Industry in trouble stats
Tom Galloway
Remember that discussion about whether the industry was in trouble?
The following post to rac.marvel.universe/xbooks certainly indicates
that it is. Commentary after the stats:
Thomas Boij <bo...@geocities.com> wrote:
>Once more I thought I'd compare the estimated sales for each Marvel
>series. This time, the figures are from May 1997 and 1998.
>I've used Matthew High's posts to rec.arts.comics.misc as source.
>
>Title May 97 May 98 change change in %
>
>Amazing Spidey 74 200 63 700 - 10 500 - 14 %
>Avengers 107 200 108 300 + 1 100 + 1 %
>Cable 84 100 57 000 - 27 100 - 32 %
>Captain America 107 400 88 600 - 18 800 - 18 %
>Daredevil 38 600 25 500 - 13 100 - 34 %
>Deadpool 62 600 40 300 - 22 300 - 36 %
>Excalibur 74 800 47 500 - 27 300 - 36 %
>Fantastic Four 141 900 98 600 - 43 300 - 31 %
>Generation X 103 800 65 500 - 38 300 - 37 %
>Heroes for Hire 50 400 30 500 - 19 900 - 39 %
>Incredible Hulk 72 300 64 000 - 8 300 - 11 %
>Iron Man 122 100 86 500 - 35 600 - 29 %
>Ka-Zar 41 500 27 000 - 14 500 - 35 %
>PP, Spider-Man 68 900 58 900 - 10 000 - 15 %
>Sens Spider-Man 63 500 54 600 - 8 900 - 14 %
>Silver Surfer 39 800 28 400 - 11 400 - 29 %
>Spec Spider-Man 64 700 56 500 - 8 200 - 13 %
>Star Trek Ultd 23 100 17 100 - 6 000 - 26 %
>Thunderbolts 46 300 48 500 + 2 200 + 5 %
>Uncanny X-Men 162 500 137 900 - 24 600 - 15 %
>What If...? 38 300 31 300 - 7 000 - 18 %
>Wolverine 127 100 103 800 - 23 300 - 18 %
>X-Factor 89 700 61 300 - 28 400 - 32 %
>X-Force 89 600 63 200 - 26 400 - 29 %
>X-Man 96 100 59 400 - 36 700 - 38 %
>X-Men 159 900 130 400 - 29 500 - 18 %
A whopping two books show any increase in sales (and if Marvel looks at
this, they're probably trying to figure out how to clone Kurt Busiek :-)).
*All* of the other regular books show at least a double digit percentage
drop in sales. 10 books were between 11 and 19% drop, 4 books between
25 and 30% drop, and 10 books with a 31 to 39% drop. Average percentage drop,
excluding Thunderbolts and Avengers was just over 25%. Looking at total
issue numbers, May 97 had 2,150,400 and May 98 had 1,654,300, with the
May 98 sales at 77% of the May 97 sales.
Of course, this doesn't include reorders or newsstand sales. Still, it's
pretty grim. Particularly since it's my impression at least that Marvel
books have been staying fairly steady in their relative positions on
Matt's charts, indicating that other publishers are seeing similar drops.
tyg t...@netcom.com
WindyTWise
>>X-Men 159 900 130 400 - 29 500 - 18 %
>
>A whopping two books show any increase in sales (and if Marvel looks at
>this, they're probably trying to figure out how to clone Kurt Busiek :-)).
>*All* of the other regular books show at least a double digit percentage
>drop in sales. 10 books were between 11 and 19% drop, 4 books between
>25 and 30% drop, and 10 books with a 31 to 39% drop. Average percentage drop,
>excluding Thunderbolts and Avengers was just over 25%.
Yeah. That's why I have been keeping the chart that I occasionally hype here.
The drop is consistant, and steady. The severity of it is averaged out over
time.
The drops from month to month have stabilized a bit, however.
Point here is, it still looks to me as if the drop from store to store is
smaller than that, but the stores themselves are closing, thus adding to the
lower total volumes of books ordered through Diamond.
There really is a practical limitation to the number of books any average
grossing store can carry, however. Especially with the non-returnable policy
that haunts most of the larger comic book publishers.
I liken this to the designated hitter rule. Something they put in and just
can't get rid of. (not a perfect match, but close)
It's going to be tough if this isn't the bottom.
But the numbers from the last four months haven't been on the same level of
decline.
Walt "cloning Kurt, just in case" Stone
**
"Ipsa scientia potestas est." - Roger Bacon (what he said)
"The scientific potato chips are here" (what he meant)
PatDOneill
>Of course, this doesn't include reorders or newsstand sales. Still, it's
>pretty grim. Particularly since it's my impression at least that Marvel
>books have been staying fairly steady in their relative positions on
>Matt's charts, indicating that other publishers are seeing similar drops.
>
>
It also is only the stats for ONE publisher, one that has had 18 months of
negative publicity, thanks to a fiscal raping by the previous controlling
shareholder.
Further, it doesn't indicate that 1) prices are higher in 1998 than in 1997, so
that revenues have not dropped as much as copy sales have; and 2) the number of
titles produced by ALL publishers has increased, so that we may merely be
looking at the same amount of dollars (or even a larger amount, come to think
of it) being spread among a larger number of titles.
IOW, the problem may not be that the market isn't big enough, it may be that
the industry is producing too much material for the market--a problem, that is,
of over-supply not under-demand.
Best, Pat
The words and opinions expressed are those of Patrick Daniel O'Neill and do not
represent the opinions or policies of WIZARD: THE GUIDE TO COMICS.
WindyTWise
>It also is only the stats for ONE publisher, one that has had 18 months of
>negative publicity, thanks to a fiscal raping by the previous controlling
>shareholder.
>
>Further, it doesn't indicate that 1) prices are higher in 1998 than in 1997,
>so
>that revenues have not dropped as much as copy sales have; and 2) the number
>of
>titles produced by ALL publishers has increased, so that we may merely be
>looking at the same amount of dollars (or even a larger amount, come to think
>of it) being spread among a larger number of titles.
True, Pat.
DC in the same time period (measuring only the May 1997 and May 1998) published
the same number of titles and lost an average of 8.8% for those 69 or so titles
it published (taken in bulk, not for each title)
Or, 2.069 million orders by Diamond for May '98(52.25K per title)
and 2.231 million for May '97 (56.95K per title)
Granted, it's a bit misleading, but I think less so than some of the others.
If there really is an over supply of titles, then DC isn't the cause.
It could be more that either the stores are carrying fewer titles or there is
still some shrinkage of actual stores that are doing the ordering.
Plus, we don't know if the newstand market has enlarged to take up any of the
slack.
If I had to guess as an outsider, I'd guess that Marvel will be infused with a
small amount of additional money, and the extra money will go to advertising
that will increase Marvel sales, floating more than a few other boats.
If this Marvel settlement restarts the Spiderman picture parade, then the
prepress should help somewhat.
Walt"Picture parade prepress, picture parade prepress, picture parade
peereepres... aw hell!" Stone
Tom Galloway
In article <199805141934...@ladder01.news.aol.com> patdo...@aol.com (PatDOneill) writes:
>tyg writes:
>>Of course, this doesn't include reorders or newsstand sales. Still, it's
>>pretty grim. Particularly since it's my impression at least that Marvel
>>books have been staying fairly steady in their relative positions on
>>Matt's charts, indicating that other publishers are seeing similar drops.
>negative publicity, thanks to a fiscal raping by the previous controlling
>shareholder.
Pat, what part of the above addressing that other publishers certainly
don't seem to be whipping past Marvel on the same sales charts did you
not understand? Admittedly, that's my impression, as stated, and if you
pulled out numbers showing it was happening I'd accept that my impression
was wrong (but I doubt those numbers are there, as I also don't recall a
single month in the last year when any of Matt's charts resulted in people
saying "Wow, Marvel's down but everything else is the same or higher").
>Further, it doesn't indicate that 1) prices are higher in 1998 than in 1997,
>so that revenues have not dropped as much as copy sales have;
So? This reminds me of the Night Court episode where the Brent Spiner led
hillbilly clan took over the candy stand in the lobby. They priced candy
bars at some outrageous amount, say $50,000 or so. When asked, they said
that they figured they only had to sell one candy bar at that price to stay
in business. If the industry's response to a 23% per annum drop in sales
is to raise prices, it's in a death spiral.
>2) the number of titles produced by ALL publishers has increased, so
>that we may merely be looking at the same amount of dollars (or even a
>larger amount, come to think of it) being spread among a larger number of
>titles.
Doubtful. Those extra titles sure don't seem to be making the top 200 or
so, so they're not taking any meaningful market share away from the biggies.
>IOW, the problem may not be that the market isn't big enough, it may be that
>the industry is producing too much material for the market--a problem, that
>is, of over-supply not under-demand.
It's possible there's an over-supply problem (which, at the current declines,
may start hitting the major companies as their overhead leads to the
cancellation of the below profit titles and more and more such titles drop
below the line o'death. However, saying that the market isn't big enough
is just wrong. The market has shrunk drastically as a percentage of the
population over the years, no doubt about it.
tyg t...@netcom.com
Tom Galloway
Did some math of my own, for overall placement stats and DC itself.
First off, overall placement stats:
circulation
place May 97 May 98 drop%
1 166.9 137.9 17%
10 103.8 96.3 7%
20 74.2 64.0 14%
30 60.0 56.5 6%
40 47.5 48.5 +2%
50 43.9 42.6 3%
75 35.8 32.0 11%
100 27.6 23.8 14%
125 22.4 19.0 15%
150 16.5 15.5 6%
175 12.8 11.2 13%
200 9.5 7.8 18%
Save for books in the 30-50 or so range, we're still talking pretty much
a low teens percentage drop across the board.
Now, let's take a look at how DC did for it's "same title sales" from
May 97 to May 98
Title M97 M98 Percentage of 97 sales in 98
Action Comics 69.8 51.3 73%
Adventures in DC Universe 26.9 14.9 55%
Adventures of Superman 69.6 51.0 73%
Aquaman 30.6 26.4 86%
Azrael 32.5 26.0 80%
Batman 58.3 48.4 83%
Batman Chronicles 36.2 28.9 80%
Batman Legends Dark Kn 43.9 35.3 80%
Batman Shadow of the Bat 42.8 38.0 89%
Books of Magic 26.1 22.8 87%
Catwoman 40.3 35.5 88%
Challengers of Unknown 13.5 8.2 61%
Detective Comics 52.6 46.8 89%
Dreaming 30.4 20.4 67%
Flash 39.9 38.9 97%
Green Arrow 18.8 30.7 163% [Note: crossover event in '98]
Green Lantern 47.0 79.5 169% [Note: #100 issue in '98]
Hellblazer 19.5 15.3 78%
Hitman 28.5 23.8 84%
House of Secrets 22.3 14.1 63%
Impulse 30.3 19.7 65%
JLA 103.2 96.3 93%
Legion of Superheroes 26.4 22.4 85%
Legionnaires 28.3 22.0 78%
Lobo 19.3 15.2 79%
Nightwing 43.1 43.7 101%
Power of Shazam 20.9 17.3 83%
Preacher 45.6 41.2 90%
Resurrection Man 22.4 17.0 76%
Robin 40.1 39.6 99%
Sandman Mystery Theare 18.4 14.0 76%
Sovereign Seven 17.5 12.2 70%
Starman 30.1 28.4 94%
Steel 16.2 12.8 79%
Superboy 29.3 24.3 83%
Supergirl 50.8 35.3 69%
Superman 73.5 52.6 72% [Note: #125 in '97]
Superman Man of Steel 69.3 50.9 73%
Teen Titans 30.3 26.4 87%
Wonder Woman 36.9 35.9 97%
Young Heroes in Love 19.1 10.7 56% [Note: #2 in '97]
On the whole, DC sales on continuing titles dropped 15% over the May-May
timeframe, as compared to Marvel's 23% drop. So DC's holding it's own
a bit better, but still nothing to cheer about in general.
Sorted by percentage drop order, worst to best:
55% Adventures in DC Universe 26.9 14.9
56% Young Heroes in Love 19.1 10.7 [Note: #2 in '97]
61% Challengers of Unknown 13.5 8.2
63% House of Secrets 22.3 14.1
65% Impulse 30.3 19.7
67% Dreaming 30.4 20.4
69% Supergirl 50.8 35.3
70% Sovereign Seven 17.5 12.2
72% Superman 73.5 52.6 [Note: #125 in '97]
73% Action Comics 69.8 51.3
73% Adventures of Superman 69.6 51.0
73% Superman Man of Steel 69.3 50.9
76% Resurrection Man 22.4 17.0
76% Sandman Mystery Theare 18.4 14.0
78% Hellblazer 19.5 15.3
78% Legionnaires 28.3 22.0
79% Lobo 19.3 15.2
79% Steel 16.2 12.8
80% Azrael 32.5 26.0
80% Batman Chronicles 36.2 28.9
80% Batman Legends Dark Kn 43.9 35.3
83% Batman 58.3 48.4
83% Power of Shazam 20.9 17.3
83% Superboy 29.3 24.3
84% Hitman 28.5 23.8
85% Legion of Superheroes 26.4 22.4
86% Aquaman 30.6 26.4
87% Books of Magic 26.1 22.8
87% Teen Titans 30.3 26.4
88% Catwoman 40.3 35.5
89% Batman Shadow of the Bat 42.8 38.0
89% Detective Comics 52.6 46.8
90% Preacher 45.6 41.2
93% JLA 103.2 96.3
94% Starman 30.1 28.4
97% Flash 39.9 38.9
97% Wonder Woman 36.9 35.9
99% Robin 40.1 39.6
101% Nightwing 43.1 43.7
163% Green Arrow 18.8 30.7 [Note: crossover event in '98]
169% Green Lantern 47.0 79.5 [Note: #100 issue in '98]
First off, toss out the Green titles. They're complete aberrations due to
special events in May '98. And do recall that reorders and newsstand sales
aren't included. But there are a few surprises; Chuck Dixon's young Batman
Family member books are doing the best for DC. John Byrne is holding his
audience on Wonder Woman. And the group that's doing the worst overall
based on this are the S-titles.
tyg t...@netcom.com
WindyTWise
>Save for books in the 30-50 or so range, we're still talking pretty much
>a low teens percentage drop across the board.
>
>Now, let's take a look at how DC did for it's "same title sales" from
>May 97 to May 98
[...]
excellent work.
PatDOneill
In article <199805142023...@ladder03.news.aol.com>,
windy...@aol.com (WindyTWise) writes:
>DC in the same time period (measuring only the May 1997 and May 1998)
>published
>the same number of titles and lost an average of 8.8% for those 69 or so
>titles
>it published (taken in bulk, not for each title)
>Or, 2.069 million orders by Diamond for May '98(52.25K per title)
>and 2.231 million for May '97 (56.95K per title)
>
>Granted, it's a bit misleading, but I think less so than some of the others.
>
>
>If there really is an over supply of titles, then DC isn't the cause.
Nope--DC isn't the cause. The oversupply is in the hundreds (literally--CBG
counted *500* publishers listed in Previews in 1997) of publishers each
producing between one and ten issues a year.
WindyTWise
>>If there really is an over supply of titles, then DC isn't the cause.
>
>Nope--DC isn't the cause. The oversupply is in the hundreds (literally--CBG
>counted *500* publishers listed in Previews in 1997) of publishers each
>producing between one and ten issues a year.
Wow. That IS a bunch. On a total increse basis, the numbers won't suggest it
- DC's decrease in one year (200K books) can't alone be attributed to be spread
amongst the great "unwashed"(those below the 300 mark in sales).
But I think I DO see where you are going with this.
