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I had a friend who was a manager at Hastings for a bout a year that got let go over a year ago. Even then, the environment for employees was not good and they really didn’t have a good feel for the comics market. Not surprising that they owe Funko more than Diamond. There seems to be a big excess of Funko Pops at all the local comic shops as well as Hot Topics.

The company went private in 2014.
Most stores are located in small cities (one is in Fremont, NE).
Unless Wal-Mart fills that void, some readers will have to either drive to a metropolitan area (not uncommon in the midwest, where day trips are popular), or make better use of the local library and interlibrary loan. Or go online.
But casual discovery? Browsing… that’s unlikely.

“A good time to stock up on bargains” at the expense of the artists and publishers who will never get paid.

““A good time to stock up on bargains” at the expense of the artists and publishers who will never get paid.”

It’ll help more than inventory sitting on the shelf unsold would.

i wonder if Diamond is able to absorb this kind of large financial hit? What will the domino effect be on the DM?

If they get pennies on the dollar, it won’t be for a very very long time.

>“A good time to stock up on bargains” at the expense of the artists and publishers who will never get paid.<

I suspect that the graphic novels were sourced via Diamond BOOK Distributors and various book store distributors. Those are returnable, although there are limits. Yup, the publisher/distributor takes a beating on returns… HarperCollins sunk Eclipse that way with The Hobbit.

Anything purchased via Diamond COMICS would be like a comics shop… it's one-way.
Diamond bought the stock from the companies, and re-sold it to Hastings, on credit. (They do this for many stores… I think it's a retail standard…. retail accounts get 60 or 90 days to pay each bill.)

So, Diamond is stuck, unless they signed some sort of distribution agreement with a publisher or company that says different.

Also, it should be noted:
When a book goes on sale in a bookstore, it does not affect a creator's royalties.
That is determined for every book sold, not on the sales price.
A publisher will sell a book for about 50% of the cover price to a store. The store can then discount the book if they feel they'll make more money doing so.
It doesn't matter if it's paid for full price at a comic con, or bought at 50% off on Amazon. The royalty paid to the creator is the same.

To the best of my knowledge, Diamond doesn’t offer more than 30 days to anyone.

This debt appears to be Diamond BOOK distributors which is a different company than the COMICS portion, but one which is probably in generally poor shape right now mostly because they’ve lost most of their client publishers — despite the lock on COMICS for the “Big Five”, Diamond BOOKS only appears to distribute IDW and Image — no Marvel, DC, or Dark Horse.

http://www.diamondbookdistributors.com/default.asp?t=1&m=1&c=53&s=660&ai=70695&ssd= looks like a list of impacted pubs. I could be entirely wrong, but I think that everyone there other than IDW and Image DBD is “buy/sell”, where *DBD* will be the party out on the sale…. but what is Hastings going to have in stock? Probably a lot of Image and IDW (licensed) books. Those pubs may potentially be on the hook for at least some of the loss if the terms are similar to the “brokerage” deal that they have with DCD.

But that’s without actually having real knowledge of facts, and could be entirely wrong!!

-B

The bankruptcy court will decide which debts they have to pay and how much.

How much leverage the publisher has to get themselves paid probably depends on their size. Small publishers often walk away with nothing when a chain or distributor goes bankrupt. In cases like that, the creator will not get paid either. It’s happened to me multiple times.

I eagerly await Xavier’s analysis here later in the month to explain how that issue of Spider-Man was– yet again– a complete and utter failure. :)

“Perhaps tellingly, while a lot of comparisons to previous periods are in the black, and overall comics sales are up 1.32% for the year in DOLLARS, in UNITS they are down -7.53%, indicating that high cover prices and not more comics solds are keeping things level.”

The “year to date” comparison stats are going to be a little flakey for a while b/c of the insane Star Wars numbers that were in the charts for the beginning of 2015.

As an additional complication, March ’16 is also the month with a bunch of DC Comics priced higher than normal (those #50 issues).

Not that I’m arguing against your conclusion, just pointing out that there are a lot of unusual factors in play with the “year to date” comparisons right now.

