by Marc-Oliver Frisch

Overall direct-market sales crashed in May, and DC Comics contributed its share. Like Marvel, though, DC has a pretty good excuse. While Batman: Battle for the Cowl and The Flash: Rebirth continued apace, May was basically an in-between month for the publisher. There were no big launches, and everybody kept waiting for June’s revamp of the Batman line and July’s debuts of both Blackest Night and Wednesday Comics, which can all be expected to be sales juggernauts. So, with all that in mind, there’s no reason to panic just yet. If anything, there are some signs that things might actually be looking up for DC in the second half of the year.

At Vertigo, average periodical sales received a much-needed shot in the arm in May and rose to their highest level in more than two years. The two main reasons for the boost were “The Great Fables Crossover” and the debut of Mike Carey and Peter Gross’ new series The Unwritten. At a cover price of one dollar, of course, The Unwritten #1 was two thirds a promotional item and is unlikely to have made Vertigo any money as a single issue. Still, it sounds like a perfectly reasonable idea to market a new comic. It should be interesting to watch the effects.

Diamond’s “Graphic Novel” chart, meanwhile, was topped by Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill’s The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen — Century: 1910, the latest chapter of another best-selling property that DC’s WildStorm imprint no longer publishes. May should have been a good month for WildStorm: With a new StarCraft series, one of their more promising licensed properties debuted; and both of the imprint’s long-running creator-owned titles, Astro City and Ex Machina, came out. In practice, though, WildStorm’s average periodical sales once again failed to escape their limbo significantly below the 10,000-unit mark.

See below for the analysis, and please consider the small print at the end of the column. Thanks to Milton Griepp and ICv2.com for the permission to use their figures. An overview of ICv2.com’s estimates can be found here.

—–

2 - BATMAN: BATTLE FOR THE COWL
05/2004: Batman #627 --  76,885
05/2004: Batman #628 --  74,348 [75,832]
05/2005: Batman #640 --  66,640 [71,120]
05/2006: Batman #653 --  77,257 [78,435]
05/2007: Batman #665 --  80,122
-------------------------------
05/2008: Batman #676 -- 105,039 (+47.9%) [122,877]
05/2008: Batman #677 --  96,116 (- 8.5%) [111,065]
06/2008: --
07/2008: Batman #678 -- 103,213 (+ 7.4%)
08/2008: Batman #679 -- 103,588 (+ 0.4%)
09/2008: --
10/2008: Batman #680 -- 103,941 (+ 0.3%)
11/2008: Batman #681 -- 103,151 (- 0.8%) [114,657]
12/2008: Batman #682 --  93,469 (- 9.4%)
12/2008: Batman #683 --  90,272 (- 3.4%) [ 91,885]
12/2008: Batman #684 --  79,953 (-11.4%) [ 82,903]
01/2009: Batman #685 --  72,654 (- 9.1%)
02/2009: Batman #686 -- 111,353 (+53.3%) [124,542]
03/2009: BfC #1 of 3 --  91,619 (-17.7%) [103,913]
04/2009: BfC #2 of 3 --  89,120 (- 2.7%)
05/2009: BfC #3 of 3 --  89,170 (+ 0.1%)
----------------
6 months: -13.6%
1 year  : -11.3%
2 years : +11.3%
5 years : +17.9%

The book has done very well for DC, obviously, especially so if you consider that Tony Daniel didn’t really have any track record of critical or commercial success as a writer. Evidently, the market didn’t care, and there’s barely been any drop-off at all for The Battle for the Cowl.

Perhaps more significantly, these figures suggest that there’s a great deal of interest in the Batman franchise right now, so maybe “Batman R.I.P.” was on to something, after all. These figures — and those of the various spin-off books — are nothing but good news for June’s relaunch of the Batman line.

There was a 1-for-10 variant-cover edition, as always, while a second printing of issue #1 sold another 8,133 units in May.

(more…)

by Paul O’Brien

It’s an uneventful month, in every sense of the word. By ICV2’s estimates, sales were down a massive 19% compared with the previous year. But then, that’s hardly surprising. May 2008 saw the release of FINAL CRISIS #1, SECRET INVASION #2, INVINCIBLE IRON MAN #1, GIANT-SIZE ASTONISHING X-MEN #1 and two issues of the “Batman R.I.P.” storyline. There was a lot out.

By comparison, there wasn’t much going on in May 2009, either at Marvel or DC. Yes, there are the Dark Reign tie-ins, and yes, there’s a crossover going on in the third-tier X-books. But the biggest new launch of the month was NEW MUTANTS, at the bottom end of the top 20.

So it’s not really a case of would-be events failing to deliver; it’s more that the would-be events don’t exist in the first place. Well, there’s ULTIMATUM, but that didn’t come out in May. And there’s “Dark Reign”, but that’s more comparable to the “Initiative” books that came out after CIVIL WAR – though admittedly, they had a more visible effect on sales.

As usual, Marvel had the biggest share of the North American direct market. In dollar share, they had 45% to DC’s 30%; in units, it’s 39% to 26%.

Thanks as always to ICV2.com for permission to use these figures.