With the massive selection available by Previews, the comics themselves have to
do a better job of selling themselves as being SPECIAL.
Like, to paraphrase the song,"500 comic books and nothing's to read," it's hard
for most of the comics to hold themselves to be MORE special than the next
comic.
Buyers, for the most part, have no idea how many copies per issue their
favorite comic sells. They suspect (that their comic is a popular one)if they
buy them regularly and their friends do, too.
That's why "Event" comics seem so important.
I'm sure the standard thinking could be something like,
"We KNOW that our sales are dropping, and we have to do something about it.
We've tried the collector's route (printing special issues just for the
collector), we've tried crossover events(with the other major publishers),
we've tried major events within our comic continuity (retconning, rebooting,
marriage(!!),death,), and all we have left is event movies."
So, the publishers look at Spawn, Tank Girl, and MIB, and try to figure out
what the movies have in common, and how each are different. They grab old
copies of Superman, and Batman.
They know that the toy tie-in is a wonderful thing, and then they all shake
they heads in disgust the way that Star Wars is going to punk every
merchandising plan in sight if any comic book movie is released within two
months of the release of that Titanic sized EVENT.
In other words, Dark Horse may get a slight benefit out of the movie, or even a
decent bump, but everyone knows it's the toy tie-ins that make up for the rest
of the losses.
Thing is, you can't have a bad movie. That is bad for all business.
So, whatever the talk in the big boardrooms is about keeping the comic book
industry alive (as far as how to change books) I personally feel that they will
concentrate on the home run with the tie-ins to movies and marketing, hoping
that the minor league players they are grooming (Kurt with AC, etc) will be
able to "grow" the market back to partial health again.
though I could be wrong
Walt"I so often am" Stone
**
sales chart. Diamond comics. multi-colored.
cheap way of getting you to eventually click to other site.
be there. aloha.
<URL:http://members.aol.com/windytwise/sales.htm>
M. High
In article <tygEsy...@netcom.com> Tom Galloway, t...@netcom.com writes:
>>Further, it doesn't indicate that 1) prices are higher in 1998 than in 1997,
>>so that revenues have not dropped as much as copy sales have;
>
>So? This reminds me of the Night Court episode where the Brent Spiner led
>hillbilly clan took over the candy stand in the lobby. They priced candy
>bars at some outrageous amount, say $50,000 or so. When asked, they said
>that they figured they only had to sell one candy bar at that price to stay
>in business. If the industry's response to a 23% per annum drop in sales
>is to raise prices, it's in a death spiral.
>
>>2) the number of titles produced by ALL publishers has increased, so
>>that we may merely be looking at the same amount of dollars (or even a
>>larger amount, come to think of it) being spread among a larger number of
>>titles.
>
>Doubtful. Those extra titles sure don't seem to be making the top 200 or
>so, so they're not taking any meaningful market share away from the biggies.
I missed the first part of this discussion, but I would like to say two
things:
1) Comic prices in 1998 (so far) are approximately the same as in 1997.
In fact, the average cover price of comic books (weighted by sales) has
remained remarkably steady at between $2.40-$2.60 for a few years now.
2) There are actually (slightly) fewer titles being published today that
a year ago, or a few years ago. The Diamond catalog is getting a little
bit thinner. Currently around 550 new comic books are being published
each month (down from a high of over 700 a month). Also, Diamond is
dramatically cutting back on the number of "offered agains" and relists
in their catalog.
Best,
- mlh
M. High
>
> circulation
>place May 97 May 98 drop%
> 1 166.9 137.9 17%
> 10 103.8 96.3 7%
> 20 74.2 64.0 14%
(rest snipped for brevity)
Tom, I might recommend that you actually do a multi-month running average
instead of just comparing one month to another - there can be some pretty
wild swings from one month to the next, and getting a running average
would moderate these spikes.
For example, I would compare Mar/Apr/May 1997 to Mar/Apr/May 1998.
Best,
- mlh
WindyTWise
>For example, I would compare Mar/Apr/May 1997 to Mar/Apr/May 1998
Yep. I've tried that. Well, something similar, because the Marvel numbers
aren't really included in the March 97 stats.
It still says there was a decent decline last year, with the low this last
January. So the two biggest drops month to month were in April to May last
year, and December to January this year.
Looking over the last five months, the market looks like it has stabilized;
losses in general titles are being replaced by newcomers. But the numbers
don't tell how many of those books are being bought solely for their covers
(variants) or special events (Issue numbering). I've tried to remove some of
that, but it's hard to think all that is out.
The best luck I have had with all of this is to remove all issues numbered less
than 3 (issue #'s 1,2&3) and do it that way. (That's why I talk about Darkness
#11 that way; that Darkness is essentially restarted with #11 where #11 = #1
for ordering purposes, #12 =#2, and so forth. So, if you remove the #11, 12,
13 from the mix, and then put back the #14 in the trend, and now this month's
#15, it actually seems to parallel one of a few comic book sales decline trends
I have noticed.
The trend lines for companies can be worked out this way.
I thought it was screwy when I first did it. I threw it away to start with.
But it's made the prediction of comic book purchases fairly reasonable.
I am going to pull out the Wizard/Toy Buyer Whatever mags from all the lists
next month, because they are propping up the rest of the chart a bit.
Walt Stone
Tom Spurgeon
In article <199805151123...@ladder01.news.aol.com>,
patdo...@aol.com (PatDOneill) wrote:
>If there really is an over supply of titles, then DC isn't the cause.
>
> Nope--DC isn't the cause. The oversupply is in the hundreds (literally--CBG
> counted *500* publishers listed in Previews in 1997) of publishers each
> producing between one and ten issues a year.
>
Hi, Pat:
I'm not looking to get into a tussle, but my newsserver isn't that great
and I'm interested in the subject matter. Can you or someone else in this
thread define what y'all mean by oversupply? Oversupply in terms of what
makes it into Previews? Oversupply in terms of comics produced?
In addition, what's the oversupply argument being made? That companies are
overproducing in order to pad their bottom line? That overproducing is
bad?
Thanks,
Tom Spurgeon/TCJ
Hernan Espinoza
They say idle hands are the comix playground...it's true!
Protect your children, it's too late for us!
Anyway, I was bored and I got to thinking about all these
numbers. I was kind of curious what the big picture was, but it
was hard to see in all that wonderful data that Matt High posts
from time to time. It occured to me that it would be easier to
see the big picture if I generated a sales index of some kind.
Originally, I intended to just add up the estimated sales
numbers for the Top 50 (regardless of company or title) comics from
Matthew High's lists for two years so I could see the effect
of seasonal changes.
Caveat #1: Marvel's numbers weren't available before April
1997 so I only have one year's worth which frankly isn't enough
to make solid conclusions(Oh well, beggars can't be choosers 8-) )
Then I realized that these numbers were completely worthless
(for my purposes) because total sales and relative positioning
on the list are too Event-dependent. My bogusometer was
red-lining, so I stopped, but here they are anyway:
Month Top 25 26-50
----- -------- --------
apr 3209.9 1866.4 <- DC v. Marvel
may 2545.8 1246.6
jun 2570.4 1267.5
jul 2589.9 1449.3
aug 2501.9 1546.6
sep 2455.8 1340.9
oct 2704.5 1215.1 <- Heroes Return
nov 2597.3 1307.7 <- Heroes #1's
dec 2864.6 1318.8 <- Darkness #11, Heroes #1's
jan 2310.4 1152.8
feb 2088.2 1153.4
mar 2141.9 1171.6
apr 2235.3 1257.5
I tried controlling for Events by considering only the Top
25 continuing titles with issue numbers >3 (and excluding Darkness
#11). Unfortunately, this method dumped several of Marvel's
continuing series for five months because of numbering gambits
(first the -1's, then the Heroes Return)...so, I put them back in:
Month Top25(>3) Top25(>3*)
----- -------- ----------
apr 2802.2 2802.2 <- DC v. Marvel
may 2527.6 2527.6
jun 2589.2 2589.2
jul 2595.5 2595.5
aug 2518.6 2518.6
sep 2423.7 2423.7
oct 2268.8 2618.5 <- Heroes Return
nov 2151.2 2439.3 <- Heroes #1's
dec 1954.3 2389.6 <- Darkness #11, Heroes #1's
jan 1995.6 2275.0
feb 1985.0 2082.1
mar 2080.2 2080.2
apr 2029.2 2029.2
Then I got bored.
Conclusions: Sales are going down, Events work, Hernan's a geek
-Hernan, going out for a beer now. Cya! 8-)
PS -The trends are easier to see in graphical form
WindyTWise
>PS -The trends are easier to see in graphical form
yes. they are.
Lyle Masaki
In article <tygEsy...@netcom.com>,
t...@netcom.com (Tom Galloway) wrote:
>
> Did some math of my own, for overall placement stats and DC itself.
>
> Legionnaires 28.3 22.0 78%
>
> special events in May '98.
I'd say /Legioniares/' data should be ignored, as well. Last year's numbers
looks rather high (L* nearly always sells less than LSH and typically holds
onto a few more readers in same month comparisons). I'm guessing you're
comparing this months sales to L* 50 or an issue that enjoyed a 'bump' in
sales from the Mordu storyline (which climaxed in L* 50).
Follow-ups to rec.arts.comics.dc.lsh
LLL!
Lyle
-----== Posted via Deja News, The Leader in Internet Discussion ==-----
http://www.dejanews.com/ Now offering spam-free web-based newsreading
PatDOneill
In article <tom-150598...@c41-rizzo.blarg.net>, t...@tcj.com (Tom
Spurgeon) writes:
>Hi, Pat:
>
>I'm not looking to get into a tussle, but my newsserver isn't that great
>and I'm interested in the subject matter. Can you or someone else in this
>thread define what y'all mean by oversupply? Oversupply in terms of what
>makes it into Previews? Oversupply in terms of comics produced?
>
>In addition, what's the oversupply argument being made? That companies are
>overproducing in order to pad their bottom line? That overproducing is
>bad?
>
>Thanks,
>
>Tom Spurgeon/TCJ
What I mean by oversupply is that, generally, more comics are being produced
than could EVER be handled profitably by the market. If you figure even a
minimum of 15,000 for an average break-even point in the industry, with
something like 500 titles being published a month, we're talking sales of 7.5
million copies a month (total) for all titles to reach break-even.
More over, that means that titles that COULD be profitable in a market with a
reasonable supply are struggling, because the proliferation of titles spreads
the audience around, with each title getting a smaller circulation.
As Walt Stone, it's analogous to the situation in TV right now--the audience
hasn't really significantly declined, it's just that the choices are so
enormous that it takes an "event" to create the kind of publicity that directs
everyone's attention to a single title. (In TV, the most recent example of this
is the Seinfeld finale--when was the last time a TV episode got close to 80
million viewers or more than half of the viewing audience? It was the Cheers
finale.)
The difference is that, in TV, demographics can take up the slack: Friends
doesn't have to have an audience of 35 million to be a "hit" anymore (that was
the rule of thumb 20 years ago); as long it attracts a majority of the demo
group it is aimed at--females 18-35 probably--advertisers will support it.
Nat Gertler
> What I mean by oversupply is that, generally, more comics are being produced
> than could EVER be handled profitably by the market. If you figure even a
> minimum of 15,000 for an average break-even point in the industry, with
> something like 500 titles being published a month, we're talking sales of 7.5
> million copies a month (total) for all titles to reach break-even.
And the number gets even worse if you figure a minimum of 15,000,000
copies for break even!
A large portion of the comics being produced are black-and-white books
with no page rates being paid. Breakeven on those are far far under the
15,000 mark.
M. High
In article <199805161454...@ladder03.news.aol.com> PatDOneill,
patdo...@aol.com writes:
>As Walt Stone, it's analogous to the situation in TV right now--the audience
>hasn't really significantly declined, it's just that the choices are so
>enormous that it takes an "event" to create the kind of publicity that directs
>everyone's attention to a single title. (In TV, the most recent example of this
>is the Seinfeld finale--when was the last time a TV episode got close to 80
>million viewers or more than half of the viewing audience? It was the Cheers
>finale.)
The Comics/Cable TV comparison is a pretty good one (albeit not perfect,
but what is?)
Not too long ago, you had a handful of television companies
(ABC,NBC,CBS,PBS, and local independents). Then, 10-20 years ago, cable
exploded and the number of channels doubled, then doubled, then doubled
again. Now, most people in the US can watch dozens of different channels.
Marvel, DC, and Image are analogous to the the major networks. For a
major network show to have a "success", they need millions of viewers
(just as the major comic companies need tens of thousands of readers).
For the smaller cable companies, such as A&E, Discovery, TNN, The History
Channel, etc - for them a "hit" is measured in hundreds of thousands of
viewers (or in some cases even tens of thousands of viewers) - just like
a smaller independent comic company has a lower break-even point.
Ten to twenty years ago, the major TV networks reigned supreme,
commanding the overwhelming majority of viewers. But as time has gone
by, the smaller cable companies have slowly pecked away at the networks'
dominance - just as the smaller comic companies have pecked away at
Marvel and DC.
While the overall market (for both comics and TV viewers) has not changed
drastically, there are far more choices now than there were before. The
result - everything is spread out thinner.
Best,
- mlh
PS The Seinfeld finale actually attracted fewer viewers than the MASH
and Cheers finales. It is believed that due to the fractionalization of
the television market because of cable, MASH's record will never be
broken.
WindyTWise
>While the overall market (for both comics and TV viewers) has not changed
>drastically, there are far more choices now than there were before. The
>result - everything is spread out thinner.
One more thought I had (probably stolen from somewhere) on the subject:
People do want and appreciate good story. They might go to a movie for the
effects, but part of their entertainment is the story.
(The Simpson's example of the comic book store owner is exaggerated, but not
too far from accurate.)
As Americans, we consume story, and I am quite the pompous ass in believing
that we Americans for all of our shallowness are pretty much sophisiticated(sp)
in our appreciation of story.
But the point is here that we consume so MANY stories. We eat them up and spit
them out.
Where the Greeks had many stories, the number of stories that the Greeks saw
and appreciated in a lifetime we go through in a week. The quality of story
has dropped, and we all look to see a new variation of story.
My point: Most comic books right now aim directly at children. Male children.
(insert age of assumed typical young male child who the top ten comics are
aimed at here). If you don't believe me, look at the advertisements in those
best selling comic books.
Yet where are these children when they want to pick up a fix of stories about
the X-Men, Spiderman, Batman, and Superman?
TV. They get stories for free, and they get them TOLD to them, and if they
ever missed a story, they can wait no longer than 1/3 of a year, and they'll
probably see a repeat of this syndicated show.
The thought isn't new, but I thought I'd remind everyone here that there is
more money in TV.
If one can truly write good stories, and can prove it, why not write stories
for TV and movies?
True, the TV animation is 90% adaptation of stories that have already appeared
in comic books. I am quite certain that there are those that could point out
the differences between the printed story and the TV version of many of those
shows.
The point is, there are dozens of books to chose from.
The best of the comic books have a TV counterpart.
Those not on TV have a movie deal in the works, or it's already been done
before, and now the CGI event-meisters are going to revamp it.
Why did Superman the movie get postponed?
Hulk get canned outright?
The rumor is: lack of a good script. (story)
In other words: The powers-that-be ARE trying to "event-tize" the comic books.
They ARE working on making the comic book heros "special." There IS a history
of good story behind many of those super-heros.
And TV is where that history is being shown to the masses.
yet... and yet... With the TV afternoon filled with reruns of not terrible
versions of Spiderman, Superman, Batman, literally SATURATING the target
audience with images of comic book heros, there is no great hue and cry to
actually go out and buy fresh stories of these heroes.