BOOM! Studios beat Dark Horse for the month, in addition to having the #2 spot.

“I eagerly await Xavier’s analysis here later in the month to explain how that issue of Spider-Man was– yet again– a complete and utter failure.”

Even though nobody has made that claim, it’s not surprising you’re hopelessly dependent on other people’s opinions of your inability to increase sales anymore.

The “inability to increase sales anymore” dig hurt, Skottie. Fortunately the 16K+ sales bump in March eased the pain. ;-)
(But I’m sure Xavier will be able to explain that away too.) :-P

Nice!

Brilliant, love this bundling. Now, how about making this bundle all available online, iin addition to print.

The Marvel insert is a pain in the ass. It always falls out. Its only good for people who only buy Marvel. I don’t know of anyone who only buys Image.

Why couldn’t they just put info on their website and leave Previews as is? Why do they need a dead tree version of what I get from here and other news sites?

As someone who grew up on Warren magazines and Marvel’s black-and-white mags (like Bizarre Adventures), I’d love to see the return of b&w anthology comics magazines. Alas, looks like this will be mostly company hype. Isn’t that what the Internet is for?

[…] Movie Ever Martin Freeman’s Character in Captain America: Civil War Has Been Confirmed Image Comics Partners with PREVIEWS to Announce IMAGE+ Magazine The Spider-Man/Machinery Sequence Sana Takeda on the Beauty and Darkness of Monstress   […]

My guess is that DK III’s reign at the top will be short-lived, probably not as quickly as Before Watchmen started to disappear, but by about Issue 3 or 4 it’ll end up towards the back-half of the Top 10.

Interesting that the TOP 10 GRAPHIC NOVELS & TRADE PAPERBACKS had 4 titles with female lead characters-Princess Leia, Ms Marvel, Spider-Gwen, and Vampirella, and arguably a fifth if you include, and a strong argument exists for it, Saga.

That seems to be an unusual line-up and hopefully points to a changing, more inclusive marketplace for mainstream American comics.

So much derision, yet DK is number one? Anyone have an analysis?

“So much derision, yet DK is number one?”

Yes: people didn’t know what it was like before they bought it. It usually goes in that order.

[…] Apocalypse Wars Curtain Vox best of 2015 Warren Publishing Archive Classic Cover Recreations Dark Knight and Sandman lead November sales, but Marvel still #1 Salon Best of 2015 RAFAEL GRAMPÀ On Doing Comic Books & Movies On His Own Terms Witness the […]

I really hope DC can connect more with their offering this year. Marvel’s Secret Wars offering – while one of our slower movers, ended up brining in a LOT of repeat traffic to my shop this past year, and built up one of our best selling titles – which tricked through their line. DC’s went faster, but for whatever reason, didn’t bring people back. Possibly? The lack of a #1 for folks to come back to.

Bongo has been putting out FCBD offerings for years, which can be verified by just peeking in my son’s room…

Except for 2011, Bongo has been a gold sponsor, since 2005.

Compared to last year:
Returning: Dynamite, Bongo, Boom, Archie (* Dark Circle last year), Dark Horse, DC, Titan, Viz, Image, Marvel, IDW,

Valiant is new to Gold, being a Silver Sponsor last year.Last year, SpongeBob (United Plankton Pictures, via Bongo) was a Gold Sponsor.

Dan, I don’t think Xavier is calling the new ASM a failure. He calls the title itself “successful.” I think he’s speaking to the diminishing returns of the constant relaunches the industry seems to be experiencing. Now that’s not a new argument, but it is an argument that the industry seems to be ignoring right now.

An Amazing Spider-Man #1 that sells fewer copies to stores than a Spider-Gwen #1 from just a few months earlier is a disappointment. Trying to pretend otherwise is kind of silly.

Mike

“the ASM #1 from last year (which was the first “ASM #1 in 25 years”

Dan Slott needs to check his dates, or his math. The Howard Mackie/John Byrne relaunch was in late 1998. But then, it is hard to keep track with all of Marvel’s renumbering…

Sorry, Carl. You’re right. Was typing too fast. I used “25 years” in an earlier post elsewhere and that was still on my mind.

