Sales figures for June

[Shinglepants]

For me, Ewing is right up there with Aaron as Marvels best. It really bothers me that his books don't sell. I think he'd surprise a lot of people if they gave him a try. Still, its probably always an uphill battle when you only ever seem to write satellite books.

I can't speak for the rest of the U.K (Though I'd imagine places like Manchester and London have more than one comic store) but in Liverpool there's two comic stores in the City Centre and aren't that far away from each other either.

Two in Manchester also. Not quite a stones throw away from each other but just around the corner.

[Ceebiro]

I'm sure some of those titles sell better digitally. But none of those titles should or deserve to be published instead of Fantastic Four. How many decades was it in publication again? Even if it struggled at times it has a proven track record of success. I'm not saying for them not to try new characters and concepts. I'm not say titles with new characters either. In fact I have said the opposite but with a one caveat leave the flagship titles alone. At least mostly. They didn't look at those sales numbers.

I think part of the problem with FF is that Marvel gave Hickman carte blanche to tell a multi-year epic story for the FF that most creators will never get an opportunity to tell. It was a story so big that it consumed not just the Avengers, but also the entire Marvel multiverse. As a creator, how do you follow up on that? You can't just go right back to basics. The property needs a chance to rest, and for that I think that Marvel is doing the right thing, broadly. I don't agree with Torch joining the Inhumans (they already had a fire guy) and Thing with the Guardians doesn't add much. Doom as "Iron Man", always sounded like a bad idea to me. He should be on a sabbatical somewhere.

How I would have done it? Reintroduce the villains as villains to torment other heroes across the line. That works. Publish a "FF" book starring the Frightful Four. That would have been a decent stop-gap for the FF corner of the MU. Without Reed or Doom, the Wizard would finally have a chance to claim the spotlight for a few months to a year. Reveal the Maker (Ult. Reed) as the prime antagonist, possibly having been coordinating all of the FF villains over the past year and blow that out into a linewide event. Bring Doom back to challenge the throne only to be defeated, and only then, bring back the Fantastic Four proper in grand style, to remind everyone why the world needs them. Relaunch a back-to-basics Fantastic Four book.

[Vic Vega]

Wow! Spider-Woman and Ant-Man get cancelled the instant they fall below 16K. I look at this list and there are quite a few Marvel titles below 16K that are still alive and well. Some way below 16K. Apparently there are different standards for cancellation at Marvel. Hopeless did a fantastic job writing Spider-Woman and just as her relationship with Roger blossoms she gets the axe. Spencer was just getting Cassie very involved with Scott in her new superhero identity and he gets the axe. Meanwhile Moongirl and Wasp are clocking in at a paltry 7 and 8K and they are still around. Not specifically picking on those two but more or less sticking up for two books that deserved more time. Their stories weren't finished. Marvel quite frankly has been extremely disappointing lately. My pull list is almost down to zero. Never thought I'd ever be buying more DC than Marvel but I am. I'm not even buying that much DC either. The comic book industry has become very disappointing.

The assumption is that Moongirl and Wasp can hit the all ages market in trade (and Moongirl already has).

Spiderwoman doesn't have an alternative market so that book goes away.

DC has the same thing going with Harley Quinn. Harley pushes so much merch for DC at this point, it doesn't matter what her comic sales are(Harley's title sells pretty well, btw)..

[Dreaded Porcupine]

I think part of the problem with FF is that Marvel gave Hickman carte blanche to tell a multi-year epic story for the FF that most creators will never get an opportunity to tell. It was a story so big that it consumed not just the Avengers, but also the entire Marvel multiverse. As a creator, how do you follow up on that? You can't just go right back to basics. The property needs a chance to rest, and for that I think that Marvel is doing the right thing, broadly. I don't agree with Torch joining the Inhumans (they already had a fire guy) and Thing with the Guardians doesn't add much. Doom as "Iron Man", always sounded like a bad idea to me. He should be on a sabbatical somewhere.

How I would have done it? Reintroduce the villains as villains to torment other heroes across the line. That works. Publish a "FF" book starring the Frightful Four. That would have been a decent stop-gap for the FF corner of the MU. Without Reed or Doom, the Wizard would finally have a chance to claim the spotlight for a few months to a year. Reveal the Maker (Ult. Reed) as the prime antagonist, possibly having been coordinating all of the FF villains over the past year and blow that out into a linewide event. Bring Doom back to challenge the throne only to be defeated, and only then, bring back the Fantastic Four proper in grand style, to remind everyone why the world needs them. Relaunch a back-to-basics Fantastic Four book.