As the TV afternoon time for these cartoon heros goes up, the comic book sales
decline. If the TV advertising (er, animated shows) goes up, the actual sales
hasn't stablized. Superman comic book sales has gone down in the last year,
even with the advent of the brand new TV shows showing him to millions of kids.
And the sales of Superman haven't really been slowed down less than those
around it on the sales charts.
One would think that if the TV showing of the Superman image were having ANY
influence whatsoever, the sales of the Superman comic would at least buck the
sales trend decline with some measureable pace.
I can't find that difference. Superman declines (averaged out) are steady and
not all that different from that of the other titles that DC publishes.
I have no answers, easy or otherwise.
Walt "500 executives and nobody's home" Stone
Thomas Smith
First, as an ex-retailer I think it might be important to note that it is
Marvel that keeps this industry alive (although other publishers might
like to tell you otherwise.) When I was open my Marvel made up 33% of my
sales with DC at another 25% to 30% I assume this is fairly typical (and
possibly even lower than average.)
But if we assume that's typical how many stores can you think of that
could afford to lose a third of their comic income?
That's what alarms me about Marvel's sales drops. If Marvel continues to
drop at this rate there's no way it can continue publishing for more than
another two or three years. And when Marvel goes the industry (or at
least the direct market) is likely to go with it.
One good point is that thanks to Heroes Reborn Marvel's sales in 1997
might have been artificially inflated making the drop in sales not typical
of overall trends. On the other hand, that's only four books. Heroes
Reborn would not have affected the Spider-Man or X-books, for instance,
and yet they show equally large drops.
Second, I can't buy the oversupply argument. Yes, there are over 500
comics listed in Previews -- most of which aren't even ordered and thus
never have the chance to steal comic dollars from the big guys. And when
they are ordered (I carried quite a few) there really aren't that many
people who pass up the latest X-Men in favor of Hate or Strangers In
Paradise.
That's where the Cable/commercial TV analogy falls apart for me. TV
watching hasn't decreased, it's simply been spread around among different
stations. Comic readership, on the other hand, has decreased. Don't kid
yourself, most of those lost Marvel and DC comic readers aren't reading
other publishers now -- they're not reading anything at all.
Tom Smith
thcs...@freenet.columbus.oh.us
COMICKAZE
WAMbo wrote:
>
> M. High <mhigh@|SPAMBLOCK.antarctic-press.com> wrote:
> >1) Comic prices in 1998 (so far) are approximately the same as in 1997.
> >In fact, the average cover price of comic books (weighted by sales) has
> >remained remarkably steady at between $2.40-$2.60 for a few years now.
>
> And $2.95 for a b&w pamphlet is just a crime.
>
Get a clue would you? That statement is ridiculous. There is much
that justifies the price of books besides what they're made from.
posters, baseball cards and paintings are just a few "single page"
items that cost much more than $2.95 to own and yet many people still
find an intrinsic value that justifies the purchase.
--
Thanx,
Robert
COMICKAZE- SD's #1 source for Comics, Cards & Video -
in CA call(619)278-0371, all others(800)869-5275
Our Online Connection- http://www.comickaze.com
Comic Readers Forum- http://www.customforum.com/COMICKAZEonline
Comic Retailers Forum- http://www.customforum.com/retailforum/
Hernan Espinoza
windy...@aol.com (WindyTWise) writes:
>>PS -The trends are easier to see in graphical form
>yes. they are.
>**
>sales chart. Diamond comics. multi-colored.
>cheap way of getting you to eventually click to other site.
>be there. aloha.
Well, fuck. 8-)
-Hernan, fortunately I combatted boredom by playing
volleyball today. 8-)
PatDOneill
In article <6jlg3u$4...@bgtnsc02.worldnet.att.net>,
Crapped.I...@uncleSPAM.gov (WAMbo) writes:
>>Get a clue would you? That statement is ridiculous. There is much
>>that justifies the price of books besides what they're made from.
>
> Which also does much to explain why fewer people are buying them.
>Consumers don't want to hear all that hooey. Based on inflation factors,
>comics should not cost as much as the market has jacked them up to. One
>dollar is the highest most potential new readers would be willing to pay
>for a 32-page b&w comic, $1.50 for color. That comics cost much more than
>that indicates the market is led by people who don't care about its
>continued health and growth.
So, you're of the belief that the publishers should lose money on every copy
printed?
Bradly E. Peterson
Crapped.I...@uncleSPAM.gov (WAMbo) done said this here
deal:
>patdo...@aol.com (PatDOneill) wrote:
>>Crapped.I...@uncleSPAM.gov (WAMbo) writes:
>>>One
>>>dollar is the highest most potential new readers would be willing to pay
>>>for a 32-page b&w comic, $1.50 for color. That comics cost much more than
>>>that indicates the market is led by people who don't care about its
>>>continued health and growth.
>>
>>So, you're of the belief that the publishers should lose money on every copy
>>printed?
>
>point is for publishers to take it in the bottom line.
You mean up the ass? Most of the big publishers are used to
being the pitcher rather than the catcher, so you might have a
problem convincing 'em. heh...
>It's the only way the pamphlet format is going to work.
>Re-arrange the standard format to the Heavy Metal package
>and the losses might be initially less painful, but no way are
>the current prices acceptable for eight saddle-stitched sheets.
Dunno that it's the ONLY way, but a reformat of one kind or
another is clearly called for. Gotta change. If ya can't
change, ya can't grow. And if ya can't grow, ya die.
I say make more pages. yep. Want more, want more, want more.
dammit...
Bradly E. Peterson, Psychodrama Press
(Remove OMELETTEDUFROMAGE from address to reply)
<http://www.fastlane.net/homepages/drama>
"Patrick Daniel O'Neill is
Gareb Shamus's love monkey"
Kevin J. Maroney
Paul O'Brien
In article <6jl3uq$2...@login.freenet.columbus.oh.us>, Thomas Smith
<thcs...@freenet.columbus.oh.us> writes
>That's what alarms me about Marvel's sales drops. If Marvel continues to
>drop at this rate there's no way it can continue publishing for more than
>another two or three years. And when Marvel goes the industry (or at
>least the direct market) is likely to go with it.
It's got to bottom out before then. Surely.
Where are all these readers GOING? Even the comics industry can't
be driving out its audience in these sorts of numbers, can it? Are
people just cutting down on their purchases, or are they abandoning
comics entirely?
Paul O'Brien
pa...@esoterica.demon.co.uk, www.tardis.ed.ac.uk/~prob/
Life is unfair. Kill yourself or get over it.
Tom Spurgeon
Hi:
> What I mean by oversupply is that, generally, more comics are being produced
> than could EVER be handled profitably by the market. If you figure even a
> minimum of 15,000 for an average break-even point in the industry, with
> something like 500 titles being published a month, we're talking sales of 7.5
> million copies a month (total) for all titles to reach break-even.
The break-even on a black-and-white, creator-owned title is probably more
around 3000-4000. However, on a slight balance, I'd say that your 15,000
number is a little low -- but maybe not, depending on how contracts are
written these days.
> More over, that means that titles that COULD be profitable in a market with a
> reasonable supply are struggling, because the proliferation of titles spreads
> the audience around, with each title getting a smaller circulation.
Okay. I would disagree with what I _think_ you're inferring here, though,
Pat -- which seems to be a variation on Marvel's argument circa Spring
1995, that no one could find copies of the X-Men because of all those darn
"weird" comics.
I'd suggest that there are all sort of levels at which flooding the market
"hurts" certain aspects of comics. I think they all contribute to "catalog
stress," albeit to a different extent largely determined by where they are
in the catalog. I think that an oversupply of small press comics can --
and has in the past -- make it harder for certain small press comics to
engage their potential audience due to the compartmentalizing of certain
kinds of comics by people in comics.
I would have to stress, though, that a major company publishing more
comics -- maybe some at a loss -- than the market can bear would be the
most pernicious because of the status those comics have as sales-items.
These demand the attention of the retail community in ways that Black
Eye's comics, for example, don't.
> As Walt Stone, it's analogous to the situation in TV right now--the audience
> hasn't really significantly declined, it's just that the choices are so
> enormous that it takes an "event" to create the kind of publicity that directs
> everyone's attention to a single title. (In TV, the most recent example
of this
> is the Seinfeld finale--when was the last time a TV episode got close to 80
> million viewers or more than half of the viewing audience? It was the Cheers
> finale.)
>
> The difference is that, in TV, demographics can take up the slack: Friends
> doesn't have to have an audience of 35 million to be a "hit" anymore (that was
> the rule of thumb 20 years ago); as long it attracts a majority of the demo
> group it is aimed at--females 18-35 probably--advertisers will support it.
Well, those kind of demographics work only because the numbers are still
significant. The numbers in comics have been reduced, for a lot of titles,
to insignficance.
Cable TV may best describe the comic STRIPS, and its increasing
demographic whoring -- mostly because they have comparable,
even-playing-ground delivery systems. Comic BOOKS would probably be closer
to movies, in that the bottom-line economics and how that has an impact on
the ways things are distribute, means that the big guns deciding to
increase the number of summer blockbusters available to distributors has a
much larger impact than 10,000 guys making "indy-films" and editing them
in their garage.
By the way, does someone really have numbers indicating the overall
audience hasn't declined? I'm not a figure-cruncher, so it's entirely
possible I may have missed it.
I do agree wholeheartedly with your point later on that the price point is
somehow too high and could be switched back immediately if the publishers
would stop being so greedy. It's been my experience that, with very few
exceptions, most publishers now price work as low as they can and not take
a bath. That probably hasn't always been true of the big guns, I'll freely
admit. I would also say that looking at some of the moves the last five
years in comics focusing on price points is like telling a heroin addict
to "watch the salt."
Tom Spurgeon/TCJ
WindyTWise
>> The difference is that, in TV, demographics can take up the slack: Friends
>> doesn't have to have an audience of 35 million to be a "hit" anymore (that
>was
>> the rule of thumb 20 years ago); as long it attracts a majority of the demo
>> group it is aimed at--females 18-35 probably--advertisers will support it.
>
>Well, those kind of demographics work only because the numbers are still
>significant. The numbers in comics have been reduced, for a lot of titles,
>to insignficance.
>
>Cable TV may best describe the comic STRIPS, and its increasing
>demographic whoring -- mostly because they have comparable,
>even-playing-ground delivery systems. Comic BOOKS would probably be closer
>to movies, in that the bottom-line economics and how that has an impact on
>the ways things are distribute, means that the big guns deciding to
>increase the number of summer blockbusters available to distributors has a
>much larger impact than 10,000 guys making "indy-films" and editing them
>in their garage.
Ahh... very good point, Tom. I'd niggle at a couple of points, but the general
point you make is well taken. The reason that 10,000 indy films could be done
(not that 10,000 is a real number when dealing with films)is that it's possible
to turn out a indy film today when it wasn't quite as simple 20 years ago.
Whether that be an art film, docu-slacker film, or simply a Sat. matinee film
that stole most of it's ideas from a winning film from a couple of summers
before -- if you have the money, a film can be made.
But the film has to be seen and picked up by a distributor, or the film's
producers are just pissing in the wind.
In Houston, we have a furniture mogul, a success story of a sort
(hypester/huckster as well) that after running into and making friends with
Chuck Norris and to a lesser extent Joe Piscopo(sp), decided to make a
mid-budget Karate Kid movie knockoff. (Called Sidekicks). Point is, he made
the movie with his own money, but when the time came to actually distribute the
movie, nobody would pick it up. He about went broke over this. Eventually it
was picked up, distributed, shown in movie theatres, and of course is now at
the video dept. of your local store. So, the money was made and the furniture
guy is back doing what he should have been doing all along: staying far away
from the movie biz.
Thing is, he did hire some decent talent, and the movie is no worse than many
other B-minus movies, and he started out with no movie talent whatsoever. He
merely hired it.
When someone in a store picks up a Previews, looks to purchase some new title
he's not really seen before, he's simply flooded with stuff like this. So,
instead of four or five movie distributors, there are literally 3000+ buying
distributors out there, and since these aren't returnable, it's an obviously
higher risk.
Plus, it's a crap shoot.
So, acting conservatively, the store owners go with what they do know, rather
than taking the risk of having to sell the stuff to the customers one at a
time. I'm not telling you anything you don't already know.
The point is, increasing the actual foot traffic to the comic book store is
going to take more than "The Full Monty," or several other successful
independant comic books/upcoming talented folks.
The total number of books per store has been going down, and part of that has
to be a slacking off of pull lists as well as fewer actual customers/per
store/per market. I don't think there is too much argument there.
The problem seems to be closer to the reviews of the individual comics
themselves. Well, not the reviews, mind you. But the way in which some folks
review the comics - and that the comics are actually reviewed at all.
I mean, pick up any magazine that deals with comics, and chances are there will
be some hype, and some reviews (seemingly not hyped), and some plain
advertisements. Oh, the news is stuck in there too, about what creative person
is going where next, etc.
There are 500 titles coming out each month, and maybe what, five, ten reviews?
Perhaps there is a list of ten to twenty books to buy that one reviewer feels
is the best of the bunch?
Over 100 books a month come out that a considerable amount of people buy, and
the reviewer is only listing twenty books to seriously look at? What are the
rest, chopped liver?
Any reviewer is going to say that there are a large number of books that he/she
didn't/couldn't get to in any one month to read. Truly the number is daunting.
Hell, movie reviewers are getting overloaded, to be sure.
But if the movie reviewer doesn't see every movie, how could we possibly use
that reviewers judgement in judging movies?
The same goes for comic book reviews, don't you think?
Of course there is some sort of bias that comes into judging anything. But
unless I know that a reviewer has seen EVERY thing and only reccommends X
number of things for me to spend my money on, then I can't see how his/her
judgement can be relied upon month after month.
DC alone publishes more than five dozen books a month. Even judging from
within DC alone is pretty damn tough, don't you think?
And someone expects a dealer to judge? Nah, everyone knows that 85% or better
of most sales are reorders, and the only real variable is the new issues and
the hype that surrounds them. Thinking goes that once a book has a certain
following, that book's sales go up and down a limited amount unless there is an
event that happens within that book, and that event is publicized(sp).
Thus, the EVENT idea is considered to be a big thing.
Because reviewers aren't relied upon to be accurate.
Because comic book magazines aren't read so that the reviews can be used to
actually make judgements on what to buy. Perhaps for a few, but not for most
buyers.
Because with the sequential nature of many of the comic book titles, if you buy
it and read it, chances are you will contiue to buy it and read it. No need to
read the reviews in that case. And if you buy it and have bought it and decide
to cease buying it, there isn't too much that might entice you to pick it up
again that won't cheese off a whole bunch of buyers that like the way the book
is now.
So the publishers are stuck.
They seem (to me) to be stuck in a hard place, forced to make events so that
the store owners will buy a few extra copies and hope that additional traffic
to the store will get those copies bought.
Few magazines with incomplete reviews can do that.
I haven't read your Comic Journal, so I can't judge.
So, I could be completely wrong about my assessment - your mag could be the
exact thing that the industry needs. Most likely, it's more like Cerebus.
(That would be where everyone but Pat likes it, but it only sells enough to
keep the publishers in beer and peanuts).
My thoughts aren't about your mag, or Wizard, or CBG, or the online 'zines
either, even though I am slamming the way most reviews are selected for
publication.
It's about whether the reviews are doing any good, or are they merely put there
to let everyone know that the authors and other contributors know that some
select and need-to-be-promoted comic books are indeed better than the rest of
the quarter bin material one might find in the average comic book store.
What's to keep someone from scarfing up the issue from the quarter bins after a
year?
So, events are the thing. Whether that event is collector driven, movie tie-in
driven, TV show tie-in, what have you.