*17 years.*

Still a good stretch of time though.

MBunge, I am nothing but impressed with Jason & Robbie’s success on Spider-Gwen, whether it’s their success out of the gate with Edge of Spider-Verse #2, the launch of Spider-Gwen #1 earlier in the year, or the relaunch of Spider-Gwen here. It’s a phenomenal team with a phenomenal take on the character. They deserve all the kudos and high sales they’re getting.

People can come up with whatever metrics they want to try to slam the current ASM book. Doesn’t faze me. We started out roughly in the low 50K zone. Over the course of 6 years we bucked industry trends and got our sales to go up. By the start of 2013 we regularly had both issues in the Top 10. And we’ve pretty much stayed there to this day. What’s silly is to try to paint that as a disappointment in any way.

There’s a good chunk of carry-over data missing (For example: ASM should have RYV and the previous series attached to the data), as well as several of the percentage calculations.

But I think the better comparison vis a vis ASM might be #2 — in May ’14 ASM #2 sold ~124k, compared to ~111k here, or about 10% down. That, I think, clearly shows the diminishing return of the constant industry-wide relaunches.

-B

Yes, I’ll put back those Spider-man numbers back. with all those relaunches and SW mini interruptions, the back numbers can look a little messy. i’ll try to clean that up a little.
Opps, catch a mistake: that’s Mark badger in the Dr strange collection comment, not Mike, sorry about that..

And Dan, I don’t remember ever saying that ASM was in disarray or that I slammed the book. As Alex pointed out, I even said several times that the normal sales on ASM is quite high and very good and that the Spider-Man franchise is at higher level in years. But calling the #1 relaunch an amazing success, I’ll not say that. It can’t be all praise.
And who cares about the TOP 10 positions? Sales numbers are what’s important. A title with less tahn 100K can be number #1 on month and would have been # 12 once month before. that’s not important.

And big thanks to Alex for his editing and the rapidity whith which he did it!

I’d say the same carryover data also for Iron Man, and probably Inhumans. You’re missing % changes on Spidey ’99 #2, 1602 Angela #4, and Figment #2. Since that is Figment *2*, ‘d also probably add historical carryover from series 1, were it me.

But that’s nit-picking )

-B

Dan Slott thinks the last ASM #1 was boosted by the movie ASM2? If you want to talk about poor sales, that thing bombed domestically and led to the entire film series to be rebooted again. Not sure he really wants to associate that thing with his book.

Not sure why he doesn’t want to be satisfied with the fact he produces a generally good and high-selling monthly title. Whining over diminishing returns is quite petty.

Skottie, I’m not saying ASM2 boosted sales. We came out right before anyone had seen it. I’m saying that the millions and millions of advertising dollars that plastered Spider-Man’s face around the world– JUST when we releasing a new AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #1 played an ENORMOUS amount into the sales of that first issue. That climate got my dumb face on TV for interviews– and on Page 3 of the Daily News. It got the “triumphant return of Peter Parker” in the comics ONTO the news, in magazines, and all over. And a LOT of that was due to the HYPE of a big screen movie that was coming out. That’s not rocket science. :)

It’s a shame… I’ve always enjoyed the 2000AD sampler!

Meanwhile, Diamond seems to be phasing out the Halloween mini-comics in favor of FCBD-style comics handed out in stores. The eight titles this year were abysmal, and Diamond still hasn’t figured out a way for stores to sell these mini-bundles to shoppers when they have to be pre-ordered in July.

@Torsten – what I’ve done is give out kid friendly books like Ms Marvel or Gotham Academy to kids. They don’t really enjoy the freebie ones.

Let’s not forget last year in July there was a Loot Crate for Rocket Raccoon #1. No Loot Crate this year in July. That probably accounts for a part of the decline.

Gotta be a rough day at the DC offices looking at these numbers. I mean, the Archie comic was good. It was also something readers wanted. But still, gettin dogged by Archie….