1.  NEW AVENGERS
05/04  New Avengers #82 -  55,711
05/05  ---
05/06  New Avengers #19 - 123,318
05/07  New Avengers #30 - 126,425
=====
05/08  New Avengers #41 - 109,185  ( -6.8%)
06/08  New Avengers #42 - 108,495  ( -0.6%)
07/08  New Avengers #43 - 108,751  ( +0.2%)
08/08  New Avengers #44 - 106,385  ( -2.2%)
09/08  New Avengers #45 - 103,326  ( -2.9%)
10/08  New Avengers #46 -  99,513  ( -3.7%)
11/08  ---
12/08  New Avengers #47 -  95,703  ( -3.8%)
12/08  New Avengers #48 -  95,688  ( -0.0%)
01/09  New Avengers #49 -  94,291  ( -1.5%)
02/09  New Avengers #50 - 106,831  (+13.3%)
03/09  New Avengers #51 -  95,340  (-10.8%)
04/09  New Avengers #52 -  93,975  ( -1.4%)
05/09  New Avengers #53 -  94,367  ( +0.4%)
6 mnth  (  --- )
1 year  (-13.6%)
2 year  (-25.4%)
3 year  (-23.5%)
4 year  (  --- )
5 year  (+69.4%)

NEW AVENGERS was number 5 in April, behind DETECTIVE COMICS #853, FLASH: REBIRTH #1, WOLVERINE: WEAPON X #1 and DARK AVENGERS #4. This month, without significantly increasing its sales, it’s back at number one – more due to the absence of big releases than anything else. As you’d expect, WEAPON X drops off with the second issue; DARK AVENGERS didn’t come out at all (though chances are it would have sold in similar quantities).

This is a Dark Reign crossover issue, and as usual, there’s a variant cover. Leave aside the spike for issue #50, and sales have been extreme steady.

(more…)

OUCH. After staying ahead of the pace in the floundering retail economy, the comics “fantasy economy” crashed hard in May, ICv2 reports. It isn’t pretty.

After rebounding in April, comic sales dropped a staggering 19% in May versus May 2008, while graphic novel sales declined by 13%, leading to an overall drop-off for the month of 18%. A lack of potent #1 issues as well as the absence of Dark Avengers certainly didn’t help comic sales this May, a month in which no single title even came close to breaking the 100K barrier. In contrast in May of 2008, which boasted seven titles over 100,000, comic sales were boosted by Final Crisis #1, Avengers/Invaders #1, Invincible Iron Man #1, and Giant Size Astonishing X-Men #1, all of which made the top ten along with 4 Secret Invasion titles and two issues of Batman RIP. The paucity of big event titles and strong #1s, the continuing deep recession, and the financial drag of higher cover prices all worked together to help produce the steep decline in comic numbers in May.

More:
Periodical and GN sales analysis
Top 300 Comics Actual–May 2009
Top 300 Graphic Novels Actual–May 2009

John Jackson Miller has his own analysis at Comichron:

The top of the chart, again, was the main factor. Diamond’s Top 50 were off 28%, or 1 million copies, from last May, and that’s the lion’s share of the shortfall. Last May had Secret Invasion #2, Final Crisis #1, and three other #1s in the Top 6. Meanwhile, the highest ranking premiere this May was in 20th place, New Mutants #1. This month’s top-seller at Diamond, New Avengers #53, only sold around half the issues of last year’s top-seller.

Too many stunts? Not enough stunts? Not enough regular periodical sales? Too many webcomics? Everyone will trot out their favorite theory, no doubt.

There are more #1s in June, so hopefully, the market will rebound. This kind of drop makes the “Doomsday Scenario” look not quite so farfetched.

John Jackson Miller, author and master number collater, alerts us to the fact that  Diamond’s May 2009 comics sales charts have been released, and contain a new “Top 50 Small Press” chart.

The new element this time out is that Diamond, which began releasing a Top 50 Independents list at the end of last year, added a Top 50 Small Publishers list this time out. (Or “Small Press” — I’m not sure what they’re calling it.) The Top 50 Indies list, in practice, just wound up reiterating items in the existing Top 300, since once you remove Marvel, DC, Image, and Dark Horse, you almost always still have 50 books left. Only one time did the 301st place item materialize in the Top 50 Indies list.

The Top 50 Small Publishers list has a few of the same items on that Top 50 Indies list — MOUSE GUARD from Archaia, SONIC from Archie — but it extends downward to capture 15 more items not in the Top 300 list, finishing with CASTLE WAITING Vol. 2, #15 from Fantagraphics at 334th place. It’s not clear what qualifies a publisher for the Small Publishers list (especially as some also make the Indies list); my guess is that they’re all publishers with dollar market shares below one percent, or something similar. I have a query in with the distributor.

Jackson has more in the link, including the main charts and some analysis, so you number junkies might want to check it out to get your weekend discussion group primed and ready to go.

This is as good a place as any to bring up the “Indie Sales Chart” that a lot of people have been asking about. Steve Horton, author of several books, comics and games, did the chart once as a test, and of course, it would be a very popular feature here, but I was concerned that indie publishers would be upset by it. It’s no secret that a pretty strong faction of folks associated with the Big Two think that the Marvel and DC Sales Charts are gradually killing periodical sales, and although I’ve never heard anyone on the retail end back up this theory, I do take it seriously enough that I wanted to make sure that running an Indie Sales Chart wasn’t going to strangle a bunch of titles in their crib.

In the end, publishers I spoke with were ambivalent about a potential chart. None of them jumped for joy at the idea, but no one thought it was the sure hoof beat of the Apocalypse, either. I felt the charts would be useful — transparency is generally a good thing, and I thought it might point out some interesting trends.

However, for now, this chart is on hold. Steve is just too busy with his freelance career for this to work out for him right now. So, we imagine a lot of creators are breathing a sigh of relief right now. As for ongoing indie sales analysis, The Mayo Report over at CBR does look at the entire top 300, and is a great addition to what Paul and Marc-Oliver do here.

So, that’s the latest on charts and what not. Back to our nap. Have a great weekend!