<insert italics here> Because the main pull to get a brand new customer to the
comic book store right now is nothing comic book related.
</italics>
Oh, yeah. A few other things before I go.
This newsgroup had a spirited conversation a short while ago on the evils of
Diamond owning a virtual lock on the comic book distribution industry, and how
terrible that currently is.
DC still has some option to actually purchase Diamond. While Diamond might be
held independant from DC as regards to the distribution of the competition, a
thought occured to me. It's really out there, but I've foisted some
controversial stuff out on this newsgroup before, so here's one more thing from
just another AOL idiot: Right now, the percentage of previously independant
gasoline stations actually owned by the oil companies is considerably higher
than it was in the 60s and 70s. The Mom and Pop stations are very few and far
between. The more competitive the market, the higher likelihood that Shell or
Exxon or Texaco has stepped in and decided to "remodel" the station. When the
new station is installed, there is not much more than a glorified booth with a
soft drink and beer case with an hourly employee there.
If some marketer with a slick suit comes into DC and suggests actually putting
up competing comic book stores in various larger "test" markets, folks had best
watch the hell out.
The Warner Bros. store in various malls right now have racks and racks of
clothes based on the TV Batman series... but not the comic books that the TV
show got a bunch of their stories from.
Yep, it could "grow the market"(God, I hate that term) but it wouldn't be
growing too many of the "Mom and Pop" comic book stores, now would it?
The merchandizing would pay for any loss of the comic books, which wouldn't be
sold at a discount, and they would (of course) be returnable. So, it's only a
matter of time before the larger markets have comic book stores that will
compete for business.
I suppose it depends on how it's done.
Sorry to be all over the map on this commentary.
I know I'm wrong in many of my thoughts...
Hopefully I am right on one or two.
Walt"mostly wrong, sometimes painfully right" Stone
>> The difference is that, in TV, demographics can take up the slack: Friends
>> doesn't have to have an audience of 35 million to be a "hit" anymore (that
>was
>> the rule of thumb 20 years ago); as long it attracts a majority of the demo
>> group it is aimed at--females 18-35 probably--advertisers will support it.
>
>Well, those kind of demographics work only because the numbers are still
>significant. The numbers in comics have been reduced, for a lot of titles,
>to insignficance.
>
>Cable TV may best describe the comic STRIPS, and its increasing
>demographic whoring -- mostly because they have comparable,
>even-playing-ground delivery systems. Comic BOOKS would probably be closer
>to movies, in that the bottom-line economics and how that has an impact on
>the ways things are distribute, means that the big guns deciding to
>increase the number of summer blockbusters available to distributors has a
>much larger impact than 10,000 guys making "indy-films" and editing them
>in their garage.
**
sales chart. Diamond comics. multi-colored.
cheap way of getting you to eventually click to other site.
be there. aloha.
M. High
In article <tom-180598...@c71-rizzo.blarg.net> Tom Spurgeon,
t...@tcj.com writes:
>The break-even on a black-and-white, creator-owned title is probably more
>around 3000-4000. However, on a slight balance, I'd say that your 15,000
>number is a little low -- but maybe not, depending on how contracts are
>written these days.
The mythical "break-even" point can vary greatly from company to company,
and even from book to book. At Antarctic Press, for some of our
higher-profile, full-color books with higher page rates the break-even
point is higher than for some of our black and white titles.
For larger companies with a great deal of overhead (like Marvel or DC),
they have to sell (I'm guessing) 20-30,000 to break even on a title. For
mid-sized companies like Dark Horse or Crusade, that number is probably
somewhat lower - like 8-10,000.
For smaller companies still, it is possible to make a profit on a book
that only sells between 1000-2000 copies. (Good example - Radio Comix
can make a profit on a book that sells 1600 copies - and that's
supporting two employees full-time). It costs roughly $900-$1000 to
print 3000 comic books, and the publisher usually gets $1.03 to $1.12
from the distributor for each comic book sold. Depending upon how much
the talent is paid (usually for smaller companies it's a percentage of
sales)...well, you do the math.
This is especially true for comics that have strong direct-to-customer
sales. While a publisher only gets a percentage of the cover price for
comics sold to retailers, he/she usually gets around cover price for each
comic book sold through mail order or at a convention. Revisionary Press
(the company that does porn star comics) is a perfect example of this.
They sell only a few hundred (rarely over a thousand) copies of each of
their comics through comic shops, but turn around and sell thousands more
through mail order. Fantagraphics' Eros comics are another good example
- Diamond is only a *portion* of their business, and Fantagraphics has
notoriously good mail order business (which is why they remain so strong
as a company while other companies falter).
What does this mean? Well, it means there's no magical "break-even"
point. This mystical number can change from company to company, from
title to title, and even from issue to issue. Best not try to "peg" a
comic book's sales at a certain level and try to say "this book is making
money" or "this book's a dog" - only the publisher can say for sure, and
even then half of the time they don't know.
Best,
- mlh
Tom Spurgeon
In article <199805181543...@ladder01.news.aol.com>,
windy...@aol.com (WindyTWise) wrote:
Your story about "Sidekicks" was very funny -- seeing 20 minutes of it on
cable, it did seem like it was made by a furniture store owner.
> When someone in a store picks up a Previews, looks to purchase some new title
> he's not really seen before, he's simply flooded with stuff like this. So,
> instead of four or five movie distributors, there are literally 3000+ buying
> distributors out there, and since these aren't returnable, it's an obviously
> higher risk.
>
> Plus, it's a crap shoot.
>
> So, acting conservatively, the store owners go with what they do know, rather
> than taking the risk of having to sell the stuff to the customers one at a
> time. I'm not telling you anything you don't already know.
No, we're reasonably in agreement. It seems plausible An overabundance of
comics in general could lead to some conservatism on the part of retailers
-- particularly for those who remember the black and white bust. And it
may be damaging for any chance of increased retailer saturation for
certain publishers because of the difficulties in separating comics of a
"type," -- or even by their publishing arrangement! -- from comics of a
certain "quality."
> There are 500 titles coming out each month, and maybe what, five, ten
reviews?
> Perhaps there is a list of ten to twenty books to buy that one reviewer feels
> is the best of the bunch?
> Over 100 books a month come out that a considerable amount of people buy, and
> the reviewer is only listing twenty books to seriously look at? What are the
> rest, chopped liver?
>
> Any reviewer is going to say that there are a large number of books that
he/she
> didn't/couldn't get to in any one month to read. Truly the number is
daunting.
> Hell, movie reviewers are getting overloaded, to be sure.
>
> But if the movie reviewer doesn't see every movie, how could we possibly use
> that reviewers judgement in judging movies?
Well, you'd hope that they'd see a vast majority of the important ones for
her to see. Critics, or reviewers, can't see everything -- but they should
be up on all the trends, "important" comics, etc. etc.
> The same goes for comic book reviews, don't you think?
>
> Of course there is some sort of bias that comes into judging anything. But
> unless I know that a reviewer has seen EVERY thing and only reccommends X
> number of things for me to spend my money on, then I can't see how his/her
> judgement can be relied upon month after month.
>
> DC alone publishes more than five dozen books a month. Even judging from
> within DC alone is pretty damn tough, don't you think?
>
> And someone expects a dealer to judge? Nah, everyone knows that 85% or better
> of most sales are reorders,
Now that's interesting: do you have a source for that number?
BTW: The best retailer I ever used was pretty dead-on about suggesting
comics for me, and would give me free initial issues in an attempt to get
me interested in specific titles.
As for the rest of it, I'm sure that comics are review-proof the same way
that all media are review proof when you get right down to it. I'm not
sure if it's a failing of criticism in general or comics criticism. The
way criticism works is not so much wholeheartedly buying into someone's
opinion, but engaging their writing, agreeing and disagreeing as you go.
Lists are for Consumer Reports!
I will point out that although none of our writers are this stupid, I read
all of the output from at least the following publishers: DC, FBI, Black
Eye, D&Q, Slave Labor (although I may have recently been cut off), Sirius,
and Image. I read a shitload of self-publishers and minis, Euro-stuff that
crosses my desk (it's a great way to test your college French) and about
five-six Marvels (they cut me off about two years ago; who can blame
them?) when I can get them.
I mention this not because I wanted to show everyone how I'm completely
wasting my life, or to reveal that I'm Flaming Carrot, but to point out
that after all this reading, I'm more informed as to what's out there, but
I don't think I have any special critical insight to make other than what
might be considered "relative comparisons." And that's not a sort of
writing I find valuable.
Tom Spurgeon/TCJ
PatDOneill
>Or get the fuck out, yes. The only way to undo the damage at this
>
>pamphlet format is going to work. Re-arrange the standard format to the
>Heavy
>Metal package and the losses might be initially less painful, but no way are
>the current prices acceptable for eight saddle-stitched sheets.
>
How long do you think the stockholders would keep the current management in
place if everything they sold deliberately lost money?
Try thinking like a businessman when you're discussing business.
Kevin J. Maroney
patdo...@aol.com (PatDOneill) wrote:
>What I mean by oversupply is that, generally, more comics are being produced
>than could EVER be handled profitably by the market. If you figure even a
>minimum of 15,000 for an average break-even point in the industry, with
>something like 500 titles being published a month, we're talking sales of 7.5
>million copies a month (total) for all titles to reach break-even.
I'm not contradicting Pat here, just amplifying in a different
direction:
If total unit sales of comics in the direct market now are in the same
region that they were in 1990, but spread out over a great many more
titles, that is to me indicative of a significant loss of readers. The
way that comics from the four biggest US publishers are marketed,
publishers increase their overall sales not by reaching out to new
readers but by selling more titles to the same people. If unit sales
are constant, I would bet that what we're seeing is fewer people
buying more comics each.
--
Kevin J. Maroney | Crossover Technologies | kmar...@crossover.com
"Love doesn't have a point. Love *is* the point."--Alan Moore
Kevin J. Maroney
t...@tcj.com (Tom Spurgeon) wrote:
>The break-even on a black-and-white, creator-owned title is probably more
>around 3000-4000. However, on a slight balance, I'd say that your 15,000
>number is a little low -- but maybe not, depending on how contracts are
>written these days.
I have decided based on what evidence I've encountered, including
reports of conversations within the DC offices, that at DC the
break-even level is currently around 17,000 copies per month.
>Okay. I would disagree with what I _think_ you're inferring here, though,
>Pat -- which seems to be a variation on Marvel's argument circa Spring
>1995, that no one could find copies of the X-Men because of all those darn
>"weird" comics.
I would agree with you in disagreeing with Pat, since there is
significant and consistent data which indicate that fully 2/3 of all
comics shops in the US don't order marginal titles. I would agree with
Pat, however, insofar as he is pointing out that many Big Three titles
are now "marginal titles"--books like _Xer0_ or the entire Helix line
which stores seemed to significantly avoid.
>I would have to stress, though, that a major company publishing more
>comics -- maybe some at a loss -- than the market can bear would be the
>most pernicious because of the status those comics have as sales-items.
>These demand the attention of the retail community in ways that Black
>Eye's comics, for example, don't.
Yep.
>I would also say that looking at some of the moves the last five
>years in comics focusing on price points is like telling a heroin addict
>to "watch the salt."
Bravo!
Kevin J. Maroney
patdo...@aol.com (PatDOneill) wrote:
>So, you're of the belief that the publishers should lose money on every copy
>printed?
Can't they just make up for it in volume?
PJW
Paul O'Brien <pa...@esoterica.demon.co.uk> writes:
> In article <6jl3uq$2...@login.freenet.columbus.oh.us>, Thomas Smith
> <thcs...@freenet.columbus.oh.us> writes
> >That's what alarms me about Marvel's sales drops. If Marvel continues to
> >drop at this rate there's no way it can continue publishing for more than
> >another two or three years. And when Marvel goes the industry (or at
> >least the direct market) is likely to go with it.
>
> It's got to bottom out before then. Surely.
>
> Where are all these readers GOING? Even the comics industry can't
> be driving out its audience in these sorts of numbers, can it? Are
> people just cutting down on their purchases, or are they abandoning
> comics entirely?
Damn good question. I wonder about that myself. About five years ago, you
had Image and Valiant comics (as well as old standbys like Marvel and DC)
shipping in huge quantities. How many of those actually ended up in the
hands of readers? I don't know, but I have a theory...
I'll bet most wound up unsold (ever see those cheap packs of comics at Wal-
Mart? The ones that have SUPREME #1 and othersuch titles.) This was at
a time when WIZARD and others labeled Image and Valiant as being "hot,"
sending all of the little fanboys scrambling for their titles. And also,
this came on the heels of X-MEN #1 and the Death of Superman (which proved
that you could sell a comic that came out last week for $40.00), which I
think brought a lot of new retailers into the game, and provided a huge
retailer base which bought up the "next big things" like crazy. Combine
this with Supe's death, and comics became a sort of fad.
In fact, there weren't that many readers to begin with.
And the real deathblow delivered to the industry came during this time:
high prices. The publishers, seeing the huge numbers that comics were
selling to RETAILERS (not readers, mind you) raised prices to pad their
profit margins. If you sell 200,000 copies for $1.95, slap on an enhanced
cover, charge $3.95, and sell 500,000 copies, then you might as well raise
the price of the regulars from $1.95 to $2.50 since they're going to sell
anyway. Nevermind that they were selling to retailers (who in turn couldn't
actually move the product) who were soon to be out of business. And as
the retailers went under, the print runs decreased. But as cover prices
increased, readers, the real readers who provide the stable consumer
base (as opposed to fad speculators) were trimming their reading lists
right and left: Bye-bye Defiant. Bye-bye Valiant. Bye-bye Image. Bye-
bye Bat-books. Add in an increase in the costs of paper (as well as
readers' avoidance of high prices, which only then became apparent after
costs increased and print-runs decreased - when it was too late to
actually do anything about it.)
And then we have a vicious circle of increasing costs and decreasing print-
runs. Cover prices are already high enough. Another increase, and I
fear that we'll have even more readers bail. How many people would be
willing to pay $2.50 each for all of their new Marvel comics?
Right there, as far as I'm concerned, the industry slit its own throat.
I may be wrong, but then answer me this: If Valiant was charging $2.50
for something like TUROK when it had high print-runs and paper costs
were lower, then why were they still charging $2.50 when costs went up and
print-runs plummeted? The costs to produce it should have soared, not
stayed the same. So which is it? Were the earlier comics over-priced or
the latter ones under-priced? Or is it both?
Maybe if the publishers hadn't jacked up the cover prices so early in the
game they could have kept some of their readers.
Me? I don't buy any Marvels anymore. The only DCs I still buy are
Vertigo titles, (and TRANSMET, but it'll soon be a Vertigo). The rest of
my reading list is strictly indie and self-published.
Hernan Espinoza
Paul O'Brien <pa...@esoterica.demon.co.uk> writes:
>In article <6jl3uq$2...@login.freenet.columbus.oh.us>, Thomas Smith
><thcs...@freenet.columbus.oh.us> writes
>>That's what alarms me about Marvel's sales drops. If Marvel continues to
>>drop at this rate there's no way it can continue publishing for more than
>>another two or three years. And when Marvel goes the industry (or at
>>least the direct market) is likely to go with it.
>It's got to bottom out before then. Surely.
Why? I don't think it will come to that, either, but...
well, I trust the market system. If the present business model
isn't viable, something will take it place (I will spare you
my discontinuous publication model rant 8-) ) Personally, I
find some comfort in the fact that no one character or title
or genre or company *IS* comics (no matter what their PR
departments and the doomsayers tell you). It would be rough,
but comics would go on.
>Where are all these readers GOING? Even the comics industry can't
>be driving out its audience in these sorts of numbers, can it? Are
>people just cutting down on their purchases, or are they abandoning
>comics entirely?
