Comics By The Numbers – October 2005

ICV2 has released the sales estimates for October. You can read ICV2’s brief analysis of the numbers here.

Banking on Infinite Crisis

So the big news is INFINITE CRISIS #1 clearing the million-dollar mark for gross sales. Unit sales were just under 250K, placing it right in between the 261K posted by ALLSTAR BATMAN & ROBIN #1 in July and House of M #1 at 234K in June. Those are the only books so far in 2005 to crack the 200,000 mark in their first month – although COUNTDOWN TO INFINITE CRISIS came close with just under that number back in March. Since IC #1 carried a $3.99 price tag it was able to breach the million-dollar mark.

These numbers, and the success of the two big crossover events, lead me to three conclusions:

1) Variant covers increase sales. No one seems to like variants and yet they account for as much as 10% of the sales of the top books. Moan and groan all you want about crass commercialism, but if there wasn’t a demand the publishers wouldn’t do it. And since it’s not your money being spent on fourteen variations of HOUSE OF M #1, why worry?   

2) Want to increase comic book revenues? Raise prices. As ICV2 notes, IC #1 was the first million dollar book since JLA/AVENGERS #1, which retailed for a whopping $5.95 (but only sold about 190,000 units in its first month). If IC had retailed for a dollar more how much would it have hurt sales? Obviously this is a big event book and one imagines most monthlies would suffer (to some degree) under the weight of a heftier price tag, but it seems clear that the core group of comic buyers will not be scared away by higher prices. When you note that nearly 5,000 copies of the $75.00 WATCHMEN: ABSOLUTE EDITION were purchased through the direct market and nearly six thousand copies of the hardcover GREEN LANTERN REBIRTH were sold at $24.99 per, publishers would have to conclude that some dollars remain on the table.

In economic terms, you’d describe the demand for any high profile comic as fairly inelastic since changes in price don’t seem to have a great deal of effect on units sold. However, I suspect the price bump does impact the total comics bought in a given month – more to come on this theory at a later date. 

3) The current ceiling for the debut issue of a big event comic is 250K (+/-10,000). But we knew that. Three books hitting that range in 2005 is the best we’ve seen at the top end since…at least 2001 – that’s as far back as ICV2’s on-line numbers go. That’s a good sign. The next book to reach this strata? Most likely ALLSTAR SUPERMAN. But I think it will take the Stephan King DARK TOWER book to actually raise the bar.

The DC Dead Pool?

At Newsarama Dan DiDio discusses some of the planned DC cancellations/changes.

PLASTIC MAN’s gone – no surprise since it rarely cracks the 10,000 unit mark.

FLASH, WONDER WOMAN and JLA all come to a halt – at least under their current banners. WONDER WOMAN is understandable – even with a strong IC tie-in the numbers were hovering around 50K (and below 30K prior to that). Although it seems unlikely that DC will allow one of their “Big Three” to go title-less for long. FLASH has pretty consistently hovered around the 50K mark and JLA has been a top 15 book for the better part of 2005, so the odds are pretty good we’ll see these titles again in some form. All-in-all a very suspicious development for the leads of the two individual titles.

SUPERMAN, ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN and ACTION COMICS will be reduced from three books to two. It sounds like the ADVENTURES book is getting dropped and SUPERMAN renumbered to account for the entirely of its run, but DiDio is being a bit coy on the actual goings on. Over the last six issues SUPERMAN has averaged about 68,000 units sold while AOS and AC have pulled in 52K per. Can we now expect the two remaining titles to become perpetual top 20 books? I’m guessing yes.

GOTHAM KNIGHTS and GOTHAM CENTRAL have been jettisoned along with BATGIRL. This seems largely aimed at culling the Batman herd. It looks like DC will try to funnel this traffic back to LEGENDS OF THE DARK KNIGHT, which could use the help. Perhaps even more so than the Superman titles, the Bat books seem to be poaching off each other, so this move is needed - although you could question the choice of axed titles.  With all the various Batman minis running around, I certainly wonder about the relevancy of LEGENDS.