An FF book starring the Frightful Four. I like this idea. Look at how successful the Superior Foes of Spider-Man was. Or more importantly how successful the Thunderbolts have been.

[chief12d]

It sucks to see the Inhumans doing terribly, because that's actually a quality comic. It's exploring new territory and incredibly well written, but I guess the pervasive hate they get is just too much.

[stillanerd]

Re: Secret Empire--Even though it's still in the Top 10, I think it's pretty obvious it's becoming a rout. Yes, these figures are based on estimates of retailer orders and not actual sales data. But remember, retailers readjust their orders based on how well a comic sells in their store. So if comic book retailers used to be ordering 100K+ copies of Secret Empire at the start of the event, but now are only ordering 80K+ copies after six issues, that suggests previous issues of Secret Empire were not selling in their stores.

Also, with regards to Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man #1, there's a reason why it hit well over 200K copies, and it's not just because it's a new #1 issue of an ongoing Spider-Man title. What really came into play was another retailer incentive deal and variants.

Number Crunching: The top 20 comics sales estimates for June 2017

[kilderkin]

That's debatable. In fact I find it interesting that all attempts to bring Spider-Man back to basics end up veering him further away. Almost as if the character was meant to evolve and change.

I agree he shud

And that was my issue with his omd retcon

Rather than move on it move backwards

Him becoming a widow, divorcee or father or losing may would all have done that imo and maintained his pathos

[Tony]

Doesn't Amazon use robots in their distribution centers. I think 60 minutes did a story on it. Maybe it was another news organization. Great job creators they are.

Amazon is adding workers at the moment but the goal is to put all competition out of business. The day is coming where you place an order on the website, it's picked by a robot and delivered by a drone and no human will be needed. Amazon go stores will be bad for the economy as well.

The problem isn't the self checkout line at the grocery store you use that killed a clerk job, it's AI making the office "skilled" work obsolete. Walmart just laid off another few thousand this year all from the back of the house. They can and probably will come closer than you think to eliminateing 50% of the jobs in the next 20 years. Driverless vehicles alone can crush 9 million jobs, and the research and development for the technology is being paid for by the US tax payers lol. That over the road trucker, that taxi driver paying to be put out of work

That said I buy digital comics. I wait for a sale and spend only a fraction of retail. Just like Wal Mart and someone mentioned Block Buster Video came in and destroyed 10s of thousands of small businesses when they moved into town, digital will roll over there business model. And yes, computers are so much more efficient we will be losing jobs.

In the 30s or 40s ford employed 100,000 people to produce the same amount of cars 8,000 people today can produce. In 20 years it'll be 500 employees, factories just wont need many humans.

More importantly than "labor jobs" being at risk to robots, AI will be killing "skilled jobs" at the same time. There will be great changes in the next few decades.

[Kurolegacy]

Re: Secret Empire, even though it's still in the Top 10, I think it's pretty obvious it's becoming a rout. Yes, these figures are based on estimates of retailer orders and not actual sales data. But remember, retailers readjust their orders based on how well a comic sells in their store. So if comic book retailers used to be ordering 100K+ copies of Secret Empire at the start of the event, but noq are only ordering 80K+ copies after six issues, that suggests the previous issues of Secret Empire were not selling in their stores.

Also, with regards to Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man #1, there's a reason why it hit well over 200K copies, and it's not just because it's a new #1 issue of an ongoing Spider-Man title. What really came into play was another retailer incentive deal and variants.

Number Crunching: The top 20 comics sales estimates for June 2017

I was looking at a sales comparison between the recent events dating back to Fear Itself and Secret Empire is actively selling worse than most prior events. Even Civil War II and AXIS were doing better in sales and they were both terrible events. That says a lot about how the story has been received.

[rui no onna]

I was looking at a sales comparison between the recent events dating back to Fear Itself and Secret Empire is actively selling worse than most prior events. Even Civil War II and AXIS were doing better in sales and they were both terrible events. That says a lot about how the story has been received.

Or just the state of the industry (or more specifically the Big Two) in general. Dark Days: The Forge didn't do particularly well either. Granted, it didn't quite have the same variant overload that Secret Empire does and unlike SE, afaik all Forge variants were open to order and weren't gated behind incentive programs forcing higher order quantities to qualify.

I reckon majority of comic buyers are just tired of events. Or really more like the cost of events given when I'm reading via Marvel Unlimited, an event is just another story.