Both. Of course, I just have anecdotes. To my knowledge,
no one has done a comprehensive market survey (or no one has
published one that I've seen)...
>Life is unfair. Kill yourself or get over it.
Heh.
-Hernan, James Hudnall has a nifty rant about this on
his webpage
Lyle Masaki
In article <35678b87...@client.ne.news.psi.net>,
kmar...@crossover.com wrote:
>
> patdo...@aol.com (PatDOneill) wrote:
>
> >So, you're of the belief that the publishers should lose money on every
> >copy printed?
>
> Can't they just make up for it in volume?
>
I've stopped believing in pursuing the 'value' segment. I've personally seen
a case where a company dropped prices and did not see their volume increase
enough to keep their revenues from plummeting. (So, not only were they
keeping less of every dollar they got from the consumer, they were getting
less money from their customers.)
A drop in price doesn't always mean an increase in volume. Sometimes it does,
in the short term, but the long term effect is to leave a "cheap" impression
that takes a lot of effort to turn around.
IMO, what a lot of people forget when trying to include people's percieved
"value for the money" is that cheap /= 'good value for the money'. People
don't mind paying a premium price for what they percieve as a premium product.
I think the speculator boom did a lot of damage to comics' value perception
by turning comics into something you let sit in a closet until you want to
sell it back. Plenty of people think of comics as something you read once and
that is a significant problem. I have no problem paying $2.95 for a b/w
pamphlet I expect to want to read again in 5 - 10 years.
anon
PatDOneill
>patdo...@aol.com (PatDOneill) wrote:
>
>>So, you're of the belief that the publishers should lose money on every copy
>>printed?
>
>Can't they just make up for it in volume?
The volume discounts don't kick in that quickly. It's not as if you can
produce, print, and distribute 5,000 copies at $1 a copy and 6,000 at $.50 a
copy. Sure, lower cover prices MIGHT generate a higher circulation, but it's
not a given...and while you're waiting for that higher circulation to develop,
you're losing money on every sale.
windy...@aol.com
In article <tom-180598...@c02-rizzo.blarg.net>,
t...@tcj.com (Tom Spurgeon) wrote:
> > So, acting conservatively, the store owners go with what they do know, rather
> > than taking the risk of having to sell the stuff to the customers one at a
> > time. I'm not telling you anything you don't already know.
>
> No, we're reasonably in agreement. It seems plausible An overabundance of
> comics in general could lead to some conservatism on the part of retailers
> -- particularly for those who remember the black and white bust. And it
> may be damaging for any chance of increased retailer saturation for
> certain publishers because of the difficulties in separating comics of a
> "type," -- or even by their publishing arrangement! -- from comics of a
> certain "quality."
The problem still remains on how to attract new readers. And do it without
pissing off the old readers. I could list a few TV shows that, while not
stellar in quality, did attract people to the sets. (Like the Ally Mc Beal
program. There isn't anything in that that hasn't been done before, but damn
it, it's not a bad show. Nothing to model our lives over, but it's enough to
attract people to fictional characters. Well, they'd better be fictional.)
So, sometimes average quality can still work. I like JAG better than
X-Files. I like some comics better than others, but I (unlike my TV
references, I hope and pray that I will never make personal opinions public
on the comics here.
> > And someone expects a dealer to judge? Nah, everyone knows that 85% or better
> > of most sales are reorders,
>
> Now that's interesting: do you have a source for that number?
Oops! Sorry. I didn't mean to imply my speculation as fact. I could have
qualified the hell out of that and still been off. It's a Wild Assed Guess,
based on the fact that outside of the event comics (the #1s, reboots, #0s,
the major crossovers, variants, etc.) most comics are ordered based on how
well they sold the previous month. My guess is that about one comic in about
eight or so has some relation to an event (that would include #'s 2 & 3, and
maybe #4 is several cases) so that 85% was a quick way of saying that usually
most comic book stores know exactly how many Cerebus to order.
A cruise through anyone's back bin usually provides a decent handle on what
is traditionally over ordered (or under bought).
Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't the better dealer have a smaller back
bin for the last year's overage than not? If someone is doing this based on
something other than the previous sales, I'd like to know.
I could be way off on this. I have never run a shop before.
> BTW: The best retailer I ever used was pretty dead-on about suggesting
> comics for me, and would give me free initial issues in an attempt to get
> me interested in specific titles.
>
> As for the rest of it, I'm sure that comics are review-proof the same way
> that all media are review proof when you get right down to it. I'm not
> sure if it's a failing of criticism in general or comics criticism.
I think that is where the "hype machine" mentality cuts in. The bigger
publishers want to hype something as much as possible, so the profit can be
made before the decline cuts in. Hype in itself isn't bad.
A comic that nobody has seen appeals to many more people than does the actual
comic in almost every case. It's a phenomena that is not unique to comics.
The
> way criticism works is not so much wholeheartedly buying into someone's
> opinion, but engaging their writing, agreeing and disagreeing as you go.
> Lists are for Consumer Reports!
Understood. You'll notice that Consumer Reports doesn't allow any
advertising.
>
> I will point out that although none of our writers are this stupid, I read
> all of the output from at least the following publishers: DC, FBI, Black
> Eye, D&Q, Slave Labor (although I may have recently been cut off), Sirius,
> and Image. I read a shitload of self-publishers and minis, Euro-stuff that
> crosses my desk (it's a great way to test your college French) and about
> five-six Marvels (they cut me off about two years ago; who can blame
> them?) when I can get them.
Anc Consumer Reports actually has to go and pay for their test items. :) But
I'll acknowledge that this is entertainment, and in that field there can be
many comp copies of whatever is being hyped floating around. And NOT
floating around, depending on politics. That's the way of the world.
> I mention this not because I wanted to show everyone how I'm completely
> wasting my life, or to reveal that I'm Flaming Carrot, but to point out
> that after all this reading, I'm more informed as to what's out there, but
> I don't think I have any special critical insight to make other than what
> might be considered "relative comparisons." And that's not a sort of
> writing I find valuable.
Well, Rome is still burning, and there are still a few trying to look
spectacular in the glow from the flames. (I speak of a few creative types in
this allusion)
Walt "no nickname today, 'cuz I accidentally loaded the coffee machine with
decaf. I'm either going back to sleep or start munching coffee beans" Stone
Tom Spurgeon
Point taken on the variability on the break-even point. 1600? Wow!
Of course a lot of this is speculation. While I don't think you can ever
make blanket statements that Book Y is unprofitable, I think where a lot
of the speculation comes in is first, as a refutation for some price-point
arguments, second, as a very rough barometer/estimate of the health of the
industry or certain segments of it, and third, as open counter-speculation
following vague assertions that books selling at shockingly low levels are
somehow still "turning profits."
There are all sorts of random factors that go into this -- all the
specifics of a contract may come into play. For instance, a book may be
published with an eye towards a special edition, or a trade paperback. Or
it may be surreptitiously co-published, with the cartoonist, or with an
agency like a local arts council.
And certainly, there are all those sales outside Diamond pre-orders --
bottom-line sales are very different.
Tom Spurgeon/TCJ
Nat Gertler
windy...@aol.com wrote:
>
> A cruise through anyone's back bin usually provides a decent handle on what
> is traditionally over ordered (or under bought).
But when you judge by that, you miss out on the whole sense of scale.
I see all these comments on how there are so many issue 1s of Image
books in the bins. Does that mean they were heavily overordered? Not
in percentage terms. If Imaguy #1 sold, say, two million copies, and
sell through was 97% (quite a strong sell-through), then that means
there are still 60,000 copies sitting around unsold. They look like
big heaping piles of books, but the orderers were actually quite
accurate. In contrast, if Vampire Slackers #2 sold 800 copies, and
sell-through was only 50%, there are far fewer copies of that to
be seen in back-issue bins... but the ordering was actually less
wise. The dealers lost money on VS because their orders were too
high.
> Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't the better dealer have a smaller back
> bin for the last year's overage than not?
Not necessarily. The dealer with no back issues is likely ordering
too few copies... sure you end up getting stuck with some copies,
but if it's going well, you're making up for that by making a lot
of sales that you weren't absolutely positive of.
M. High
In article <tom-190598...@c87-rizzo.blarg.net> Tom Spurgeon,
>bottom-line sales are very different.
Wait - it gets even better. A couple years ago a publisher named Shanda
Fantasy Arts published a comic called the "Giant Shanda Animal" with a
relatively high cover price ($4.95/$5.95 or something like that). They
went to a convention in January, sold a couple hundred copies and were
immediately profitable BEFORE the book even shipped to the distributors
later that spring. They key on living on low print runs is knowing how
to properly capitalize on non-direct-sales markets. That's one of the
reasons I look up to Fantagraphics and its thriving mail order business.
Best,
- mlh
Kevin J. Maroney
patdo...@aol.com (PatDOneill) wrote:
>>Can't they just make up for it in volume?
>
>The volume discounts don't kick in that quickly.
That was a joke, Pat. If they're losing money on every copy and they
try to make up for it in volume....
WindyTWise
>> A cruise through anyone's back bin usually provides a decent handle on what
>> is traditionally over ordered (or under bought).
>
>But when you judge by that, you miss out on the whole sense of scale.
>I see all these comments on how there are so many issue 1s of Image
>books in the bins. Does that mean they were heavily overordered? Not
>in percentage terms. If Imaguy #1 sold, say, two million copies, and
>sell through was 97% (quite a strong sell-through), then that means
>there are still 60,000 copies sitting around unsold. They look like
>big heaping piles of books, but the orderers were actually quite
>accurate. In contrast, if Vampire Slackers #2 sold 800 copies, and
>sell-through was only 50%, there are far fewer copies of that to
>be seen in back-issue bins... but the ordering was actually less
>wise. The dealers lost money on VS because their orders were too
>high.
So true. I think the standard remark on that is there are still comic book
stores that are closing down (as opposed to being sold to other owners, if
there was a change in management)
But total profit/issue will include the loss on over orderage and that is based
on sales.
I will grant everyone it takes good experience for any owner of any comic book
store to properly order "event" comic books. Part of that is judging who his
customers are. And perhaps it is for that the reviews might have a bigger
impact. Perhaps the reviews for any ongoing series does have less impact.
So, the reviews that I see about (insert comic title here) #16 when last
month's reviews also included #15 make little sense to me. What, someone
picked up and read last month's (comic title) and liked it, but they are going
to see if they are going to buy this month's (comic title) based on a review?
No, reviews like this are either (seemingly)self-serving or soft-hype.
There are way too many comics out there to review, but if the same reviewer
reviews the same title from month to month, it's more a fan-boy attititude
toward the title than it is anything critical.
At least that's that way it seems to me.
A slamming review seems to be one way to tell everyone why that reviewer is
ceasing to buy that title in the near future (or thinking about it.)
Bottom line on this point is the only slightly rhetorical question:
Do the comic book magazines/publications/online sites/trades do a good job of
attracting new people to the field, or are they just trying to get the
available money pointed in a specific direction?
I realize it's not their self assigned jobs.
yet the market is still shrinking.
And if those magazines, by virtue of "selling" the "event" issues HELP the
comic book industry, then I will humbly shut the heck up. Some will help, and
some will hurt.
I don't want to lay the blame on the magazines/reviewers...
Just point out that like any entertainment industry, those with the best hype
AND the best product tend to stick around.
And the magaziners are merely gravytraining.
That's the way it should be.
But if the magazines/comic pricing guides/review rags influenced sales of
"event" comics that in some cases HURT comic book stores more than helped them,
there is room for some valid criticism.
I'm out of my league here on these series of comments that I have been making
here. I know that.
But I'd like to see more in this line of commentary.
Walt"a league of his own" Stone
lordj...@geocities.com
PatDOneill wrote:
> In article <tom-150598...@c41-rizzo.blarg.net>, t...@tcj.com (Tom
> Spurgeon) writes:
>
> >Hi, Pat:
> >
> >I'm not looking to get into a tussle, but my newsserver isn't that great
> >and I'm interested in the subject matter. Can you or someone else in this
> >thread define what y'all mean by oversupply? Oversupply in terms of what
> >makes it into Previews? Oversupply in terms of comics produced?
> >
> >In addition, what's the oversupply argument being made? That companies are
> >overproducing in order to pad their bottom line? That overproducing is
> >bad?
> >
> >Thanks,
> >
> >Tom Spurgeon/TCJ
>
> What I mean by oversupply is that, generally, more comics are being produced
> than could EVER be handled profitably by the market. If you figure even a
> minimum of 15,000 for an average break-even point in the industry, with
> something like 500 titles being published a month, we're talking sales of 7.5
> million copies a month (total) for all titles to reach break-even.
This is what's known as a specious argument. What's wrong with comics is all these
little bitty publishers making it impossible for individual comics to make the
break-even point of 15,000 titles. The little bitty companies have MUCH smaller
break-even points, Pat. MUCH, MUCH smaller. For self-publishers, it's probably
under 2,000. For every Marvel or DC comic cancelled for falling under 15,000 in
sales there would be room for 7 or 8 such comics. Conversely, it would take 7 or 8
such comics to have an effect as large as 15,000 on any mainstream title. That's
assuming that people really are stopping buying, say, "X-Men" and picking up, say
"Thieves and Kings" instead. I doubt it. There are a few strange folks like those
of us who inhabit these newsgroups that read all kinds of stuff and spend WAY too
much money on comics, but most folks either buy the superhero stuff or don't, and
most of those who don't wouldn't, even if it were the only comics that existed.
They'd just quit reading comics. Somehow, I don't think that would be better for
the industry.
> More over, that means that titles that COULD be profitable in a market with a
> reasonable supply are struggling, because the proliferation of titles spreads
> the audience around, with each title getting a smaller circulation.
This is assuming a static and/or declining audience base, which I'll admit is what
we've seen in the last few years. But the small press comics you malign are the
industry's only hope to GROW the readership, to get NEW PEOPLE reading comics.
Superheroes, and even non-superhero comics that are still fantasy-based melodramas
like Preacher and The Invisibles (to name two current fairly popular examples that
I happen to like), have a limited appeal. As long as comics = superheroes in the
public mind, the current fans are the only ones who will go into a comics shop. As
the current fan base continues to decline, the industry chokes. The
"overproduction" you complain about contains dozens of genres, dozens of points of
view, and yes, dozens of tired, embarassingly amateurish rip-offs of mainstream
superheroes or better-done alternatives. Still, these comics are the only thing
that gives me any hope at all that there will be "comic books" - meaning the
current 32-pages-or-so flimsy magazines - in 10 or 20 years.
> As Walt Stone, it's analogous to the situation in TV right now--the audience
> hasn't really significantly declined, it's just that the choices are so
> enormous that it takes an "event" to create the kind of publicity that directs
> everyone's attention to a single title. (In TV, the most recent example of this
> is the Seinfeld finale--when was the last time a TV episode got close to 80
> million viewers or more than half of the viewing audience? It was the Cheers
> finale.)
Simply not true. You can't possibly look at the number of X-Men being sold 10 years
ago and the number being sold now and attribute even a third of that decline to
people drifting to other titles. There were over half a million X-Men comics being
sold every month. Now the top five titles put together barely equal that. Now, I'll
accept that a large part - 20 or 30%, probably - is not a decline in readership,
but a decline in multiple-issue-buying and even more importantly deliberate
over-ordering by comics stores that would store some in that back for six months
and bring them out and put them in the back-issue bins at inflated prices. But not
half. Certainly not 4/5. And the numbers of X-Men fans who "graduated" to, say,
Shades of Gray who would otherwise have kept buying X-Men is surely negligible.
