No more "batgirling," back to the same old same old.

[DGraysonWorldsGreatestSpy]

The Marvel vs. DC in sales does not make sense because haven't they been in the lead in sales figures since the 1970s? What hurt DCYOU was the flip flopping on how important Convergence would be. Most people saw Convergence as a two month filler and there was much confusion over whether Crisis on Infinite Earth was reversed. The DCYOU books were good with their diversity but when your Big 3 are all going in new radical direction and one of them is no longer in the suit then you should expect sales to not be as good. Wonder Woman is not really interesting, Stories about Superman's powers and identity have been done so much that I kind of wish he just kept his Action Comics #1 (1938) origin so he was more Superman and less Supergod, and Gordon-Bats was gonna sell in the main title but not so much in other comics.

[AstroWolfboy]

Star Wars won't flop. Disney is going to hit it out the park because its success will bolster their entire Star Wars initiative.

Civil War will be fine. Even a crap movie like Iron Man 3 made a billion dollars. Shove all the Avengers characters into one film and you will make a billion easily.

DC is going to have to stand on its own two feet.

No I know Star Wars and Civil War will make its money. What I meant was Star Wars may suffer from a similar Jar Jar Binks issue, where The Smart fans , not the kids buying the Merch start to see a trend that they don't feel apart of anymore. Kind of like how Star Wars before the craze of a new movie was in Dark Horse Limbo while the prequels where out.

[Lee Stone]

There's one detail here you're overlooking.
Those are weekly sales. Weekly sales are very different overthere. You're missing the "weeks in list" number in that link.
In America, Secret Six #4 will do, say, 25K in the month it comes out, and that's it. It's done. That's all it'll ever do, because the chart lists the number of issues Diamond sold to retailers, not what retailers sell to customers on a weekly basis.
What retailers actually sell, per month, is likely less than that 25K.

Your Japanese chart you linked to lists weekly sales and total sales.
Attack on Titan 16 sold 27,394 copies that week, which at first glance does not seem all that impressive, until you notice it's been doing that and more for already 7 weeks, totalling 1,589,164 copies sold. Eat your heart out, DC and Marvel.


For completely regular, run of the mill, non-event books, those are astonishing numbers that the Big Two would sell their souls for.

This may be of interest- WHY DOES MANGA SUCCEED WHERE AMERICAN COMICS FAIL?

These were the key differences they found that contributes to manga's success:

1) CULTURE & HISTORY: For hundreds of years Japanese people have loved art similar to modern manga, such as scrolls, woodblock prints, or sketches. Those art forms primarily are composed of line drawings, and often are fantastic, violent, erotic, humorous, and narrative in structure.

2) TRAINS: The crowded, fast-paced, modern commuter culture of Japan's urban lifestyle has had a gigantic impact on the proliferation of Manga. Today a huge number of people in Japan spend a great deal of time on trains.

3) LANGUAGE: There are aspects of the Japanese system of writing that help contribute to a pre-disposition towards the sequential medium. The Japanese ideograms used in Japanese writing are a type of cartoon.

4) FREE EXPRESSION: The Japanese Comics Industry has never dealt with anything resembling the American Comics Code Authority. This freedom of expression has allowed them to enjoy a greater level of freedom, creativity and expression in their art.

5. DIVERSITY: Manga explores varied subject matters. Unlike the spandex-happy US market, Manga covers anything from sci-fi action to private school girls to basketball and every form of weirdness in between. There’s literally something for everyone to enjoy when it comes to Japanese Manga.

6. PRODUCTION: Manga is done cheap and fast, printed mostly on newsprint, and published weekly instead of monthly.

7. MARKETING: No comics-shop love here. Manga are sold on newsstands, at book shops and at kiosks all over Japan.

8. DISPOSABLE MEDIUM: The Japanese Manga Market is largely a disposable one, as opposed to the “Collector” mentality that dominates the US market.

#5-8 are the ones I think are stifling progress here.

I would also add-

9. WIDER AUDIENCE: American comics are geared towards a narrow demographic, generally 20-40 year old males.

[Robotman]

Everyone is reading this rumor as though DC is disappointed in the sales for Black Canary, Omega Men, etc. But surely DC knew that these books weren't going to be blockbusters.

If you read between the lines, it seems like the real problem are the Trinity books, which (at least Batman and Superman) are supposed to be cornerstones of the publishing line.

1. DC probably paid a fortune to poach John Romita, Jr. from Marvel to draw Superman. And they introduced this new "Truth" plotline, which I'm sure they thought would bring extra sales and attention. But it's #36 on the charts, and not selling much better than when Lobdell was writing it.

2. David Finch, one of their superstar artists, is on Wonder Woman, and less than a year later, that book isn't selling any better than it was at the end of Azzarello's 3-year run.