[This really got delayed due to MoCCA madness. Many apologies to Marc-Oliver and faithful readers.]

by Marc-Oliver Frisch

After a terrifying March performance, DC Comics’ periodical sales in the direct market rebounded in April. The second part of Neil Gaiman’s “Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?” and the debut of Geoff Johns’ The Flash: Rebirth claimed the two top spots for DC, for starters, which is something that hasn’t happened in a while. Also, with The Battle for the Cowl, the soaring Green Lantern franchise and “The Great Fables Crossover,” there were a number of other strong projects from the company, all contributing to an improved overall performance.

Mainly, though, DC’s recovering average sales were due to more new comic-book releases from its main DC Universe line, which accounts for the bulk of the publisher’s periodical sales. After producing only 36 new comics in March, Executive Editor Dan DiDio’s office ramped up its output to a more conventional 49 releases in April.

Whereas the average periodical sales of DC Comics overall and the DC Universe line in particular showed signs of recovery, however, the Vertigo and WildStorm imprints remained largely unaffected by the upturn. At Vertigo, the second act of Grant Morrison’s Seaguy saga proved to be a commercial non-starter, while three of WildStorm’s series, once again, failed to make the chart.

See below for the analysis, and please consider the small print at the end of the column. Thanks to Milton Griepp and ICv2.com for the permission to use their figures. An overview of ICv2.com’s estimates can be found here.

—–

<strong>1 - DETECTIVE COMICS</strong>
04/2004: Detective Comics #793 --  34,800
04/2005: Detective Comics #805 --  39,077
04/2006: Detective Comics #818 --  60,440 [68,189]
04/2007: Detective Comics #831 --  56,284
-----------------------------------------
04/2008: Detective Comics #843 --  48,431 (- 2.0%)
05/2008: Detective Comics #844 --  48,394 (- 0.1%)
06/2008: Detective Comics #845 --  48,920 (+ 1.2%)
07/2008: Detective Comics #846 --  72,417 (+48.0%)
08/2008: Detective Comics #847 --  71,134 (- 1.8%)
09/2008: Detective Comics #848 --  68,306 (- 4.0%)
10/2008: Detective Comics #849 --  65,878 (- 3.6%)
11/2008: Detective Comics #850 --  64,196 (- 2.6%)
12/2008: Detective Comics #851 --  64,961 (+ 1.2%)
01/2009: Detective Comics #852 --  56,656 (-12.8%)
02/2009: --
03/2009: --
04/2009: Detective Comics #853 -- 104,107 (+83.8%)
-----------------
6 months: + 58.0%
1 year  : +115.0%
2 years : + 85.0%
5 years : +199.2%

There was a 1-for-50 variant-cover edition of Detective Comics #853 that likely boosted sales to no small degree.

That said, Neil Gaiman and Andy Kubert’s two-parter “Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?” probably wouldn’t have needed the help to be called a big whopping success.

The first chapter of the story, published in Batman #686 in February (see below), sold another respectable 8,056 units in April, bringing the total to 124,542.

Evidently, retailers’ faith in the material was justified.

(more…)

By Paul O’Brien

It’s Wolverine month at Marvel! To tie in with the film, we have a new ongoing Wolverine title, and a whole bunch of Wolverine variant covers. Elsewhere, the Dark Reign books continue, MARVEL ZOMBIES and DARK TOWER are back with new miniseries, and there’s the first issue of FANTASTIC FORCE, the abortive Fantastic Four spin-off.

As normal, Marvel had the largest share of the North American direct market, beating DC by 40% to 28% in both unit and dollar share.

Thanks as always to ICV2.com for permission to use these figures.

DC take the top two slots on this month’s chart, with DETECTIVE COMICS #853 and FLASH: REBIRTH #1. But we kick off the Wolverine-fest at number 3 with…

3.  WOLVERINE: WEAPON X
04/09  Wolverine: Weapon X #1 - 97,896

Yes, it’s a fourth ongoing monthly Wolverine title, to join WOLVERINE, WOLVERINE: ORIGINS and WOLVERINE: FIRST CLASS.

But it’s not quite that simple. Because WOLVERINE is about to become DARK WOLVERINE, a series about his son.

That might be a temporary thing for Dark Reign. However, it could also be a soft relaunch, of the sort that we’ve already seen with IRON MAN and HULK in recent years: Wolverine’s original title becomes a Daken book or gets cancelled, this takes its place, and there’s a few months of overlap in the middle.

The new book, by Jason Aaron and Ron Garney, launches just under the 100K range. That’s broadly comparable to the numbers that Mark Millar and Steve McNiven have been getting for their “Old Man Logan” story on the existing WOLVERINE series, but that’s an unusually popular storyline. By general standards, this is a good number for Wolverine.

On the other hand, let’s not get carried away. Marvel hurled variant covers at this book – there are five, including 1:20 variants by Olivier Coipel and Alan Davis, and a 1:100 sketch cover by Adam Kubert. Also, the second printing came out in the last week of April, so it ought to be included in these numbers. All this should be boosting the sales significantly, so it’ll be interesting to see where issue #2 lands up – it has only two covers, and neither is an incentive.

4.  DARK AVENGERS
01/09  Dark Avengers #1 - 139,239
02/09  Dark Avengers #2 - 102,277  (-26.5%)
03/09  Dark Avengers #3 - 101,978  ( -0.3%)
04/09  Dark Avengers #4 -  95,854  ( -6.0%)

A third printing of issue #1 came out in April, adding a further 6,078 sales. There’s also a second printing of issue #3, which adds 5,432. As usual, they’re included in the total above.

If you go by first month sales alone, the drop this month is minimal. Overall, the Dark Reign flagship book is levelling out very nicely.

This issue has a 1:15 variant cover by Stefano Caselli – but there was a similar incentive scheme for issue #3, and first month sales are only down by a few hundred.