The numbers ARE declining, the dollars are dwindling. There are fewer shops, many
of them making less money. If it were just getting spread around more among titles,
the shops would not be hurting so bad.
--
J. Stephen Bolhafner (Steve)
Check out This Week's Good Read!
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Zone/9923/thisweek.html
"Anyone who is not intelligent enough to agree with me
is too stupid to live." - Josef Stalin
Crisper Than Thou
PatDOneill <patdo...@aol.com> wrote:
>It also is only the stats for ONE publisher, one that has had 18 months of
>negative publicity, thanks to a fiscal raping by the previous controlling
>shareholder.
Anyone put the DC equivalents together for a comparison? I don't think it's
going to look any better than the Marvel numbers.
>Further, it doesn't indicate that 1) prices are higher in 1998 than in 1997, so
>that revenues have not dropped as much as copy sales have;
But such a trend can't be justified forever; eventually you'd have one copy
of SPAWN selling for $12 million and nothing else. Are the price increases
adding to the revenue faster than lower book numbers are taking it away? I
don't think so, personally, but I've never seen good numbers either way.
>and 2) the number of
>titles produced by ALL publishers has increased, so that we may merely be
>looking at the same amount of dollars (or even a larger amount, come to think
>of it) being spread among a larger number of titles.
Which, like #1, also cannot justifiably continue forever; eventually you'd
end up with 6 million different books each selling one copy.
>IOW, the problem may not be that the market isn't big enough, it may be that
>the industry is producing too much material for the market--a problem, that is,
>of over-supply not under-demand.
So what do the publishers do, if this is the case? Even if this were completely
demonstrable (which I don't think it is) the solution would be to trim back
the product line-- which means dent revenue-- which means cancel books and
fire people. Likely to happen? I dunno. Maybe. It might be sane, but it would
be ugly.
--The Elder Dan
--
But mostly I'm reminded of that time we hijacked a monorail to Cuba.
D. Curtis Johnson cri...@armory.com
Todd VerBeek, gwm
My pal WindyTWise said:
>So, the reviews that I see about (insert comic title here) #16 when last
>month's reviews also included #15 make little sense to me. What, someone
>picked up and read last month's (comic title) and liked it, but they are going
>to see if they are going to buy this month's (comic title) based on a review?
>
>No, reviews like this are either (seemingly)self-serving or soft-hype.
>
>There are way too many comics out there to review, but if the same reviewer
>reviews the same title from month to month, it's more a fan-boy attititude
>toward the title than it is anything critical.
I gather you're talking about the print media (which I don't often read)
as much as online, but... I think most of the reviews posted to r.a.c.r
are of the "this is what I read and I want to talk about it" variety. I
don't see anything wrong with that, since this =is= a medium for
discussion, after all. They can be useful in deciding whether to pick up
a series, when taken as a whole, I suppose, but that doesn't seem to be
their main reason for being. (Do the print comics media really do reviews
like that: /Hyperman/ #N this month, /Hyperman/ #N+1 the next, ...? I
thought that was peculiar to r.a.c.*)
The reviews I put on my web site and post to r.a.c.r tend to be more of
the "this is something I read and I think you should know about it" kind.
I try to be fair, address what works (and doesn't) and why, but I don't
try to perform a true critical analysis, and my selection of subject
matter is anything =but= objective. My "angle" is definitely that of a
fan, not a critic.
>Bottom line on this point is the only slightly rhetorical question:
>
>Do the comic book magazines/publications/online sites/trades do a good job of
>attracting new people to the field, or are they just trying to get the
>available money pointed in a specific direction?
The latter. I don't think the industry press (in any industry) =can= do
very much to attract new people to it, because to read it presupposes that
you're already involved, or at least interested in it.
>And if those magazines, by virtue of "selling" the "event" issues HELP the
>comic book industry, then I will humbly shut the heck up. Some will help, and
>some will hurt.
>
>I don't want to lay the blame on the magazines/reviewers...
>Just point out that like any entertainment industry, those with the best hype
>AND the best product tend to stick around.
>
>And the magaziners are merely gravytraining.
>That's the way it should be.
>
>But if the magazines/comic pricing guides/review rags influenced sales of
>"event" comics that in some cases HURT comic book stores more than helped them,
>there is room for some valid criticism.
Well, I think it's patently obvious that some of the comics press have
contributed to the hype of "events", and fairly clear that some of these
events have backfired on the industry. So consider such criticism (IMHO)
valid.
Cheers, Todd
--
"...It was the year everything changed."
WindyTWise
>>So, the reviews that I see about (insert comic title here) #16 when last
>>month's reviews also included #15 make little sense to me. What, someone
>>picked up and read last month's (comic title) and liked it, but they are
>going
>>to see if they are going to buy this month's (comic title) based on a
>review?
>>
>>No, reviews like this are either (seemingly)self-serving or soft-hype.
>>
>>There are way too many comics out there to review, but if the same reviewer
>>reviews the same title from month to month, it's more a fan-boy attititude
>>toward the title than it is anything critical.
>
>I gather you're talking about the print media (which I don't often read)
>as much as online, but... I think most of the reviews posted to r.a.c.r
>are of the "this is what I read and I want to talk about it" variety. I
>don't see anything wrong with that, since this =is= a medium for
>discussion, after all. They can be useful in deciding whether to pick up
>a series, when taken as a whole, I suppose, but that doesn't seem to be
>their main reason for being. (Do the print comics media really do reviews
>like that: /Hyperman/ #N this month, /Hyperman/ #N+1 the next, ...? I
>thought that was peculiar to r.a.c.*)
I hate to back out of what I said, but I can't speak to all review publications
online and printed (as well as the "'Nuff Said' style shows). I haven't seen
enough of them to indeed make a judgement call, and perhaps I was making the
point that I am judging all by a few. I am out of my league on this. I simply
don't read enough of the reviews to determine who has what.
>>Do the comic book magazines/publications/online sites/trades do a good job
>of
>>attracting new people to the field, or are they just trying to get the
>>available money pointed in a specific direction?
>
>The latter. I don't think the industry press (in any industry) =can= do
>very much to attract new people to it, because to read it presupposes that
>you're already involved, or at least interested in it.
I would counter that point with the circulation stats from Wizard. Not the
most independant of mags, but since it does reach the most people by virtue of
it's circulation, it does get out there. I see Wizard at every newstand I come
across; I see them even at newstands that carry zero comics.
So, total sell through of Wizard (don't guess too many of these in the back
bins, eh?) would be close to 150K to 200K. Maybe more.So between the newstand
and the comic book shops, that magazine like it or lump it, has the best way of
grabbing the public eye.
In other words, the best ambassador to the non-comic book buying public is
Wizard.
And for that I will forgive them a certain level of hype.
But only if the hype is effective and brings people into the comic book stores,
and NOT to buy investments.
Walt "Wizard, meet this broker for penny stocks. You could learn a lot from
each other... on the other hand, maybe not." Stone
PJW
lordj...@geocities.com writes:
>
> This is what's known as a specious argument. What's wrong with comics is all these
> little bitty publishers making it impossible for individual comics to make the
> break-even point of 15,000 titles. The little bitty companies have MUCH smaller
> break-even points, Pat. MUCH, MUCH smaller.
The small publishers DO NOT eat away at Marvel / DC. Even if the fans
would be willing to drop their "mainstream" books in favor of BOX OFFICE
POISON and SILLY DADDY, I doubt it would be easy to get the retailers to
order these "alternative" titles. Most shops I've been in, if you're
asking for PENNY CENTURY instead of BATMAN or WONDERWOMAN (but it's by
Byyyrrrnnne!) they treat you like a nuisance.
> For self-publishers, it's probably
> under 2,000. For every Marvel or DC comic cancelled for falling under 15,000 in
> sales there would be room for 7 or 8 such comics. Conversely, it would take 7 or 8
> such comics to have an effect as large as 15,000 on any mainstream title. That's
> assuming that people really are stopping buying, say, "X-Men" and picking up, say
> "Thieves and Kings" instead. I doubt it.
That's EXACTLY what I've done. Some years ago, I abandoned Marvel (X-books,
especially) entirely,in favor of material from small publishers,
self-publishers, and Vertigo.
And there would seem to be another factor involved in break-even points
that no one's brought up yet: Trade paperbacks. Say a title like
HELLBLAZER or TRANSMET barely makes the break-even point (or even comes
in below it), but that the material being published has a good chance of
being repackaged into TPBs, then doesn't that change things?
I think there's a non-super-hero market out there that buys TPBs instead
of individual comics. (I think this is especially true of something like
SIN CITY, which seems to be produced with subsequent TPBs in mind. And I
have heard of people who only follow titles like PREACHER, SANDMAN, and
CEREBUS through the TPB collections.)
> There are a few strange folks like those
> of us who inhabit these newsgroups that read all kinds of stuff and spend WAY too
> much money on comics, but most folks either buy the superhero stuff or don't, and
> most of those who don't wouldn't, even if it were the only comics that existed.
> They'd just quit reading comics. Somehow, I don't think that would be better for
> the industry.
I fall into the latter category. Just for the record, if DC should
decide to dump Vertigo and cancel all of the Vertigo titles, I would not
-REPEAT- WOULD NOT start reading their super-hero books. They would
lose a customer. If you take away TRANSMET and THE INVISIBLES, I will not
start reading BATMAN again.
>
> > More over, that means that titles that COULD be profitable in a market with a
> > reasonable supply are struggling, because the proliferation of titles spreads
> > the audience around, with each title getting a smaller circulation.
>
> This is assuming a static and/or declining audience base, which I'll admit is what
> we've seen in the last few years. But the small press comics you malign are the
> industry's only hope to GROW the readership, to get NEW PEOPLE reading comics.
Amen. If it weren't for the "alternative" stuff (be it OPTIC NERVE, TRANSMET,
PREACHER, INVISIBLES, STRAY BULLETS, STRANGERS IN PARADISE...) I wouldn't
be reading comics anymore. Simple as that. I've outgrown the X-MEN and their
costumed, code-named ilk. (Well, maybe if they put Claremont back on the
X-MEN, put Garth Ennis on WOLVERINE... ;) )
> Superheroes, and even non-superhero comics that are still fantasy-based melodramas
> like Preacher and The Invisibles (to name two current fairly popular examples that
> I happen to like), have a limited appeal. As long as comics = superheroes in the
> public mind, the current fans are the only ones who will go into a comics shop. As
> the current fan base continues to decline, the industry chokes.
True. The "comics=superheroes" arguement makes this industry sound like
some insular little frat house, where we don't want anything different,
don't want anything to make waves, don't want anything to challenge the
way the overly conservative traditionalists think things ought to be.
Just keep on recycling the same old crap over and over again. Depserately
hang onto the same moldy traditions like a (damn. can't think of a good
simile...)
Crisper Than Thou
Kevin J. Maroney <kmar...@crossover.com> wrote:
>
>I have decided based on what evidence I've encountered, including
>reports of conversations within the DC offices, that at DC the
>break-even level is currently around 17,000 copies per month.
Pretty good guess. Fiddles up and down a bit depending on the paper it's
printed on and the cover price.
>I would agree with you in disagreeing with Pat, since there is
>significant and consistent data which indicate that fully 2/3 of all
>comics shops in the US don't order marginal titles. I would agree with
>Pat, however, insofar as he is pointing out that many Big Three titles
>are now "marginal titles"--books like _Xer0_ or the entire Helix line
>which stores seemed to significantly avoid.
Random data point: I was in NYC this past week and dropped by DC while I was
there. Their current guess is that CHASE is in about 50% of direct market
stores. I've never once entered a store that hadn't ordered at least a small
number of shelf copies of CHASE, so I dunno where these other stores are.
Crisper Than Thou
Tom Galloway <t...@netcom.com> wrote:
>>Random data point: I was in NYC this past week and dropped by DC while I was
>> there. Their current guess is that CHASE is in about 50% of direct market
>> stores. I've never once entered a store that hadn't ordered at least a small
>> number of shelf copies of CHASE, so I dunno where these other stores are.
>
>Hmm. Anyone know why DC couldn't get an exact percentage from Diamond?
Actually, they probably did get an exact percentage for any given issue of
the series. By the time it percolated down to me over lunch, it was phrased
as "it looks like we're in about half the retail stores".
Dan Thorsland also had the interesting (read: depressing) anecdotal tale
of a store in NYC that he visited. They told him they had great sell-thru
on CREEPER-- 100% sales, in fact.
All *two* issues that they'd ordered-- one for the owner's collection and
then the night manager decided to get the other one for himself. They
considered this an unqualified success for the book, apparently-- and it
never even hit their stands. They were evidently not interested in upping
orders because that would possibly leave them with unsold copy.
Tom Galloway
In article <6jt5g7$oei$1...@shell15.ba.best.com> cri...@best.com (Crisper Than Thou) writes:
>Random data point: I was in NYC this past week and dropped by DC while I was
> there. Their current guess is that CHASE is in about 50% of direct market
> stores. I've never once entered a store that hadn't ordered at least a small
> number of shelf copies of CHASE, so I dunno where these other stores are.
Hmm. Anyone know why DC couldn't get an exact percentage from Diamond?
Not just for Chase, but for any book (and publishers other than DC). Given
Diamond's close to direct market monopoly, it'd seem possible to do a
bit of data mining to understand the market better and perhaps target
some campaigns.
tyg t...@netcom.com
Dwight Williams
Crisper Than Thou (cri...@best.com) writes:
> Tom Galloway <t...@netcom.com> wrote:
>
>>>Random data point: I was in NYC this past week and dropped by DC while I was
>>> there. Their current guess is that CHASE is in about 50% of direct market
>>> stores. I've never once entered a store that hadn't ordered at least a small
>>> number of shelf copies of CHASE, so I dunno where these other stores are.
>>
>>Hmm. Anyone know why DC couldn't get an exact percentage from Diamond?
>
> Actually, they probably did get an exact percentage for any given issue of
> the series. By the time it percolated down to me over lunch, it was phrased
> as "it looks like we're in about half the retail stores".
>
> Dan Thorsland also had the interesting (read: depressing) anecdotal tale
> of a store in NYC that he visited. They told him they had great sell-thru
> on CREEPER-- 100% sales, in fact.
>
> All *two* issues that they'd ordered-- one for the owner's collection and
> then the night manager decided to get the other one for himself. They
> considered this an unqualified success for the book, apparently-- and it
> never even hit their stands. They were evidently not interested in upping
> orders because that would possibly leave them with unsold copy.
Now that is a little disgusting...and scary.
Come to think of it, *my* retailer does that sometimes, if memory serves,
and I never saw anything wrong with it at the time I noted it.
Which makes me a little scummy by implication, I suppose...
--
Dwight Williams(ad...@freenet.carleton.ca) -- Orleans, Ontario, Canada
Bradly E. Peterson
Crapped.I...@uncleSPAM.gov (WAMbo) done said this here
deal:
>dr...@OMELETTEDUFROMAGEfastlane.net wrote:
>>I say make more pages. yep. Want more, want more, want more.
>>dammit...
>
>I could be quoted as having said the same thing from time to
>time, but herein lies the rough: a single artist (or penciler-inker
>team) can't produce enough work every month to fill a thick magazine;
>and there's no assurance of quality in a mixed bag of talent in an
>ever-shifting anthology. The pamphlet format has become the principle
>vehicle wherein singular artistic expression is even possible with
>sequential art, giving the consumer a greater ability to pre-judge
>based solely on the information of who's on the creative staff.
Who said anything about it being monthly? Where is it written
that we MUST produce stuff every month? Not I. Does Stephen
King crank out another unit every month? Nope. How about John
Grisham? uh... Forget that last one. Anyway, you get the idea.