3. Snyder & Capullo's Batman book is always a bestseller, but sales have plummeted for Detective Comics and Batman Superman. People aren't digging the robo-Batman concept when Snyder isn't writing it.

Some of the DCYou books have sold poorly (even though many of them are quite good), but DC has always had some bad-selling books. The real problem is that their high-profile titles are struggling.

that's probably true that DC really didn't expect books like Omega Men to be huge sellers. but they did initially say they would guarantee 12 issues but now i think that may be in jeopardy.

i think they overestimated the appeal of Romita. his art is definitely not for everybody. i've seen comments from people not familiar with his work shocked at how bad it is. sadly, at the end of the day Superman just isn't that popular with comic book readers and hasn't been for years.

the Finch's Wonder Woman run has been terrible. i don't think Finch by himself is a big enough draw to bring in many new readers. there is only a handful of artists who can generate sales. Jim Lee, Ivan Reis, etc. i just wouldn't put Finch on that list.

and i agree with what many have said that the Robo-Bat story should have been relegated to Snyder's book. what with DC declaring "loose continuity" they should have allowed fans to get their Bruce Wayne as Batman fix in Detective at least.

DC heroes haven't been as popular as Marvel heroes for a while now. the Marvel heroes have been in billion dollar blockbusters every summer for the past 10 years. maybe when the DC cinematic universe really gets going people will get excited about their characters again. mainstream success doesn't always equal big comic book sales number (see Green Arrow) but it does occasionally work. Suicide Squad has become a decent seller and the movie is a year away. and of course there is Guardians of the Galaxy.

[WillieMorgan]

I said before and i will say it again: if, to regain the lost market share, DC has to resort to the same gimmicks as Marvel, i really prefer to leave things as they are. Especially because i don't want to see another bubble bursting, like in the 90s. The problem is that DC haters and rumor-mongers like Rich Johnston will have a field day permanently.

And i wish people here stop acting like DC made a "mistake" when they tried to make the comics market a little more healthy. I wonder how a comic creator should feel about doing his best every month on a DC book and having his work being judged solely by sales numbers. And still having to deal with sabotage from sites like Bleeding Cool and The Outhousers.

Well, I wish I hadn't mentioned Marvel now as I'm genuinely not arsed how they get on. I'm not a 'DC vs. Marvel' fan-boy in the slightest. As long as DC are financially healthy enough to keep their current position in the market then I'm happy. Another poster put it better than me when they said that it was 'DC vs. expectation levels' rather than 'DC vs. Marvel'. I'm actually much more bothered about that.

I don't think you can classify the DC You as a 'mistake' as such. It was a bold move from DC and extremely solid artistically. I also agree with the view that it will probably go across better in trade (if some of these titles even get that far now!). It's pretty obvious though that, sales wise, it was a bit of a gamble. DC must have at least suspected that the market reaction towards it would be a subdued one. I just couldn't see c-list characters such Dr. Fate and Starfire generating enough revenue to succeed in the long term. We all know on here how much potential these characters have but evidently the overall market doesn't (or care). The whole initiative to me was a long-shot, but an admirable one.

[cgh]

This may be of interest- WHY DOES MANGA SUCCEED WHERE AMERICAN COMICS FAIL?

These were the key differences they found that contributes to manga's success:

1) CULTURE & HISTORY: For hundreds of years Japanese people have loved art similar to modern manga, such as scrolls, woodblock prints, or sketches. Those art forms primarily are composed of line drawings, and often are fantastic, violent, erotic, humorous, and narrative in structure.

2) TRAINS: The crowded, fast-paced, modern commuter culture of Japan's urban lifestyle has had a gigantic impact on the proliferation of Manga. Today a huge number of people in Japan spend a great deal of time on trains.

3) LANGUAGE: There are aspects of the Japanese system of writing that help contribute to a pre-disposition towards the sequential medium. The Japanese ideograms used in Japanese writing are a type of cartoon.

4) FREE EXPRESSION: The Japanese Comics Industry has never dealt with anything resembling the American Comics Code Authority. This freedom of expression has allowed them to enjoy a greater level of freedom, creativity and expression in their art.

5. DIVERSITY: Manga explores varied subject matters. Unlike the spandex-happy US market, Manga covers anything from sci-fi action to private school girls to basketball and every form of weirdness in between. There’s literally something for everyone to enjoy when it comes to Japanese Manga.

6. PRODUCTION: Manga is done cheap and fast, printed mostly on newsprint, and published weekly instead of monthly.

7. MARKETING: No comics-shop love here. Manga are sold on newsstands, at book shops and at kiosks all over Japan.

8. DISPOSABLE MEDIUM: The Japanese Manga Market is largely a disposable one, as opposed to the “Collector” mentality that dominates the US market.

#5-8 are the ones I think are stifling progress here.

