X-men January Sales: Its That time of the month again...

[Anduinel]

Orders are made months in advance. Phoenix Ressurrection's quality had no influence on sales.

It was also a weekly mini-series, which meant retailers had to order the whole series before they had sales data for the first issue. That tends to lead to more conservative orders. Brian Hibbs had some commentary on that this month.

[Maestroneto]

Lol Someone has to say this literally every month.

Peeps will get it one day lol

I'm 90% sure I'll have to explain it again next month if Red's sales are lower than expected and people insist Ressurection scared people away.

[wano]

I'm 90% sure I'll have to explain it again next month if Red's sales are lower than expected and people insist Ressurection scared people away.

What are the expectations anyways? Also #1s are always boosted by Variants, you get an accurate reading at issue 5 or 6

[Daniel22]

Has there ever been any data to actually determine how many issues of a given comic have actually sold as opposed to the numbers we get referring to the number shipped to brick and mortar comic shops?

No. But you can be confident that stores have very good handles on how many copies of a book they can sell, in general. Certainly the stores that sell comics as their main source of income do. The margins are so small that any comics driven store that consistently over orders won't be around very long. So you can be confident that a very high percentage of issues are being sold, in general. It's harder to say that with one shots and first issues, but any shop that has the RMH system can look at past titles and come up with a number they feel confident with when ordering new number ones.

[924COLLECTIVE]

That Terrigen Mist Bomb Marvel thought would be a good idea really did a number on the mutants...

[Harpsikord]

What are the expectations anyways? Also #1s are always boosted by Variants, you get an accurate reading at issue 5 or 6

All I know is that #1 already went to second printings before it even released.

[anyajenkins]

Wrong. Comichron gets the info.... from Diamond.

Diamond releases their ranking info, not the actual sales.

[skyvolt2000]

Wrong. Comichron gets the info.... from Diamond.

And even then it's still not 100%.


We are not seeing how many books that have been bought ONCE get bought again via sales on Ebay or those other places.

And that still does not include books that a store will NOT order a book. I met one guy who had to do a pull list at three different stores because one would sell a book and the other would.

Or your friendly comic cons where I saw quite a few Marvel books that came out between the start of Legacy and now for a DOLLAR.

Or the used book store that SOMEHOW gets new books a few days after they come out.

[skyvolt2000]

I really thought Phoenix Resurrection would have done better given it was Jean's big return. Marvel did a really poor job marketing it as a big event.

It's hard to be number one when you are dealing with 2 Batman events, DC double shipping books and the hype of Doomsday Clock.

Remove the events and you might have seen higher numbers all around instead of some folks having to make choices in what to buy versus trade wait.

[yogaflame]

And even then it's still not 100%.


We are not seeing how many books that have been bought ONCE get bought again via sales on Ebay or those other places.

And that still does not include books that a store will NOT order a book. I met one guy who had to do a pull list at three different stores because one would sell a book and the other would.

Or your friendly comic cons where I saw quite a few Marvel books that came out between the start of Legacy and now for a DOLLAR.

Or the used book store that SOMEHOW gets new books a few days after they come out.

So all these numbers... are LIES!



lol, of course they are all estimates based on the sales of Batman in some insane rubric, but they are the industry standard.

[RCX]

If it constantly sells less than 30k, it’s underperforming.

[wano]

That Terrigen Mist Bomb Marvel thought would be a good idea really did a number on the mutants...

Comic sales at shops remain at an all time low, trades and hc sell better in actual bookstores tough

If it constantly sells less than 30k, it’s underperforming.

It depends... If an A lister sells that low it'll be considered underperforming. If something new and unproven like ms marvel (kamala), a team character in his first solo or Storm can keep consistent sales at 25k it's a success, specially in a difficult market

[MarvelMaster616]

Loved seeing Phoenix Resurrection be the top X-book. That series deserved to be at the top of the charts. Even so, these numbers are not very encouraging.

I know these numbers are not final, but sales still matter. The direct market still matters. And when Marvel's top books are struggling to top 70k, then that's a problem. The X-books especially seem to get hit harder than most. I think some of that is still a byproduct of Marvel undermining the X-books to promote the Inhumans for so many years. They're making a comeback and I hope that shows in X-men Red, but I don't know if that will be enough. I have a feeling Marvel is biding their time with the X-books until they can relaunch Uncanny X-men and make that the anchor for the X-books, once more. It may or may not happen this year, but if the sales keep declining, it can't happen soon enough.

[Knives]

Well I think before the current market we should be happy for any title that sells more than 30k. While this is a reality of the market is only one part of the story the other is that marvel still needs to greatly improve the quality of the comics that still leaves something to be desired.

DC has managed some with over 100k but are DOOMSDAY CLOCK and DARK NIGHTS METAL (which are good in my opinion) are two major events affecting all of Batman mythology and the other a crossover with Watchmen if this does not attract readers do not know what would most attract them.

Jean Ressurection had good numbers considering that marvel almost made no divulgation or merchandise about it.

Many titles will be replaced soon but I have not seen anything really interesting that will replace them so far.

[Digifiend]

Well, May solicits are due next week. So we should be getting news this week about several new books and creative team changes. That'll mostly be DC and Avengers titles though. Most of the X book changes would be in the second half of the year, so no news is no surprise at this point.