We've got to get out of this mentality, folks. Frank Miller has
the right idea, even though he doesn't always follow this... He
waited until he had enough material to put out ONE book. ONE.
I'm talking about "Sin City: Family Values". Now, of course,
he's doing a mini that's being serialized on a monthly basis (300
from Dark Horse). But he waited until he had enough material to
start soliciting it. We need more anthologies, like "Weird
Business" (Mojo Press) and graphic novels happening. I think
this would be a good thing. The attention span of most comic
readers is like a friggin gerbil on diet pills. If a book falls
more than a month behind schedule, sales drop. Why not wait
until you've got enough for a VOLUME of material?
We're an impatient bunch, apparently. heh...
Bradly E. Peterson, Psychodrama Press
(Remove OMELETTEDUFROMAGE from address to reply)
<http://www.fastlane.net/homepages/drama>
"To do is to be" - Nietzsche
"To be is to do" - Sartre
"Do be do be do" - Sinatra
Bradly E. Peterson
kmar...@crossover.com (Kevin J. Maroney) done said this here
deal:
>patdo...@aol.com (PatDOneill) wrote:
>
>>So, you're of the belief that the publishers should lose money on every copy
>>printed?
>
Not if they're not by-gawd selling, no. They can't.
Bob Heer
cri...@best.com (Crisper Than Thou) wrote
> Kevin J. Maroney <kmar...@crossover.com> wrote:
> >
> >I have decided based on what evidence I've encountered, including
> >reports of conversations within the DC offices, that at DC the
> >break-even level is currently around 17,000 copies per month.
I'd say that's a bit low. 17,000 copies at $2.50 is $17,000 wholesale if
you assume they get 40% of cover (they might get more than that on average
now that they broker through Diamond rather than sell to them). If you
assume say $500 to get a page written, pencilled, inked, lettered and
coloured, that alone runs you over $11,000, leaving only $6,000 for
printing and other costs.
For reference on the Marvel side, the last issue of GHOST RIDER would
have had guaranteed sales of just over 17,000 copies and Marvel scraped
it as not worth completing, presumably having paid at least a portion of
the creative costs.
> Random data point: I was in NYC this past week and dropped by DC while I was
> there. Their current guess is that CHASE is in about 50% of direct market
> stores. I've never once entered a store that hadn't ordered at least a small
> number of shelf copies of CHASE, so I dunno where these other stores are.
Matt High posted some interesting figures a few months back about how 40%
of Diamond's accounts order less than $2900 a month retail (and over half
of those were under $1400). Now, that's pretty close to nothing. Under
400 books a week. Hell, assuming 100% sell-through, sales like that
wouldn't even cover a single fulltime minimum wage job, much less rent
and other expenses. I'm not sure exactly what that means, but I don't
think a single shop I've seen locally orders that few books, and clearly
any such store must sell comics as only a fraction of their business.
And they probably order almost entirely the proven sellers, Top 50 books.
That would mean there are fewer than 3000 "real" comic shops, which sell
comics as a significant portion of their business.
Bob Heer bg...@torfree.net http://www.geocities.com/area51/dimension/1428
--
The score is still Q to 12
--
Martin Wisse
WAMbo (Crapped.I...@uncleSPAM.gov) wrote:
: (Lyle Masaki) spi...@aloha.net wrote:
: >A drop in price doesn't always mean an increase in volume.
:
: Not in a narrow niche market like the comics industry,
: and not when the industry leaders aren't doing it. Force prices
: down across the board, and readership *WILL* increase.
Trouble is while the consumers may like it, newsstands and comic
shops won't as much. Especially for nnewsstands comics are a
marginal product already. Letting them earn less money per copy sold
when those copies don't sell too well already menas they won't carry them.
I'd think a opposite approach, by offering higher priced comics *with*
value for money , say a 100 page comics magazine for $4.95, will do
better. That way, the margin of profit for the retailer can be higher,
which means a bigger incentive to carry comics, while the reader will
get a nice big package of comics for the same price she spends on
'niche" magazines like Wired.
(a comic which takes this approach and makes it work is Heavy Metal)
: >People don't mind paying a premium price for what they
: >percieve as a premium product.
:
: Trouble is, most comics aren't premium product.
Oh, but there are. I've no trouble paying $2.95 for a copy of Berlin,
but i wouldn't buy any Marvel comic at that price. Why? Because
comics like Berlin do offer a premium product so i don't mind
paying more.
Martin Wisse
PatDOneill
In article <6jthji$2...@bgtnsc03.worldnet.att.net>,
Crapped.I...@uncleSPAM.gov (WAMbo) writes:
>>How long do you think the stockholders would keep the current management in
>>place if everything they sold deliberately lost money?
>
> Who gives a shit what the stockholders think? If they're too short-
>sighted to see that inflated cover prices have caused readers to bail, and
>would-be readers to cringe and turn away, then fuck 'em.
Fuck the stockholders and they change management until they have one that will
do what they want. Or they sell the company to someone who breaks it up and
there's no comics being published, period.
PatDOneill
>But the small press comics you malign are the
>industry's only hope to GROW the readership, to get NEW PEOPLE reading
>comics.
Not if the majority of it is of a quality that, 25 years ago, would have been
relegated to "fanzine" status....and most of it is. Sure, you can point to the
shining lights--StrayBullets and the like--but the vast majority of
self-published, small press stuff straddles the border of what would have been
considered amateur quality in the days before the DM (and much of it falls on
the wrong side of the border, IMO).
WindyTWise
>Random data point: I was in NYC this past week and dropped by DC while I was
> there. Their current guess is that CHASE is in about 50% of direct market
> stores. I've never once entered a store that hadn't ordered at least a small
> number of shelf copies of CHASE, so I dunno where these other stores are.
CHASE has dropped in sales for the last couple of months straight, and put it
below the Mendoza line for DC. While typical for new issue numbering, the face
that DC is trying to put on the situation by saying "50% of the stores" seems
like a bit of self hype... a way of keeping the title around to see if a
turnaround in interest happens. (Internal hype or hope, depending on how you
see it.) I don't know the internal workings of DC, but if half of 3500 outlets
are ordering CHASE, that means that the average store went from ordering 10
copies of the book to 9 copies, OR that fewer stores are ordering it, OR that
if MORE stores are ordering it, then the average store is starting the run at
the #5 issue, and there are fewer than an average of 8 copies per store that
does have it.
Anytime someone suggests that any product is only in part of the total market,
and combines that with declining sales, it suggests that the product hasn't
"found it's niche." Which in some cases is true.
The BEST thing that could be said about the "50%" would be that FEWER stores
are ordering CHASE, because that would mean that the stores that are selling it
are selling more. Sounds scary, but all that means is that the product needs
better advertising.
Walt"once again, talking out the wrong end of his anatomy" Stone
Elayne Wechsler-Chaput
PatDOneill (patdo...@aol.com) wrote:
: In article <356205BB...@geocities.com>, lordj...@geocities.com writes:
: >But the small press comics you malign are the
: >industry's only hope to GROW the readership, to get NEW PEOPLE reading
: >comics.
: Not if the majority of it is of a quality that, 25 years ago, would have been
: relegated to "fanzine" status....and most of it is. Sure, you can point to the
: shining lights--StrayBullets and the like--but the vast majority of
: self-published, small press stuff straddles the border of what would have been
: considered amateur quality in the days before the DM (and much of it falls on
: the wrong side of the border, IMO).
Reluctant as I am to contribute a "me too" post... :)
This is one of the things I've been harping on. If you're going to go to
the trouble and expense of putting out a comic book that, by its
trappings, is supposed to represent a professional endeavor, and compete
with the other professional-looking stuff out there from the major
companies, by God at least have the talent or presence of mind to make it
look professional! And I'm not talking about stylistic stuff-- I think
Jason Asala and Mark Crilley, for instance, have extremely fascinating,
professional styles-- I'm talking about a basic knowledge of movement and
flow and graphic storytelling, and the ability to pull it off. Readers,
*especially* new readers, aren't going to be interested in something that
looks like crap (except for those few who buy it on the "Cool, I can do
stuff just like this!" principle, which IMHO helps nobody because then it
just perpetuates itself). Moreover, a lot of times they're just plain
going to have trouble READING it. I wonder if part of the problem isn't
that a lot of these self-publishers with fanzine-level talent are putting
out so-called "professional" work for their own enjoyment, rather than
with an audience (and an audience with high expectations) in mind.
- Elayne
--
"I'm now going to smear clue musk on you and stand you in a field of horny
clues in the middle of clue mating season. I think it's the only way you
could ever possibly *get* A Clue."
- Leah Adezio
Nat Gertler
Bob Heer wrote:
>
> I'd say that's a bit low. 17,000 copies at $2.50 is $17,000 wholesale if
> you assume they get 40% of cover (they might get more than that on average
> now that they broker through Diamond rather than sell to them). If you
> assume say $500 to get a page written, pencilled, inked, lettered and
> coloured, that alone runs you over $11,000, leaving only $6,000 for
> printing and other costs.
But there are also other factors such as ad income.
M. High
In article <tygEt8...@netcom.com> Tom Galloway, t...@netcom.com writes:
>In article <6jt5g7$oei$1...@shell15.ba.best.com> cri...@best.com (Crisper Than >Thou) writes:
>> there. Their current guess is that CHASE is in about 50% of direct market
>> stores. I've never once entered a store that hadn't ordered at least a small
>> number of shelf copies of CHASE, so I dunno where these other stores are.
>
>Diamond's close to direct market monopoly, it'd seem possible to do a
>bit of data mining to understand the market better and perhaps target
>some campaigns.
Yes, Diamond can fairly easily produce a sales report showing the exact
number of stores that ordered any title, broken down by discount level.
Antarctic Press has received reports like this in the past - for a
relatively nominal fee.
But I should point out that such information is proprietary. DC could
very well know exactly how many copies of each of their titles is selling
in stores, but aren't really allowed to give out that kind of information.
BTW, 50% of all stores ordering CHASE would not be unreasonable. Most
stores have less than 200 facings for new comics, and with a little more
than 500 new comics coming out each month (not to mention relists, trade
paperbacks, etc), there's not room to show everything. I doubt more
than a dozen stores order at least one of everything (Westfield, Mile
High, Comics and Comix, Lonestar, a few others...). I would go so far as
to say that a majority of stores probably order less than half of all
comics available each month (most Marvel titles, most (but not all) DC
titles, the color Image titles, and a sampling from a dozen other
publishers).
Best,
- mlh
WindyTWise
>Most
>stores have less than 200 facings for new comics, and with a little more
>than 500 new comics coming out each month (not to mention relists, trade
>paperbacks, etc), there's not room to show everything. I doubt more
>than a dozen stores order at least one of everything (Westfield, Mile
>High, Comics and Comix, Lonestar, a few others...). I would go so far as
>to say that a majority of stores probably order less than half of all
>comics available each month (most Marvel titles, most (but not all) DC
>titles, the color Image titles, and a sampling from a dozen other
>publishers).
Once again a great point. For every title that actually has a store slot
("facing"?) that holds a book that is down on the overall sales list, that
means the owner has chosen that book instead of perhaps a better selling
(nationally) title. Not always, because of variations of sales and the
preliminary nature of the presale orders, but in general, if a store is
carrying CHASE instead of (sticking with DC for the example) LEGIONNAIRES, that
owner risks losing the sale (on average) of maybe what, one more copy a month?
Multiply that by a few other titles, and it might mean 50 bucks a month.
Granted, each owner should hype some stuff, but quite frankly, it's all sales
to him/her. It's his/her job to get you to buy and then come back. Such is
the temporal nature of sequential art.
If someone buys CHASE, then the series is cut, the customer isn't going to be
switched over to another comic as easily. So, isn't it in the best interest of
all for the store owner (if he/she IS going to try to push anything)
If the profit is the same, why not push something with a better chance?
Because the owner wants his advice to mean something, of course. And well it
should. I listen to the bait guy when I go fishing, and when my fishing hole
isn't working for me, I do go to where others go. And if the advice is no
good, I do remember that.
But I still buy my bait where it's cheapest.
Walt "fishing for Spanish Mackerel Memorial Day!" Stone
David W. Stepp
In article <YhF81.2645$wM5.3...@news.giganews.com>, M. High
<mhigh@|SPAMBLOCK.antarctic-press.com> wrote:
> In article <tygEt8...@netcom.com> Tom Galloway, t...@netcom.com writes:
> >In article <6jt5g7$oei$1...@shell15.ba.best.com> cri...@best.com (Crisper
Than >Thou) writes:
> >>Random data point: I was in NYC this past week and dropped by DC while I was
> >> there. Their current guess is that CHASE is in about 50% of direct market
> >> stores. I've never once entered a store that hadn't ordered at least
a small
> >> number of shelf copies of CHASE, so I dunno where these other stores are.
> >
> >Hmm. Anyone know why DC couldn't get an exact percentage from Diamond?
> >Not just for Chase, but for any book (and publishers other than DC). Given
> >Diamond's close to direct market monopoly, it'd seem possible to do a
> >bit of data mining to understand the market better and perhaps target
> >some campaigns.
> BTW, 50% of all stores ordering CHASE would not be unreasonable. Most
> stores have less than 200 facings for new comics, and with a little more
> than 500 new comics coming out each month (not to mention relists, trade
> paperbacks, etc), there's not room to show everything. I doubt more
> than a dozen stores order at least one of everything (Westfield, Mile
> High, Comics and Comix, Lonestar, a few others...). I would go so far as
> to say that a majority of stores probably order less than half of all
> comics available each month (most Marvel titles, most (but not all) DC
> titles, the color Image titles, and a sampling from a dozen other
> publishers).
A point I would make here is that one needs to consider DM outlets vs
comics store. They are not entirely synonymous. For example, a "chain" in
Milwaukee is called "Capital Collectibles" or some such drivel and owns a
few stories in various shopping malls. In general, there comics selection
is pretty dismal and I have no recollection of Chase being offered there.
They way the make up the income is to diversify their kinds of merchandise
(sports card, statues, action figures, beanie babies) rather than the
kinds of comics. While they no doubt qualify as a DM outlet (they carry a
lot of the other specialty junk Diamond sells), they are not all that big
on comics. A key question would then be what percentage of Diamond
customer that make all their income from comics don't carry Chase?
Probably less than 50%. It would also be interesting (and telling) to know
what percentage of Diamond customers fit either of those descriptions.
D.
--
I am exactly as I appear. There is no warm, lovable person inside. Beneath my cold exterior, once you break the ice, you find cold water. - Gore Vidal, 1972.
WindyTWise
> A point I would make here is that one needs to consider DM outlets vs
>comics store.
I wouldn't doubt that there are figures for each of the 60+ comics that DC puts
out...
Total sales DM
Total sales newstand, etc.
Percent store DM
Percent (of newstands that already carry some DC comics) newstand.
Increase/decrease for each one.
In other words, at what point does DC put a comic on the newstands? Again,
there has to be a decision to exclude another DC comic.
Are the number of DC comics on each newstand increasing? Decreasing? Sales
per comic? Multiplied out, the sales per newstand display? Averaged,
regional, etc.
It would matter if one wanted to see how advertising would work on a regional
basis.
Say, for example a large well selling DC title has a page for a DC ad. IF DC
could control the distribution on a regional level of the large selling comic
book, say to the Diamond dist. centers, wherever the heck they are, and then
for the most part (nothing is exact) put an ad out for a lower selling comic
and watch the regional orders for that comic in that area.
It would be a nice test of how well the advertising works...
Not exactly the point I was trying to make to the above post, but a nice
thought all the same.
Point is, DC can do whatever they want, within reason. I have some confidence
they already have thought of doing detailed marketing research like this.
and Matt's right, the Diamond data is closely held.