5.  NEW AVENGERS
04/04  Avengers #81     -  54,987
04/05  New Avengers #5  - 162,412
04/06  New Avengers #18 - 121,550
04/07  New Avengers #29 - 125,378  ( +4.9%)
=====
04/08  New Avengers #40 - 117,201  (+13.7%)
05/08  New Avengers #41 - 109,185  ( -6.8%)
06/08  New Avengers #42 - 108,495  ( -0.6%)
07/08  New Avengers #43 - 108,751  ( +0.2%)
08/08  New Avengers #44 - 106,385  ( -2.2%)
09/08  New Avengers #45 - 103,326  ( -2.9%)
10/08  New Avengers #46 -  99,513  ( -3.7%)
11/08  ---
12/08  New Avengers #47 -  95,703  ( -3.8%)
12/08  New Avengers #48 -  95,688  ( -0.0%)
01/09  New Avengers #49 -  94,291  ( -1.5%)
02/09  New Avengers #50 - 106,831  (+13.3%)
03/09  New Avengers #51 -  95,340  (-10.8%)
04/09  New Avengers #52 -  93,975  ( -1.4%)
                           6 mnth  ( -5.6%)
                           1 year  (-19.8%)
                           2 year  (-25.0%)
                           3 year  (-22.7%)
                           4 year  (-42.1%)
                           5 year  (+70.9%)

Another Dark Reign tie-in. As usual, there’s a variant cover. Sales are slightly down, but still well within the normal range.

(more…)

The pamphlet is back! Whoo hoo! Buckle down, Winsocki! ICv2 reports that comics sales were up in April , for the first time this year:

Comic sales rebounded in April from a lousy March (see “No Comic over 100k in March”), with sales at both the top and bottom of the Top 300 list improving substantially. The #1 title in April, Detective Comics #853 (part two of a long delayed Neil Gaiman story), sold around 9% more than the #1 title in March, Dark Avengers #3. And of the top 25 titles, 13 sold more than the corresponding issues in the previous month, an unusually high percentage.

Sales at the top of the list were heavily influenced by multiple covers; nine of the top ten titles had variant versions.

MORE:
Dollar trends.
Top 300 Comics Actual–April 2009
Top 300 Graphic Novels Actual–April 2009.

DC rebounded strongly in April, as well, with the top two comics, and half of the top ten, led by new storylines for Green Lantern, Flash and Batman, which must have many people breathing a sigh of relief.

by Marc-Oliver Frisch

Average DC Comics periodical sales in the direct market dropped to their lowest point yet in March 2009, in the context of the six years worth of available data. One reason for that was that the Vertigo and WildStorm imprints remained at very low averages for their periodical lines.

Mainly, though, the decrease is down to the fact that the publisher’s DC Universe department, which traditionally has the highest periodical sales among the three imprints, only released 36 new periodicals in March, as opposed to 45 in February, 51 in January and between 48 and 63 per month in 2008. Taken on their own terms, average DC Universe periodical sales were actually slightly up against February.

While a few DC Universe series did miss their March 2009 shipping dates, however, the draught is mostly down to the simple fact that the line just didn’t publish a lot of comics in March.

See below for the analysis, and please consider the small print at the end of the column.

Thanks to Milton Griepp and ICv2.com for the permission to use their figures. An overview of ICv2.com’s estimates can be found here.

—–

3 - BATMAN: BATTLE FOR THE COWL
03/2004: Batman #625 --  83,371 [84,753]
03/2005: Batman #638 --  59,797 [82,651]
03/2006: Batman #651 --  69,805 [79,616]
03/2007: Batman #664 --  80,497 [82,107]
-------------------------------
03/2008: --
04/2008: Batman #675 --  71,138 (+ 4.3%)
05/2008: Batman #676 -- 105,039 (+47.9%) [122,877]
05/2008: Batman #677 --  96,116 (- 8.5%) [111,065]
06/2008: --
07/2008: Batman #678 -- 103,213 (+ 7.4%)
08/2008: Batman #679 -- 103,588 (+ 0.4%)
09/2008: --
10/2008: Batman #680 -- 103,941 (+ 0.3%)
11/2008: Batman #681 -- 103,151 (- 0.8%) [114,657]
12/2008: Batman #682 --  93,469 (- 9.4%)
12/2008: Batman #683 --  90,272 (- 3.4%) [ 91,885]
12/2008: Batman #684 --  79,953 (-11.4%) [ 82,903]
01/2009: Batman #685 --  72,654 (- 9.1%)
02/2009: Batman #686 -- 111,353 (+53.3%) [116,486]
03/2009: BfC #1 of 3 --  91,619 (-17.7%)
----------------
6 months:  n.a.
1 year  :  n.a.
2 years : +13.8%
5 years : + 9.9%

Batman: Battle for the Cowl was DC’s big new launch in March, effectively replacing the main Batman title for three months until the big revamp of the line in June, and it’s off to a respectable start.

Given the absence of brand-name creators, the publisher marketed the book solely on the strength of it being the next step in the Batman saga, and if these sales are any indication, it’s working: The numbers aren’t up at “Batman R.I.P.” or “Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?” levels, but they still handsomely beat those of the Grant Morrison run prior to “R.I.P.”

As you might expect, there was a 1-for-10 variant-cover edition which likely boosted sales. Batman #686, the first part of Neil Gaiman and Andy Kubert’s story, sold another 5,133 units in March, meanwhile.
(more…)

by Paul O’Brien

Dark Reign continued in March, with more tie-in issues and miniseries. As with the Initiative books a couple of years ago, Dark Reign isn’t a crossover so much as an umbrella branding for books that use the backdrop of Norman Osborn running the show. How much difference is it making to sales? Well, look below.