“Interestingly, I think we see a bit of a slowdown in periodical sales showing up here.”

Probably helped by the crap DC are producing that seems entirely aimed at the internet trolls like this site

Typical Diamond discount for a publisher is 60%. Typical Loot Crate discount is 80%-85%.

A very interesting analysis, and a reminder that we really have to keep looking at the actual numbers underlying the dollar amounts to gauge the real health of the industry. Thanks!

They may not be affecting single issue print sales, but they might be affecting digital sales and possibly trade sales. It’s more likely if you were to google the comic title name specifically to purchase, you are more likely to end up with links to Amazon or Comixology than you are a local comic shop.

This article, and it seems only this one, only gets served in mobile format (consistently using multiple browsers). It’s quite painful to read on a big desktop screen. Might want to look into that.

You have brought up a really fantastic point, thank you for sharing your post.

Todd, once again you’re spot on with your investigative journalism.

It makes me wonder because comic retail stores order titles in a different time frame than book chain stores. In short… who is making the call on the press run for some of these so-called rare variant covers? I don’t think there would be a huge difference in the press run and publishers are known for printing a few extras for promotional comps, etc. However, the percentage of variants is rather small… thus, even printing a few hundred more might affect the value (for those who really care about this).

There are the two types of comic purchasers: those who purchase to read, and those who purchase NOT to read their comic; rather to collect or resell the book. I think that not reading the content is a disservice to the creators, but I get the economic strategy behind the ‘engineered rarity’ of variants.

If I am not mistaken, a separate vendor will come in and rip the covers off. She will then trash the rest and issue the store a credit. Sounds wasteful but it is true.

That could well be the case for the comics and magazines they get through the regular newsstand vendor (that’s the traditional way of handling returns), but the Diamond-sourced comics are purchased on a non-returnable basis. No credit to be issued for a non-sale on those.

$4.00 * .8 = $3.20 * .9 = $2.88 => 38%.

When I worked for SuperCrown, we discounted magazines and newspapers 10%.

Given Diamond Comics discount structure, the minimum seems to be 50%.

While DC is gradually losing share regardless, it’s all about Star Wars this month. The dust will settle and after these number ones are done, it’ll go back to previous levels. DC will have to have a success with Convergence though, to keep the hole they’re in from getting deeper. Looks like both the big two are going for a summer relaunch of their lines. May the strongest survive.

V. Wiley, have you looked at the sales numbers for the last few years?
Unit sales for Marvel:
2011: 40.93%
2012: 37.59%
2013: 36.97%
2014: 36.78%

Unit sales for DC:
2011: 36.77%
2012: 36.75%
2013: 33.35%
2014: 32.47%

DC isn’t digging themselves down anymore than Marvel. In fact, going back to 2002, Marvel has been under 40% unit market share 4 times, and of those, 3 were the last 3 years. On the contrary, DC:s share for 2014 was above average for the last 12 years. But Marvel being below 40% 3 years running? They should panic, that is an extreme historical low.

Wow… TOP 10 BOOKS
CAP = Capstone, a childrens book publisher. (See: Super Pets)
What’s amazing, is that comics shops are ordering these titles!
Those “origin” titles are 48 pages, $4.95, and aimed at the beginning reader. (Minimal text, spot illustrations on each page.)

So, Marvel and DC… why can’t you do this in comic book form?

Hey… when they show a pie chart based on percentages, how big is the pie?
What’s the total dollar amount by month?
(If that doesn’t exist, can someone run numbers based on the Top 300?)

Kim – they are making more and more money, and this list doesn’t factor in digital or worldwide sales. Marvel is fine.

Wonder how that whole ‘million copies sold’ thing is going on Star Wars #1. True? Not true?

Well, it’s a documented fact that they sold over a million to retailers. So true.

Chris, interesting that there WERE a million sold. Now, the tricky thing is, did a million copies get sold to end customers. I am just finding it hard to fathom the intense demand for this comic, and I’ve seen all the Star Wars movies many times. Okay, the early ones more often, ha ha.