I would also add-

9. WIDER AUDIENCE: American comics are geared towards a narrow demographic, generally 20-40 year old males.

Also numbers 1 and 2. There is ample solid research to show that males, both kids and adults, don't really read anymore in the numbers they used to. And the commuter culture in the US is vastly different, being mostly car-based. Reading manga on the train is practically a cliche in Japan - I once saw a manga that was about a girl reading manga on the train...

[lorddominicus85]

Is there anyway to find out what DC or Marvel sell through digital sites like Comixology? I'd be interested to see if digital is really trending to be the future in America for the comic book industry.

[GlennSimpson]

Is there anyway to find out what DC or Marvel sell through digital sites like Comixology? I'd be interested to see if digital is really trending to be the future in America for the comic book industry.

Short answer is "no"

All we have are rankings of books, number of reviews for each book, and a "rule of thumb" that has been around for awhile that digital runs about 10% of print.

However, there has been mention of some books that sell much better than that in digital, like Ms. Marvel, but nobody seems to know if that is an outlier or if there are others like that.

[RobinFan4880]

Is there anyway to find out what DC or Marvel sell through digital sites like Comixology? I'd be interested to see if digital is really trending to be the future in America for the comic book industry.

Those numbers are not released but most estimates and people in the know say about 10% of sales are digitial.

[Lee Stone]

From comchron:
Print-
2011 $715 million
2012 $805 million
2013 $870 million
2014 $935 million

Digital-
2011 $25 million
2012 $70 million
2013 $90 million
2014 $100 million

Also, something interesting is this-
Print-
2001 $260-285 million

Which means that print sales have almost tripled, and 2014 digital sales is equal to just over a third of 2001's print sales.

[Thomas Crown]

I don't think you can classify the DC You as a 'mistake' as such. It was a bold move from DC and extremely solid artistically. I also agree with the view that it will probably go across better in trade (if some of these titles even get that far now!). It's pretty obvious though that, sales wise, it was a bit of a gamble. DC must have at least suspected that the market reaction towards it would be a subdued one. I just couldn't see c-list characters such Dr. Fate and Starfire generating enough revenue to succeed in the long term. We all know on here how much potential these characters have but evidently the overall market doesn't (or care). The whole initiative to me was a long-shot, but an admirable one.

That was the point i was trying to make when i posted that Stephen King quote, about how everybody was talking how much "Riding the Bullet" sold but nobody was talking about the story itself and its qualities.

And about the overall market, i can see two kinds of scenes happening...

SCENE 1
Costumer enters the comic shop and asks the retailer:
- What about this new "Black Canary" book?
Retailer answers:
- Meh! Another hipster crap! Here! Take! The last "random Secret Wars tie-in" just arrived!

SCENE 2
Reader browsing the internet and thinking:
- Man! This new "Omega Men" book is getting really great reviews! Maybe i should start buying...
Then he enters Bleeding Cool site and reads about the alleged DC troubles:
- Nah! Never mind! It gonna be canceled anyway.

[GlennSimpson]

That was the point i was trying to make when i posted that Stephen King quote, about how everybody was talking how much "Riding the Bullet" sold but nobody was talking about the story itself and its qualities.

And about the overall market, i can see two kinds of scenes happening...

SCENE 1
Costumer enters the comic shop and asks the retailer:
- What about this new "Black Canary" book?
Retailer answers:
- Meh! Another hipster crap! Here! Take! The last "random Secret Wars tie-in" just arrived!

SCENE 2
Reader browsing the internet and thinking:
- Man! This new "Omega Men" book is getting really great reviews! Maybe i should start buying...
Then he enters Bleeding Cool site and reads about the alleged DC troubles:
- Nah! Never mind! It gonna be canceled anyway.

SCENE 3
Customer enters the shop, sees Superman and Batman comics (characters she knows), buys them.

[RobinFan4880]

SCENE 3
Customer enters the shop, sees Superman and Batman comics (characters she knows), buys them.

SCENE 4

Customer walks into a comic shop. Her nose furls in disgust as she breathes in the pungent aroma of magic players. She looks around but cannot see them due to the dungeon-like lighting of the shop. A man, crouching over a box of old comics hisses at the customer, "The light...! It BLINDS US!" Dull laughter can be heard emanating from the deep within the bowels of the shop. The customer immediately turns around, gets in her car and forsakes all comic shops for the rest of her life.

[Thomas Crown]

SCENE 3
Customer enters the shop, sees Superman and Batman comics (characters she knows), buys them.

I know i will be sorry for asking, but what's the point you're trying to make?

SCENE 4
Customer walks into a comic shop. Her nose furls in disgust as she breathes in the pungent aroma of magic players. She looks around but cannot see them due to the dungeon-like lighting of the shop. A man, crouching over a box of old comics hisses at the customer, "The light...! I BLINDS US!" Dull laughter can be heard emanating from the deep within the bowels of the shop. The customer immediately turns around, gets in her car and forsakes all comic shops for the rest of her life.