March also saw the start of the WAR OF KINGS crossover among the various cosmic superhero books, and the “Messiah War” crossover between X-FORCE and CABLE. And, after more than three years, ULTIMATE WOLVERINE VS HULK #3 finally emerged blinking into the daylight.

You won’t be surprised to learn that Marvel had the largest share of the North American direct market once again, beating DC by 47% to 28% in units and 43% to 27% in dollars.

Thanks as always to Milton Griepp and ICV2.com for permission to use these figures.

1.  DARK AVENGERS
01/09  Dark Avengers #1 - 133,161
02/09  Dark Avengers #2 - 102,277  (-23.2%)
03/09  Dark Avengers #3 -  96,546  ( -5.6%)

It may be number one, but DARK AVENGERS gets there with estimated sales below 100,000. This is the lowest number for a chart-topping book since ICV2 started tracking sales eight years ago. Nor is it due to major titles failing to ship in March; THOR did slightly better last month, but that was for issue #600, and the book would almost certainly have returned to normal levels.

However, it’s fair to say that both Marvel and DC are currently between the major events that tend to drive the top end of the chart. It may also be the case that the higher prices for top books are starting to hurt – though clearly they aren’t causing the sort of damage that would leave Marvel worse off in the short term.

Anyhow, this is still Marvel’s strongest seller at the moment. And there’s some sign of buzz. Issue #1 is still adding sales, with the second printing notching up 2,852 copies this month. Issue #2, meanwhile, picks up healthy re-orders of 8,724. Those numbers are added in above – and they mean that first-month sales for issue #3 actually went up slightly, always a good sign.
(more…)

Two more stories on the continuing effects of Diamond’s tougher benchmarks:

§ Robot 6 quotes a letter from SLG :

SLG Publishing was planning on following up the recent Warlord of IO and Other Stories one-shot with a mini-series — definitely good news for fans of James Turner. Or at least it would have been, if Warlords of IO and Other Stories had sold better, but Diamond Comics Distributor won’t be carrying it. According to an email from SLG, the mini-series won’t be published*, but they do plan to release it on the web.

“While that comic has been released to great reviews from both readers and online critics, the sales to comic shops were, well, less than spectacular,” the email said, in regards to the one-shot. “As a result our comics distributor has declined to carry the follow-up mini-series Warlords of IO, which continues the story from last month’s one-shot.”

Turner is known for REX LIBRIS and the famed MAP OF HUMANITY, so it’s not like he’s a schmoe. We just got a copy of the WARLORD OF IO one-shot and it’s a quirky, good looking book. Serializing IO on the Web for eventual collection sounds like a sound way to go, even if it leaves SLG without a crucial second stream of monetization. Developing.

Another story that got a lot of play this week was the news that Diamond would not be carrying Classics Illustrated any more, which sounds pretty dire. The news was sent out via a press release on PR Newswire.

The Classics Illustrated logo and material is currently controlled by Jack Lake Productions, which is licensing out the classic (sorry) logo to company such as Papercutz, which has been putting out nice-looking library-ready editions of the CI material First/Berkeley produced in the early ’90s, and new material as well. Those books are not affected by the current change.

Here’s a quote from the press release:

President of Jack Lake Productions Inc., Jaak Jarve, commented, “That this is another example of a knee-jerk reaction to the tough economic environment everybody is struggling with to get through.” He also added, “Ironically, here we have an American intellectual property (consisting of 325 classical literature titles) which are being dumped in favor of spandex-super-hero titles. Oddly enough the American-owned and -produced Classics Illustrated series is being welcomed more by foreign publishers than our own North American publishing community. Maybe those foreigners are investing in the knowledge that classical literature will help teach our children to cope with the realities of the real world much better than these caped-crusaders who like jumping off high buildings. Splat! That’s all I have to say.”

We were curious about all this and dug a bit further.
(more…)

John Jackson Miller has a pretty fascinating analysis of the Top 300’s long tail — complete with charts! (How does he DO it?) With March 2009 presenting, for the first time in a long time, the top selling comic coming in at under 100K, he makes comparisons to March 2003 and March 2006. The main finding is in the lower 150, where, as many have noted, the average sales ranking is up. But it’s mostly because Marvel and DC publish so many more titles now:

So what’s going on? The arc of 2003 slope has been flattened — with sales from the top of the list and the upper midlist pushing down toward the lower portion, and making sales on the whole list more evenly distributed. There’s a simple reason: Look again at the table for March 2003. The 200s are populated by familiar names like Archie and Antarctic, but also smaller publishers like Gutsoon and Aerosol. Marvel is pretty much not to be found there: it had 57 entries in the Top 300, and only 1 item in the 201st-300th place range. In March 2009, it had 99 entries on the list — and 22 in the bottom third of the chart. Marvel, DC, Image, Dark Horse, and CrossGen (the top five) combined for 215 slots in March 2003; 237 in March 2009 (with IDW in place of CrossGen).

Dollars are up in general, however, he notes.

As always, WATCHMEN and NARUTO top this week’s Graphic Books Best Seller List. Tatsumi’s epic A DRIFTING LIFE debuts at #3 on the paperback list, reflecting the surge from the huge article in the New York Times last week.

The list has definitely calmed down now, and resembles way more closely what you would see on BookScan or Amazon. The makers are obviously refining their methodology as they go along…it’s kind of sad to not see all the oddball items on there, but hardly unexpected.

Okay so arriving at my Publishers Weekly desk today, I found the following:

And what do you think was in these two boxes?

Several other people we know were shipped copies from Amazon as well.

So…in the end, this was just a writer promoting a book via sending out copies. Nothing sinister. We’re guessing that jumping up the Amazon chart was a byproduct, not a goal. The real, bigger story is just how many copies does it take to shoot up the Amazon chart, anyway? It probably isn’t 1000.

