicting what series stays and what series goes?

[Of Atlantis]

If trades sell well enough, the lack of single issue sales might not be enough to warrant cancellation.

Moon Girl's last issue shipped 9k units iirc, but apparently sold well enough in trades to warrant being kept until issue 12 (?). Same with Squirrel Girl, 14k shipped units, but great trade sales.

Sometimes, if a writer only has plans for 12 issues, like I believe Vision's writer did, it wouldn't matter if sales are steady (unless they are ridiculously high). More often than not, once a writer leaves a truly spectacular run, the followup attempt to keep riding that train with someone else falls short. Happened with Hawkeye after Fraction left. Lemire's relaunch lasted half the the time and wasn't nearly as talked about.

[Digifiend]

That 20,000 rule only applies to Marvel, and only to traditional superhero books. The more humourous or youth/female targeted books, such as Moon Girl, Squirrel Girl, and Hellcat, sell better digitally than in print, and so have a much lower threshold. Other publishers, except for DC, would not be expected to do as well in any format. Sonic the Hedgehog for example has had sales slightly over 5,000 for some time. Marvel would've cancelled it years ago with those numbers. Even Archie itself doesn't sell 20k. Neither does the Boom Studios MMPR series, but it's that publisher's most popular series and thus definitely safe. DC would cancel books with higher sales figures than Marvel do. Any of their books doing less than 30k is in trouble, I'd guess.

[penthotal]

There isn't really an answer because the number we see are just projections (not the actual numbers) and only cover a portion of the market. A 19k book could be cancelled because it doesn't sell in TPB and digital while a 10k can keep being published because it does well in one or both of this channel for example. There are other variables too. We know (from icv2 and Comichron and others) that digital sales account for at least 10% of the market revenue. We also know (also from icv2, Comichron and others) that the book store channel account for 30-40% of the market revenue (that is, around 60% of all the TPBs are sold outside the comic shops). That means a book could seem to have bad sales both in Diamond charts both in floppies and TPBs but sell extremely well in digital or in the bookstores. In the end, the Diamond charts are only useful for what they have been created: know how much well a book is doing relatively to the others in the comic shops market.

[penthotal]

That 20,000 rule only applies to Marvel, and only to traditional superhero books.

I think that if a Marvel traditional super hero book sold 10k in floppies but 2k monthly in paperbacks it would keep being published anyway. It just that usually traditional super hero books don't do particularly well in TBP and outside of comic shops.