Comic Books, R.I.P.? - rec.arts.comics.misc

Message from discussion Comic Books, R.I.P.?

Carl Henderson

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More options May 4 2001, 12:44 am

Newsgroups: rec.arts.comics.misc

From: carl.hender...@airmail.net (Carl Henderson)

Date: Fri, 04 May 2001 04:40:39 GMT

Local: Fri, May 4 2001 12:40 am

Subject: Re: Comic Books, R.I.P.?

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In article <i2o2ft8vsau0ubpm6jtrdoi973j17l5...@4ax.com>, Vince <vi...@comicinvestor.com-nospam> wrote:

In article <i2o2ft8vsau0ubpm6jtrdoi973j17l5...@4ax.com>, Vince

<vi...@comicinvestor.com-nospam> wrote:
>On 03 May 2001 04:02:24 GMT, dto...@aol.comics (Doug Tonks) wrote:
>>Well, now that you point out how obvious it is, I don't need hard numbers,
>>either. I apologize for ever doubting you.

>Now don't go getting all snarky on me. I'm just stating that there are
>probably more copies of Archie & Jughead's latest monthly digest in a
>large city alone than total North American sales of the latest X-Men
>issue. I just don't see much use in proving something (assuming the
>industry data is correct on Archie's high sell-through) when the
>correlating evidence is right in front of me.

Some hard numbers on Archie digest circulation were posted to RAC.misc in
early 1997 (presumably from the 1996 Statements of Ownership Management and
Circulation) by Matt High and Nat Gertler. Note that these numbers combine
newsstand, subscription, and direct market circulation.

JUGHEAD DOUBLE DIGEST
Total Paid Circulation (average past 12 months): 106,257
Total Paid Circulation (most recent issue): 114,769

BETTY & VERONICA DOUBLE DIGEST
Total Paid Circulation (average past 12 months): 140,086
Total Paid Circulation (most recent issue): 144,000

Steve Rowe posted a more recent sales figure to Comicon.com in April
(presumably for 2000)

ARCHIE DOUBLE DIGEST
Total Paid Circulation (average past 12 months): 143,250
Total Paid Circulation (most recent issue): 155,437

According to the Archie website (www.archiecomics.com), Archie publishes nine
different digests/double digests for a total of 67 digests published a year:

ARCHIE DIGEST (9/yr)
ARCHIE DOUBLE DIGEST (8/yr)
BETTY & VERONICA DIGEST (8/yr)
BETTY & VERONICA DOUBLE DIGEST (8/yr)
HOLIDAY FUN DIGEST (1/yr)
JUGHEAD WITH ARCHIE DIGEST (8/yr)
JUGHEADS DOUBLE DIGEST (8/yr)
LAUGH DIGEST (9/yr)
PALS N GALS DOUBLE DIGEST (8/yr)

Based on the sales sample above, and assuming an average circulation of about
of around 130,000 each, that's a total of ~8,710,000 Archie digests published
a year, or 758,000 a month. Compare that to about sales of the core x-books
(X-MEN and UNCANNY X-MEN) of about 220,000 a month (if you add in ULTIMATE
X-MEN, that's about 330,000 comics a month). In other words, the Archie
digest line outsells the core x-books by factor of about 3 or 4 to one.

Those are pretty good sales. If they were direct market sales, the various
Archie digests would dominate theTop 10. However, such sales levels are an
order of magnitude away from being high enough to put "more copies of Archie &
Jughead's latest monthly digest in a large city alone than total North
American sales of the latest X-Men issue." (Unless you assume that there are
only three or four "large" cities in North America.)

--
Carl Henderson rec.arts.comics/rec.arts.comics.misc FAQ
carl.hender...@airmail.net http://www.enteract.com/~katew/faqs/miscfaq.htm

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