UPDATE AND FINALE: aaaaaaaand we just got this email from Ivory Madison herself:

Hi Heidi, I would never have known it hit #10 or had proof if you hadn’t noticed and taken a screenshot, so I am really grateful. I wasn’t even sure you knew who I was last week. By the time I heard about your blog post the next day from Ed Catto (who, by the way, is reviving the Captain Action franchise at http://www.captainactionnow.com/about.html), I rushed to pull it up and it had fallen to #23, but was still #1 in “Comics & Graphic Novels,” as well as #1 on subcategories “Superheroes” and “DC Comics,” so I got screenshots of those, too. You broke the news, even to me.

The real end result of all this, is that the picture that’s going over my desk is of Chavez giving Obama my book. That will be the enduring change to my life. That really made my week, more than the Amazon thing. Thanks to you for that and to Christian Dumais for noticing this important piece of international diplomatic news. I also enjoyed reading the comments, from savvy marketing plans to the guy who had people passionately claiming that Huntress: Year One is better than Watchman. I disagree, but if any of those people are in San Francisco or New York (I’m bicoastal…although my Amazon ranking issue was not related to any bicoastal content in Huntress), send them to me and I will take them to lunch.

Okay, so as you know, I founded Red Room (http://www.redroom.com), a community of authors, and I do know something about book marketing. The problem is that even when you know what to do, having the time or money or organizational skill to do it is another thing.

Many successful authors send out coordinated email blasts to friends linking to Amazon in the hopes that a high response rate will not only help sales and create buzz, but can also give a book a temporary spike in ranking, which can create even more buzz. Around the time of an email blast like that is a good time to also send out review copies and gift copies to loyal fans, industry types, opinion leader friends, whomever you think will like it and talk about it.

So I sent out emails encouraging friends to buy the book, and I have bought a lot of copies from random comic book shops and bookstores I’ve walked into, and from Amazon, over the past two months, which I’ve paid for out of my pocket. I finally got it together in these past two weeks, kind of late considering the book was released two months ago, to send copies to a list of friends and colleagues I thought might review it or talk it up. I’m glad this had the added effect of giving me rankings screenshots that no one takes seriously, but are fun. Amazon says they hope we find their rankings “interesting!” which indicates it’s more like gossip than statistics.

I haven’t checked yet with DC Comics to see what my overall sales are, which is much more important than a momentary Amazon sales ranking, and I’m kind of afraid to ask because I don’t think they’re very high. I’ve been really lucky having so many people get passionate about this book, and lucky I found the time to do a little promotion, although I did screw up many of the emails I sent out. I even got on Twitter. If anyone does know how to get Ashton Kutcher’s attention to promote my book, please do.

Also, I saw the piece today on Anne Cleveland and loved it. I promise to read you every day now. Thanks again.

This week’s list contains few of the oddities that have filled previous lists…it’s kind of what you’d expect — lots of Alan Moore, Robert Kirkman, Y: THE LAST MAN, and NARUTO.

RELATED: David Welsh doesn’t see what all the nattering is about.

ALSO: Todd Allen “reverse engineers” the list, and compares things that were on Diamond’s list that weren’t on the NYTGB list and so on. Allen concludes that the NYT list is heavily weighted toward DM store sales:

All this leads me to conclude what we’re looking at with the New York Times Graphic Books Best Seller Lists is a sell-through chart for the direct market, where the bookstore market really only shows strong influence on weeks when the DM’s new releases are lower-powered.

Now that the New York Times‘ online-only Graphic Books Chart has been around for a month or so, people are beginning to wonder just how the heck it works. It’s almost like one of those steampunk automatons — shiny and mysterious at the same time, and no one quite knows where it came from.

Kevin Melrose kicked things off by wondering how come a TWO YEAR OLD book (DARK TOWER) could suddenly unseat WATCHMEN and then slink back into obscurity the very next week. Chris Butcher jumped in and declared the list broken, and suspected that the NYT was using Diamond sell-in numbers. To back that up, he had pretty powerful evidence:

So how did we end up with Dark Tower: Gunslinger Born on the list? That’s tricky. Marvel is a very litigious company, and has all sorts of warnings about reproducing their private personal information in public. Blah blah blah. So, let’s talk about me instead, because I doubt even Marvel would be able to argue that retailers aren’t allowed to talk about their own businesses. So: There was a time period last month where I ordered Dark Tower: Gunslinger Born and received a higher-than-average discount on that book, and for every copy I ordered, I got another copy of the book for free. I did this, it happened, and I am talking about my actions as a retailer (litigious!). So the week that all of those discounted copies and free copies of Dark Tower that I ordered shipped to me, the book ALSO appeared on The New York Times Graphic Novel Bestseller list. Do you see the correlation there?

A lively comment section ensued, and Tommy Raiko chimed in with a kind of Occam’s Razor observation:
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ICv2’s monthly sales analysis for March went up yesterday, and it was something of a grim milestone:

For the first time since March of 2001, the month that ICv2 began tracking sales of periodical comics through Diamond Comic Book Distributors, no comic sold more than 100,000 copies in March of 2009. While sales of periodical comics were down 7% in dollars for the month, the decline in units sold was greater, considering the rise in cover prices of key titles versus their cost in March, 2008.

In assessing the dollars for the month, ICv2 spins down as “Not bad, considering.”

With the U.S. in the grips of the deepest economic downturn in 80 years, sales of periodical comics and graphic novels were down just 5% in the first quarter of 2009 versus Q1 of 2008. In a quarter that has been described as the “worst retail environment in memory,” as an era when “flat is the new up,” a five percent decline is a drop that most retail sectors in the American economy can only dream about. Sales of periodical comics were down 6% for the quarter, but graphic novel sales were up enough to trim the overall drop in comic and graphic novel sales to just 5%.