House of M/Pre-Infinite Crisis Minis Update

Last time around I promised to look at the final Pre-Crisis and HOM numbers but they're still straggling in so I’ll wait another month to close that out. So far no big surprises -- solid numbers all around -- I think it will be more interesting to look at how the crossovers affected some of the regular monthly titles.

Odd and Ends

I’m still stunned about the GL REBIRTH hardcover book selling an estimated 5,892 units. That’s about 5,792 more than I would have guessed. Early Christmas shopping?...I’m largely ignoring the whole Spider-man/Other business, but the debut issue checked in at a healthy #5 overall…THE SENTRY limited run dropped over 30% from issue one (77,894) to issue two (53,384). This has been a pretty lackluster book – I won’t be surprised to see issue three drop well below the 50K mark…October marked the third time this year that at least four of the top ten books were miniseries. Number of times that happened in 2004? Zero. 

Comments

[Aya Ayuvara]

Sad to see Batgirl go :( I didn't like her new costume, too much like fetishwear for me, but I like the character. She deserves her own book.

But on the other hand we have so many batman titles.. *sigh*... it always happens to "my" heroines. Be it DC or Marvel.

[Kurt]

And you know BATGIRL wasn't selling that bad - consistently around 27K, usually in the top 80. But it had lost some momentum from last year. Of course you could say the same thing about ROBIN and that title seems to have survived.

In terms of female characters, HAWKMAN getting flipped over to HAWKGIRL has promise. I just wish Chaykin wasn't writing it.

[rsteans]

I THOUGHT I read that a "Batwoman" title was in the works, though I have no idea where I heard that. So, I suspect Barbara Gordon is going to be wearing a cape and cowl again. Where that leaves Batgirl, I have no idea (Barbara's personal Robin?). Batgirl still hasn't made a major impact on the DCU after several years in existence, so I imagine DC has decided that her comic is expendable. (I mean, no offense, but Azrael was somebody's favorite character, too).

With the return of Green Arrow, Hal Jordan, Supergirl and others, I think they'll find a way to get Barbara mobile again.

But, I'm usually wrong.

[Kurt]

Haven't heard anything about a Batwoman title but there's sure tons of speculation about Barbara Gordon becoming Batgirl/Batwoman again. Personally, I think that would be a mistake.

[rsteans]

Bringing Batgirl back would certainly lessen the punch of "Killing Joke" and reinforce the idea that in the DCU, nothing is permanent. But I don't know if they should keep the current Batgirl around in her current incarnation either, not with mediocre numbers and a luke-warm fanbase.

I do like Oracle, so I'm not crazy about having Barbara back as Batgirl. But it seems at DC that the 70's are new again. I don't think it's a bad thing. I just think they're having to do some heavy lifting to get their tried and true toyetic characters back on the shelf and a lot of fans aren't going to like how they got there.

[Ichiban Comics]

Hey I like your economic analysis of comic book buying. I'm sure revs will shoot up if the books charge a higher price, but doing that pushes down the units sold figure--which might have a drastic effect on word-of-mouth promos, etc. So for the big guys, higher prices might be good, but for the indy's (and small ad budget-types), taking the model of "Fell" is a smart route!

[Kurt]

I’m glad you enjoyed it – more to come.

Obviously I was being a bit facetious about raising prices, but the truth is, at the very top end of the sales chart increased prices would likely have little effect on unit sales of those books. The impact of these higher prices is felt at the lower end of the chart as less popular books and new titles looking for an audience are left aside so buyers can stay within their budget.

I’m not sure what to make of FELL just yet, sales-wise. (The book is great.) The number haven’t been that great but it’s kind of a niche story. From a numbers standpoint, I’d love to see something similar done with a mainstream superhero title.

[Guy LeCharles Gonzalez]

Ellis made an interesting point about Fell in a recent Bad Signal, something to the effect of the first issue hitting the apparent ceiling for his creator-owned work despite the lower cover price and Image banner. You could spin that a couple of ways, I guess, but considering Beckett's inability to gain any traction in the marketplace at the same price point for a traditional 32-page comic book (though not with done-in-one stories), I don't think the price itself is a magic bullet. I'd be interested in seeing what kind of numbers Marvel's doing with their 7/11 targeted titles, which I believe are also $1.99.