@Kim–Yay for actual stats! I don’t think Marvel needs to panic just based on that stat. Their overall sales may be up even if their market share is down slightly.

@Torsten–When they make a pie chart based on percentages, the whole pie is 100%. Duh. ;-)

@Al–An anecdote related to your point: I have a friend who is not a regular comic reader who bought EVERY variant cover for Star Wars #1. So, there don’t have to be a million people who want the comic if they can sell 10+ copies to a single reader.

Good investigative reporting. I’m glad you followed this up.
Makes me wonder what a *full* roll out would look like….
and if it would go beyond the A-list titles?

Many years ago (early 2000s) I was told by a Diamond executive that Barnes & Noble did have a Diamond Comics account.
Working at the store level, I never saw anything to confirm that, as we got comics via newsstand distribution, and trades via book distributors (CDS, then Diamond Book).
Perhaps via Ink Newsstand? Charlesbank? Bookstop/Bookstar?

Three copies seems to be a general newsstand minimum. I suspect that BAM Central is watching the numbers and adjusting accordingly.

I had not thought of 2nd & Charles. That’s a good way to deal with unsold copies, especially if unsold stock is sent to a warehouse, then repackaged for sale online.

I *think* that’s probably why the Diamond-shipped comics are bagged and boarded, but I’m not sure how many issues of a title they’ll keep on the rack before doing something with them… like sending them to a 2nd & Charles.

Anybody else think Diamond’s monopoly has helped kill the industry?

“Sisters” is #1121. “Smile” and “Drama” do not chart. Nor does Roz Chast. (Did Diamond even distribute that title?)

Wow. HarperCollins is a “small press publisher”! As is Macmillan and Random House.

[Dunno if I should insert a facepalm meme, or Batman slapping Robin.]

I’d imagine that any comic book store that expects to sell more than a trivial number of copies of Telgemeier or Chast has an account with one of the major book market distributors, where they can expect to get copies quicker and with better terms than they would from Diamond.

I’m curious about sales numbers, but the relative rankings are a good start.

If the index values in these charts is the same as the Top 500 charts Diamond posted then I’d guess one index point is about 1133 (+/- a few %). I’m sure John Miller will have more precise numbers on comichron soon.

Just wondering, is there a reason Image isn’t represented here at all? Do they not count as indie?
Nice to see Rachel Rising show up a few times though. :)

Diamond defines “Indie publisher” as any publisher outside of their 5 “Premier publishers” that appear in the front of their catalog (or have a separate catalog): Image, IDW, Dark Horse, DC and Marvel. “Small publisher” is a publisher outside of their Top 10 publishers: the five Premier pubs, Boom, Dynamite, Random House, Avatar and Eaglemoss.

Ah that explains it, thanks Bob! Should’ve noticed no Dark Horse series were there either lol.

While we’re on the topic of comics in the 1980s, here is a forgotten factoid: Marvel and DC single issues were significantly cheaper than the vast majority of indie comics. So much so that it was accepted as fact that pricepoint was one of the key barriers to sales for independent publishers.

Now look at 2014: the cover prices for Marvel and DC are on a par with (or in some cases higher than) many independent publishers’ single issues.

Well, I take it back. At a glance I thought it was the Cap City chart — but looking now at the Feb. 1984 Internal Correspondence, it’s different in several regards — and does not yet have the Order Index Numbers listed. So this would be AH’s own research, which I seem to recall editor Dave Olbrich saying was generated from retailer reports. (But I could be remembering that wrong…)

But Capital City’s Top 300 does share many things in common, and has the aforementioned Marvel/DC split. The AH list contains things not on the Capital list, like RONIN — there was never a perfect matchup between the distributor charts and release date-based lists in those days. I scanned the Cap City chart here: https://twitter.com/comichron/status/539496344151674880

What’s most amusing about this chart is the reminder of how, before Miller and Moore made their contributions to DC’s canon, Marvel was just BUTCHERING their main competition, DC. Only one regular DC title in the Top 20, and Miller’s Ronin limited series.