Considering that bookstore sales were down 10.8 percent in February, and the wholesale slaughter in magazine and newspaper revenues, comics’ drop does seem petite. But we’re far from out of the desert. Let’s just say that Obama and WATCHMEN were well timed.

More: Top 300 Comics Actual–March 2009
Top 300 Graphic Novels Actual–March 2009

by Marc-Oliver Frisch

[Please note that Marc-Oliver Frisch is offline for a few weeks, so he will not be able to answer any questions in the comments immediately.]

DC Comics’ average periodical sales in the direct market declined further in February 2009. They dropped to just above 23,000 units, yet another new low since Diamond Comic Distributors began releasing data on sales to retailers in March 2003.

The average periodical of the publisher’s mainstream DC Universe line sold an estimated 30,000 units, which is 4.9 percent down from January, and the lowest point for the line since January 2005.

DC’s Vertigo and WildStorm sublabels slightly recovered from their January slump. The average Vertigo title sold an estimated 11,353 units, up by 3.4 percent from January. The average WildStorm title sold 8,019 units, up 17.1 percent from January; however, it remains the second-lowest number in the imprint’s history by a wide margin.

The publisher’s only high-profile periodical release in February was Batman #686, the first half of a two-parter by Neil Gaiman and Andy Kubert. Although there were a number of new series launches from the DC Universe and Vertigo imprints, none of them managed to crack 25K.

See below for the analysis, and please consider the small print at the end of the column.

Thanks to Milton Griepp and ICv2.com for the permission to use their figures. An overview of ICv2.com’s estimates can be found here.

—–

2 - BATMAN
02/2004: Batman #624 --  84,081
02/2005: Batman #637 --  58,034 [60,246]
02/2006: Batman #650 --  66,447
02/2007: Batman #663 --  83,167
-------------------------------
02/2008: Batman #674 --  68,208 (- 1.5%)
03/2008: --
04/2008: Batman #675 --  71,138 (+ 4.3%)
05/2008: Batman #676 -- 105,039 (+47.9%) [122,877]
05/2008: Batman #677 --  96,116 (- 8.5%) [111,065]
06/2008: --
07/2008: Batman #678 -- 103,213 (+ 7.4%)
08/2008: Batman #679 -- 103,588 (+ 0.4%)
09/2008: --
10/2008: Batman #680 -- 103,941 (+ 0.3%)
11/2008: Batman #681 -- 103,151 (- 0.8%) [114,657]
12/2008: Batman #682 --  93,469 (- 9.4%)
12/2008: Batman #683 --  90,272 (- 3.4%) [ 91,885]
12/2008: Batman #684 --  79,953 (-11.4%) [ 82,903]
01/2009: Batman #685 --  72,654 (- 9.1%)
02/2009: Batman #686 -- 111,353 (+53.3%)
----------------
6 months: + 7.5%
1 year  : +63.3%
2 years : +33.9%
5 years : +32.4%

The first chapter of Neil Gaiman and Andy Kubert’s “Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?” was supported with a 50/50 variant-cover edition, but obviously it’s a big commercial success by any standard. In terms of first-month numbers, it outsells May’s Batman #676, for instance, which was the beginning of the much-promoted “Batman R.I.P.”

Detective Comics #853, the second part of the story, was originally scheduled for February as well, but the book is late and, as I’m writing this, is delayed until April 22.
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By Paul O’Brien

Lots going on this month. The Dark Reign books are mounting up, the War of Kings crossover has begun, and Obama is back. There are also a lot of new releases, with the first issues of SECRET WARRIORS, ASTONISHING TALES and AGENTS OF ATLAS, as well as the relaunched BLACK PANTHER.

As usual, Marvel had the largest share of the North American direct market by a comfortable margin, beating DC by 48% to 28% in unit share, and 45% to 27% in dollar terms.

Thanks as always to Milton Griepp and ICV2.com for permission to use these figures.