Yeah, i can see that happening too!

[lorddominicus85]

From comchron:
Print-
2011 $715 million
2012 $805 million
2013 $870 million
2014 $935 million

Digital-
2011 $25 million
2012 $70 million
2013 $90 million
2014 $100 million

Also, something interesting is this-
Print-
2001 $260-285 million

Which means that print sales have almost tripled, and 2014 digital sales is equal to just over a third of 2001's print sales.

Interesting, so there is an uptick in both print and digital as far as dollars go but how much of those gains can be attributed to an increase in the pricing of books over both print and digital from year to year?

I've seen the argument made once or twice around these forums that digital is the future of comics and while the dollars seem to support an uptick I don't feel digital will ever fully surpass print the same as people still buy mostly physical books than down load on amazon or whatever preferred method they have. I don't personally think we have seen the future of the comics industry in America yet, I don't think any company has quite nailed down the best way to utilize the internet to reach the masses. While I am one of the people who only buys digital comics I just don't see that being a sustainable replacement for print when they charge the same prices for data. If Digital comics were a cheaper alternative I could see it eventually having a larger impact on the medium as a whole. But that's really a different discussion.

DC took a risk and in their eyes it didn't pay off as they had anticipated. Unfortunately they are looking at sales through Secret Wars colored lenses as well as Star Wars. I think pushing out so many risky books at once was a mistake on their part, risky books are smart because some of them become surprise hits, like BatGirl but pushing half your line of comics as risky books is a huge risk because they could all fail and fail miserably. If one or two new books fail out of four or five riskier books then the loss is much smaller and easier to absorb.

I said in an earlier post that I feel DC should tighten up their production line, one Justice League book, one Batman book, one Superman book. Force readers looking to get their fix of their favorite character into one spot, it works for Marvel, it works for The Walking Dead, it could work for DC. I don't think it would be wrong to assume the same people reading Batman loyally are not reading all four of his books and vice versa, I don't think it's wrong to assume that there are different people reading the three different versions of the Justice League. You're needlessly spreading your readership out, thinning the herd, sometimes forcing people who don't have the expendable cash to buy everything to pick and chose which books they won't read. Granted you're putting all your eggs into one basket by having one title for each of those brands but if you put the right teams on those books they will sell. By having four Superman/Batman books, odds are half of them are going to have lackluster creative teams who are simply picking up the scraps of the better books.

I've felt since the launch of the New 52 that DC made a huge mistake not doing a full reboot. By carrying over Green Lantern's, Batman's, and some of Superman's continuity you raised too many questions among possible new readers. Yes Action Comics started out at the ground floor but someone reading Action Comics who also took a dip into Superman was met with two vastly different status quos that just didn't mesh in a supposedly new world. Someone who picked up Green Lantern #1 walked into the middle of Geoff Johns' epic. Had the New 52 been a true fresh start, new origins, no backstory to hinder the stories they could have used that opportunity to really map out what their future cinematic universe would have looked like. At this point in time we are still left with several unanswered questions. While Snyder has provided us with a new origin for Batman, as a Green Lantern reader, I am still wondering how everything Johns wrote fits into the five year time span and how stories like Sinestro Corp War and Blackest Night still happened despite some of those characters having not shown up yet at the start of the New 52 like the Anti Monitor and Superboy Prime. The whole debate about the Robins is still confusing and unknown.

DC imo has done nothing but shoot itself in the foot time and time again. While they've produced some comics I've enjoyed from start to finish, admittedly I'm buying more DC than Marvel now a days, they've also created a convoluted mess of their backstory that gives me a head ache if I think about it for more than five seconds and they keep doing it. Launching Omega Men, Lost Army, Midniter, Dr Fate, Black Canary, Starfire, Martian Manhunter all at the same time was a bad move. None of those books have a house hold name attached to them save for maybe Black Canary and to expect anything other than failure for most of those titles would be insane. You can't throw 20 brand new books about C level characters at the readership and expect them to buy every single one of them, and if their goal was to sell to the niche fanbase each book is representing then it's laughable that they are already backing off.

A book like Black Canary or Starfire should of been launched out of a mini event from a book with built in readership. Green Arrow could of launched Black Canary after setting up her new status quo, Starfire could have come out of a cross over with the two teams she's best known for, Teen Titans and the Outsiders. The story line Martian Manhunter is running with could of been kicked off in Justice League and spun into his solo and cross pollinated with Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman, it's an alien invasion story, it has built in tie in value.

I'm ranting at this point and running a company from behind a computer after sales numbers have been released. I was excited as anyone when DC You was announced and still hope that they push forward with some of these books. Perhaps it's time to look at some mini cross overs to boost sales? Grayson and Midniter and Batman? Martian Manhunter and Action Comics and Wonder Woman?