Okay, I have located Dave’s note to me about them, from many years ago: “We had a group of retailers who would regularly send us information about their sales … back in the stone age when there was nearly no information at all.” I had forgotten about that — apologies.

It is then in the same ballpark, data-wise, with the Market Beat numbers we ran from our retail surveys for years in COMICS & GAMES RETAILER, starting in 1994. I spent umpteen hours on them and the results were pretty good in the years when the response was heavy — we had close to a hundred shops reporting at the peak. But since we weren’t getting the same shops every month and they weren’t reporting on every title, it wasn’t as reliable as it might have been. It’s one more resource which may or may not wind up on Comichron as I get time…

” … and while the 80s may not have had the artistic wonderland and individual expression we have today …”
I found this to be the most ridiculous claim I’ve read in a while. You look at the sheer diversity of books on that list and it’s clear how much of a wasteland today’s market is. .

On the diversity score, I would note that you’re looking at almost every comic book that came out in February 1984 on that list above. In terms of number of releases, that period — right when the other newsstand-focused publishers are dying and just before the black-and-white boom — saw incredibly light release slates from the major publishers. It’s easy for independent books to make the Top 100 when there’s only 130 or so comics coming out overall, and when almost all the main Marvel titles are accounted for by the time you hit 50th place.

By contrast, February 2014 — a light release month for these days — had 443 different new comics coming out, less than 35% of them from Marvel and DC. No, the Top 100 doesn’t look as diverse — Marvel and DC took 88 out of the Top 100 slots — but that’s because they’re publishing so much more. Combined, though, their market shares are much less than they were then, so it’s not just that offerings are spread across more publishers now: sales are, too.

Blake — You’re missing Titans and Vigilante. 3 out of 20 is better. A bit.

-B

As a fun data point, I have from Dave Sim that CEREBUS #59 (70th on the above list) had a total print run of 20,000 copies. And yet Cerebus is up there outselling SUPERMAN #396 on the Amazing Heroes list in a year when postal statements put Superman at around 110-115,000 copies a month, newsstand included.

The reason is that the Direct Market — or sample groups of it like the AH reporting stores — simply wasn’t yet reflective of the overall picture for the mainstream publishers and books that were still mainly newsstand plays. The earliest Superman issue for which I have Capital City’s internal data shows the distributor sold 4,600 copies of #407 — which was still only about 5% of the overall sales, including newsstand. At those levels, yeah, we can believe that Cerebus was competitive with Superman — just only in the comic shops, and only until the major publishers turned more of their attention toward the Direct Market.

Looking at that chart… Supergirl #20 outsold both Action Comics #556 AND Superman #396.

Whoa!

It was a Titans/JLA crossover, which I’m guessing gave it a boost on AH’s sales-by-retailers list.

(Not that Supergirl couldn’t have been more popular than those other books — but DC did cancel it three months later, even though a movie was due out that summer.)

“Average number of copies per store”.

Okay… it’s weighted a little, since these are stores which were able to report their order numbers, and thus a bit more organized than some. (In 1984, cash registers were high tech.)

I started collecting a few months after this list (Amazing Spider-Man #254).

Note that Ka-Zar, Moon Knight, and Micronauts were Direct Market-only titles.

Knowing the general number of stores now… how does the Top 300 compare, when averaged by store?

Well, you’d figure today a 100,000 copy seller would be doing between 35 and 40 copies per store. But it is greatly skewed because the median store is quite a bit different from the average store. I would think it would be even more the case in 1984. We know the number of copies a lot of these titles sold to the Direct Market, and these reported averages are so high that the only way they work is if there were a lot of stores ordering very small quantities. And that was probably the case: for every store on Amazing Heroes’ radar screen, there were several shops just dabbling or just getting started.

If that’s a “fairly dizzying array of genres” I’m a fairly bewildered pseudo-dragon with a +2 sword.

“You look at the sheer diversity of books on that list and it’s clear how much of a wasteland today’s market is.”

Huh? What do you consider “today’s market”? If you just look at comics shops, or the top-selling titles, you don’t see much but superheroes, but digital delivery adds a whole lotta diversity, and the web blows it away.