1,16,17,18. AMAZING SPIDER-MAN
02/04  Amazing Spider-Man #504 -  84,064
02/05  Amazing Spider-Man #517 -  78,584
02/06  Amazing Spider-Man #529 -  90,414
02/07  Amazing Spider-Man #538 - 142,956
=====
02/08  Amazing Spider-Man #549 - 101,112  ( +3.2%)
02/08  Amazing Spider-Man #550 -  90,874  (-10.1%)
02/08  Amazing Spider-Man #551 -  88,084  ( -3.1%)
03/08  Amazing Spider-Man #552 -  89,835  ( +2.0%)
03/08  Amazing Spider-Man #553 -  82,648  ( -8.0%)
03/08  Amazing Spider-Man #554 -  81,072  ( -1.9%)
04/08  Amazing Spider-Man #555 -  86,902  ( +7.2%)
04/08  Amazing Spider-Man #556 -  78,458  ( -9.7%)
04/08  Amazing Spider-Man #557 -  77,057  ( -1.8%)
05/08  Amazing Spider-Man #558 -  76,966  ( -0.1%)
05/08  Amazing Spider-Man #559 -  74,206  ( -3.6%)
05/08  Amazing Spider-Man #560 -  74,012  ( -0.3%)
06/08  Amazing Spider-Man #561 -  72,372  ( -2.2%)
06/08  Amazing Spider-Man #562 -  71,409  ( -1.3%)
06/08  Amazing Spider-Man #563 -  70,792  ( -0.9%)
07/08  Amazing Spider-Man #564 -  68,882  ( -2.7%)
07/08  Amazing Spider-Man #565 -  69,182  ( +0.4%)
07/08  Amazing Spider-Man #566 -  68,912  ( -0.4%)
08/08  Amazing Spider-Man #567 -  68,130  ( -1.1%)
08/08  Amazing Spider-Man #568 - 105,324  (+54.6%)
08/08  Amazing Spider-Man #569 -  86,432  (-17.9%)
09/08  Amazing Spider-Man #570 -  89,516  ( +3.6%)
09/08  Amazing Spider-Man #571 -  80,178  (-10.4%)
09/08  Amazing Spider-Man #572 -  80,220  ( +0.1%)
10/08  Amazing Spider-Man #573 -  82,550  ( +2.9%)
10/08  Amazing Spider-Man #574 -  69,069  (-16.3%)
10/08  Amazing Spider-Man #575 -  68,913  ( -0.2%)
11/08  Amazing Spider-Man #576 -  68,956  ( +0.1%)
11/08  Amazing Spider-Man #577 -  76,625  (+11.1%)
11/08  Amazing Spider-Man #578 -  66,564  (-13.1%)
12/08  Amazing Spider-Man #579 -  69,784  ( +4.8%)
12/08  Amazing Spider-Man #580 -  62,979  ( -9.8%)
12/08  Amazing Spider-Man #581 -  68,905  ( +9.4%)
01/09  Amazing Spider-Man #582 -  59,932  (-13.0%)
01/09  Amazing Spider-Man #583 - 501,758 (+737.2%)
01/09  Amazing Spider-Man #584 -  63,754  (-87.3%)
02/09  Amazing Spider-Man #585 -  60,286  ( -5.4%)
02/09  Amazing Spider-Man #586 -  59,521  ( -1.3%)
02/09  Amazing Spider-Man #587 -  60,118  ( +1.0%)
                                  6 mnth  (-30.4%)
                                  1 year  (-40.5%)
                                  2 year  (-57.9%)
                                  3 year  (-33.5%)
                                  4 year  (-23.5%)
                                  5 year  (-28.5%)

The Obama phenomenon continues. Issue #583 was the top-selling book for the second month running, with the fourth and fifth printings shifting 148,805 copies. That takes the total estimated sales to over half a million.

None of this has any discernible effect on the book’s regular sales. Variant covers never do, of course, but then this isn’t a typical variant cover. A case can be made that when you’re bringing in 450,000 extra readers, you’d hope for some of them to come back. As it is, the “Character Assassination” storyline continues to hover around the 60K mark.

Incidentally, I had the sales for issues #582 and #584 reversed last month – so there was actually an uptick for the first issue of the storyline, albeit not much of one.

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by Steve Horton

[Ed's note: We're running this column as something of an experiment. Let us know what you think, publicly...or privately.]

Welcome to a monthly column on indie comics sales, a companion to the long-running Marvel and DC columns by Paul O’Brien and Marc-Oliver Frisch, respectively.

What are indie comics? I define them strictly as comics not from Marvel or DC. I’m including both creator-owned and licensed books. That means any Icon, Vertigo or Wildstorm books will still be discussed in the Marvel & DC columns.

What is creator-owned and what is licensed? I define creator-owned as a title whose original creator is still in control of the property and owns or co-owns the copyright, even though said creator may not be working on the title at the moment. Licensed titles are usually television and movie tie-ins.

You’ll notice that I don’t cover the entire top 300. I’m discussing books which have consistent top 300 data from month to month. Titles that debut in the top 300 and quickly fall off simply don’t have enough data points. Likewise titles that appear toward the bottom in slow months only to get knocked off when the latest Marvel & DC summer event kicks off won’t appear here. Therefore, we’ve cut things off this month at #273, Shrapnel, with sales of 3,653. That ranking and sales cutoff will change from month to month. Unfortunately, that excludes many fine creator-owned books, including personal favorites of mine such as Proof. Nothing much I can do about that.

The biggest news in February’s chart is that sales dropped almost across the board. Three reasons for that: the economy continues to tank, several comic shops closed in the new year, and Diamond moved warehouses, goofing up the supply chain. You’ll see a lot of weird sales aberrations as a result; these figures may or may not correct themselves by March, depending on how the U.S. and Diamond recovery goes.

Thanks to Milton Griepp and ICv2.com for the permission to use their figures.

12 - BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER (Dark Horse)
Licensed
-
02/2008: Season Eight #11 88070
03/2008: Season Eight #12 88930  +0.98%
04/2008: Season Eight #13 83580  -6.02%
05/2008: Season Eight #14 82069  -1.81%
06/2008: Season Eight #15 80464  -1.96%
07/2008: Season Eight #16 82031  +1.95%
08/2008: Season Eight #17 79307  -3.32%
09/2008: Season Eight #18 77589  -2.17%
10/2008: -
11/2008: Season Eight #19 74202  -4.37%
12/2008: Season Eight #20 71896  -3.11%
01/2009: Season Eight #21 69980  -2.66%
02/2009: Season Eight #22 67575  -3.44%
-
6 months:    -14.79%
1 year:      -23.27%

The #1 licensed title in comics since Joss Whedon took a personal hand, Buffy’s sales have plummeted from the six figures early in its run to just over 67K. The drop doesn’t seem to be slowing any just yet, either. However, the trades are monsters. The third volume of Buffy took #9 on the 03/04 New York Times Graphic Books bestseller list. Whether in comic or book form, fans can’t get enough of the continuing adventures of the vampire slayer.
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Graphic Books Best Seller Lists: March 14 is up for the week, and HUMBUG, JESSE MARSH, and WORMWOOD: GENTLEMAN CORPSE can now all add “NY Times bestseller” to their marketing campaigns. WATCHMEN and NARUTO claim their usual spots at the top, however.