TV Guide and Wall Street Journal are both regionally printed with targeted ads.
TIME tried some of that as well. Mixed results.
Walt"Dilbert-like, only less funny" Stone
David W. Stepp
In article <199805202000...@ladder01.news.aol.com>,
windy...@aol.com (WindyTWise) wrote:
> > A point I would make here is that one needs to consider DM outlets vs
> >comics store.
>
> I wouldn't doubt that there are figures for each of the 60+ comics that
DC puts
> out...
> Total sales DM
> Total sales newstand, etc.
> Percent store DM
> Percent (of newstands that already carry some DC comics) newstand.
> Increase/decrease for each one.
>
> In other words, at what point does DC put a comic on the newstands? Again,
> there has to be a decision to exclude another DC comic.
>
> Are the number of DC comics on each newstand increasing? Decreasing? Sales
> per comic? Multiplied out, the sales per newstand display? Averaged,
> regional, etc.
You missed the point. This has nothing to do with the newstand. The
point was that no all DM outlets are "comic stores" nor or they the
newstand. Within the DM, there is heterogenity (I don't know how great but
would like to know) in terms of the % of comics that make up the store
income. My own dealer is probably in the 90+% range. The mall chain I
mentioned is probably far less than that. In an interview a year or so
back, Steve Geppi discussed the evolution of comics store to "collectibles
outlets". While he didn't say as much, it seem obvious that the logical
casualty of this is comics with low sales and questionable subject matter
with dealers moving the shelf-space to much more movable or high-profit
stuff. Reading material of the serial type would play a much smaller role
in the store's total income and ergo get much less attention and shelf
space. This, I suspect, is at least a big a threat to the liveilhood of
the industry as the frank disappearance of stores, which at least in this
area, seems to be falling off.
BRUHED
<<<I think there's a non-super-hero market out there that buys TPBs instead of
individual comics. >>>
Got any idea where they are or how to reach 'em?
(They don't seem to dig buying funny stuff!)
;-)
Mike Pascale
Artist/writer, Schism Comics
THE COLLECTED BRU-HED (tpbk), BRU-HED'S GUIDE TO GETTIN' GIRLS NOW!
and BRU-HED'S BUNNIES, BADDIES & BUDDIES (All still available!)
Reorder from Diamond, SyCo or Cold Cut.
WindyTWise
> You missed the point. This has nothing to do with the newstand. The
>point was that no all DM outlets are "comic stores" nor or they the
>newstand. Within the DM, there is heterogenity (I don't know how great but
>would like to know) in terms of the % of comics that make up the store
>income. My own dealer is probably in the 90+% range. The mall chain I
>mentioned is probably far less than that. In an interview a year or so
>back, Steve Geppi discussed the evolution of comics store to "collectibles
>outlets".
You are right. I did miss the point. the beanie baby sellers can merge with
the sports card dealers. It's a closer fit than with comic book sales folk.
Part of the fall off of sales that we might be blaming on comic book stores
failing might actually be from these mall collectible sellers who once carried
several lines of comics but finally gave up trying to sell anything that wasn't
collectible.
So, you wonder how many sales outlets that buy from Diamond don't sell comics
as their primary line of product?
I can't imagine continueing to order the Diamond minimums just so that the
occasional collector's variant can be got at the small discount.
And, likewise, if there is more than one store that the guy owns, he's going to
slap a few comics in both the regular comic book store and the collectibles
store.
Well, if the amount of comics got so low at any sales outlet, wouldn't it be
about right for the store to either a: give up selling comics or b: go to the
newstand distributors to get a couple of "spinners" with a returnable policy?
Granted, the comics wouldn't represent collector's items any more, but if the
sales were that low, who would notice?
Walt " a collector's item in any store" Stone
Hernan Espinoza
fire...@panix.com (Elayne Wechsler-Chaput) writes:
>Reluctant as I am to contribute a "me too" post... :)
Enh, there's new stuff in here. 8-)
>This is one of the things I've been harping on. If you're going to go to
>the trouble and expense of putting out a comic book that, by its
>trappings, is supposed to represent a professional endeavor, and compete
>with the other professional-looking stuff out there from the major
>companies, by God at least have the talent or presence of mind to make it
>look professional!
Elayne, you realize how snobbish that sounds, don't you? 8-)
(professional snobbiness is just as bad as intellectual, IMHO. ;-) )
I am probably not the best spokeman for this position because
I was raised Type A, do-it-right-or-don't-do-it, but I think it is
worth remembering that not everyone is. Competition and quality are not
everyone's #1 priority...sometimes it's fun, sometimes it's Art (yes, I know)
and sometimes it's money. I may not agree with their priorities, but
it's their time, effort, and resources.
Now, I know you're thinking, "Yeah, but it does hurt me and the whole
industry" Thing is, snobs (like me) always say that the very existence
of sub-par material diminishes and endangers works of true quality (usually
by virtue of its volume)...and yet, quality never quite drowns in the
sea of crap that's always been there. Go figure.
-Hernan, it's always struck me as excuses and finger-pointing
...which has never stopped me from doing it, of course. 8-)
PatDOneill
>Competition and quality are not
>everyone's #1 priority...sometimes it's fun, sometimes it's Art (yes, I know)
>and sometimes it's money. I may not agree with their priorities, but
>it's their time, effort, and resources.
>
>
But it's not just theirs...every sub-par item listed in Previews is one more
thing that retailers and/or consumers have to wade through to find the good
stuff.
And I'm not necessarily talking about talent here; I'm talking professionalism,
pride in craft, if you will. A sloppy print job, half-assed type-setting,
whatever.
Look at it this way--would you consider it OK if a baseball club owner hired
players who couldn't live up to the standards of the professional leagues?
The Icicle
In article <199805202120...@ladder03.news.aol.com>,
windy...@aol.com (WindyTWise) wrote:
> I can't imagine continueing to order the Diamond minimums just so that the
> occasional collector's variant can be got at the small discount.
>
> And, likewise, if there is more than one store that the guy owns, he's
going to
> slap a few comics in both the regular comic book store and the collectibles
> store.
>
> Well, if the amount of comics got so low at any sales outlet, wouldn't it be
> about right for the store to either a: give up selling comics or b: go to the
> newstand distributors to get a couple of "spinners" with a returnable
policy?
> Granted, the comics wouldn't represent collector's items any more, but if the
> sales were that low, who would notice?
1 - You can get a lot more from Diamond than comics. It would not take
much to get up to the minimums in staturary, and Previews also solicits
merchandise like mugs, T-shirts, Magic:cards and action figures and all
sorts of stuff. A lot of it not per se comics related like South Park,
Stars Wars and the Godzilla movie. Comics are not per se the bottom line,
clearly something Geppi is aware of.
2 - Space is always at a premium, especially at high public interface
locations like malls. More likely they would just bag comics completely or
resort to behind the counter stuff. An even more likely event is that
Diamond would begin to pressure the companies to produce more
"collectible" comics.
The grand conclusion. Diamond, the DM and "comics shop" are not the
salvation of anything. Somehow, in some form, the big boys have got to get
back into mainstream distribution venues. The fanboys will take care of
the DM just like we always have.
D.
--
"I find that you do better by your characters when you just love them and live with them than you do when you try to freeze everything in place and revere them to death." _ Eliot S! Maggin, on character development in comics
-------------------------------------------------------------------
The Comic Archives
http://www.execpc.com/~icicle/main.html
#1 Internet Source of Information of DC's Golden Age Heroes
Bradly E. Peterson
espi...@cgl.ucsf.edu (Hernan Espinoza) done said this here deal:
> I am probably not the best spokeman for this position because
^^^^^^^^
Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah,
nah, nah, nah, SPOKEMAN! heh... Isn't he in the upcoming
"Suicide Squid Super Spectacular" coming out this fall?
CCandC
>Got any idea where they are or how to reach 'em?
>(They don't seem to dig buying funny stuff!)
Yeah really! Seems like fewer and fewer people are into humor. There are some
great humorous books out (Bru-Hed, Hey Mister, Dork, Hate etc.). Sad enough,
sales on those are down.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Karin
Colzac Comics & Collectibles
8767 Mathis Ave
Manassas VA 20110
703-330-8227
Elayne Wechsler-Chaput
Hernan Espinoza (espi...@cgl.ucsf.edu) wrote:
: fire...@panix.com (Elayne Wechsler-Chaput) writes:
: >Reluctant as I am to contribute a "me too" post... :)
: Enh, there's new stuff in here. 8-)
: >This is one of the things I've been harping on. If you're going to go to
: >the trouble and expense of putting out a comic book that, by its
: >trappings, is supposed to represent a professional endeavor, and compete
: >with the other professional-looking stuff out there from the major
: >companies, by God at least have the talent or presence of mind to make it
: >look professional!
: Elayne, you realize how snobbish that sounds, don't you? 8-)
: (professional snobbiness is just as bad as intellectual, IMHO. ;-) )
I disagree. It would be snobbish if I were to exclude myself. I draw as
badly as some of these people, but I have no illusions about putting my
scribbles in a professional format. And I've been publishing and writing
on an amateur level, via the zine world, for 25 years. Yeah, I think my
writing might be at a more professional level now, I'm certainly working
towards that, but I see nothing wrong with going the zine route if your
stuff just isn't up to professional snuff. I speak from experience.
: Competition and quality are not everyone's #1 priority...
Of course not. Some people are very happy being underground. I was very
happy doing zines. But I never presented my zines as something they
weren't (i.e., professional publications). If these people want to do
underground or fringe stuff, fine, but at least acknowledge that your
stuff isn't professional and oughtn't be considered in the same venues
(i.e., Diamond) that are supposed to carry professional publications. if
you're going to go alternative, by God, go alternative!
: Now, I know you're thinking, "Yeah, but it does hurt me and the whole
: industry"...
I think amateurs and wanna-bes, especially artists, trying to pass
themselves off as professionals *does* hurt the perception of the
industry, sure. For one, enough of these people floating about putting
out amateur stuff tends to crowd out those people actually producing
something of worth and interest to more than a fringe segment, something
that *could* change people's opinions about comics. A new reader isn't
necessarily going to want to read something slick, but he or she IS going
to expect to get his or her money's worth by purchasing what he or she
sees as a professionally-done work. And much of the wanna-be art out
there just doesn't cut it, and ought not to be marketed as though it did.
I realize a lot of this is a judgement call. I think Joe Chiapetta's art,
for instance, is fanzine-level. Terry Beatty and Tony Isabella, two well-
respected industry professionals, disagree with me. So yeah, to an extent
this is subjective, and can be misread as snobbery, and I acknowledge
that. I'd just like these wanna-bes to be a bit more honest with
themselves, and if they *do* want to present themselves as professionals
they should do a bit of self-evaluation and always strive to improve their
output so that it *does* meet professional expectations.
: Thing is, snobs (like me) always say that the very existence
: of sub-par material diminishes and endangers works of true quality (usually
: by virtue of its volume)...and yet, quality never quite drowns in the
: sea of crap that's always been there.
See, I think it has. Why else would something like PATTY CAKE be selling
less than 800 copies? Or AKIKO less than 15,000? That's criminal.
God knows I'm not advocating fewer comics. I'm merely advocating BETTER
ones (again, yes, subjective call). So should we all.
Elayne Wechsler-Chaput
Mike Pascale (bru...@aol.com) wrote:
: <<<I think there's a non-super-hero market out there that buys TPBs instead of
: individual comics. >>>
: Got any idea where they are or how to reach 'em?
: (They don't seem to dig buying funny stuff!)
Well, depends on your sense of humor. I don't find BRU-HED particularly
funny, to tell you the truth (but you'll see that in my review).
I should think it would be *easier* to sell a comedic graphic trade
paperback than it would be to sell more serious stuff, because there's
already rack space for that sort of thing in mainstream bookstores. I'd
be curious as to how well Bill Morrison's going to do with his ROSWELL
tpb, that would seem tailor-made for this sort of thing. Mark Evanier, if
you're out there, how have the GROO volumes done?
Elayne Wechsler-Chaput
: >and sometimes it's money. I may not agree with their priorities, but
: >it's their time, effort, and resources.
: But it's not just theirs...every sub-par item listed in Previews is one more
: thing that retailers and/or consumers have to wade through to find the good
: stuff.
: And I'm not necessarily talking about talent here; I'm talking professionalism,
: pride in craft, if you will. A sloppy print job, half-assed type-setting,
: whatever.
Well, hey, I'm talking about both talent and craft. :)
: Look at it this way--would you consider it OK if a baseball club owner hired
: players who couldn't live up to the standards of the professional leagues?
Exactly so. This is what the minors are for. I see nothing wrong with or
degrading about "minor league" comics, I buy a number of them myself, but
I'd rather they didn't go around pretending to be in the majors.
lordj...@geocities.com
Elayne Wechsler-Chaput wrote:
> PatDOneill (patdo...@aol.com) wrote:
> : In article <356205BB...@geocities.com>, lordj...@geocities.com writes:
>
> : >But the small press comics you malign are the
> : >industry's only hope to GROW the readership, to get NEW PEOPLE reading
> : >comics.
>
> : Not if the majority of it is of a quality that, 25 years ago, would have been
> : relegated to "fanzine" status....and most of it is. Sure, you can point to the
> : shining lights--StrayBullets and the like--but the vast majority of
> : self-published, small press stuff straddles the border of what would have been
> : considered amateur quality in the days before the DM (and much of it falls on
> : the wrong side of the border, IMO).
>
> Reluctant as I am to contribute a "me too" post... :)
>
> This is one of the things I've been harping on. If you're going to go to
> the trouble and expense of putting out a comic book that, by its
> trappings, is supposed to represent a professional endeavor, and compete
> with the other professional-looking stuff out there from the major
> companies, by God at least have the talent or presence of mind to make it
> look professional!
I tried many times to pick up and read superhero books in the early 90s, and found
them almost uniformly unreadable (notable exceptions include Peter David's Hulk, but
it wasn't good enough to make me want to buy it every month). Until Astro City, I
hadn't seen a superhero book that demanded my money since the mid 80s. The "vast
majority" (to use Pat's phrase) of books published by Marvel and the main DC line
are total crap. Many of the amateurishly presented comics you deride are much more
enjoyable, much more readable, and basically a better value for the money.
What you seem to be saying is that surface level "professional standards" is more
important than quality story and effective (which is not necessarily the same thing
as "attractive" or "professional" by your standards) art. A big-budget completely
empty Hollywood movie ("Twister") is somehow better than an obviously low budget
"amateurish" film, no matter how well done and heartfelt ("Chan Is Missing," which
I've been thinking about because I just saw a sneak preview of Wayne Wang's latest
film, "The Chinese Box"). I'm sorry, but this is just nonsense.
Sure, it's popular nonsense - "Twister" made millions of dollars, and you probably
never heard of "Chan Is Missing," and if you've heard of Wang at all you probably
think "The Joy Luck Club" was his first movie. But "Chan Is Missing" was a far more
interesting, far more valuable, and basically much better movie than "Twister," even
though it was shot on poor black and white film stock with a cast consisting almost
entirely of people with no professional acting experience and cost only $20,000.
Fifteen years after seeing it once, I remember characters and am haunted by scenes
in that movie. What I remember about "Twister" is a flying cow.
In the same manner, the first Cerebus comic book, with its still-rough art and its
matte-finish inside cover (because they couldn't afford to use paper coated on both
sides, which was and is the standard) is more valuable - not just in Overstreet but
in real terms - than almost any other comic published in December 1977. Today, there
are 10 comics that resemble that Cerebus for every "professional" (by your
definition) comic published. Personally, I do not think this is a bad thing.
--
J. Stephen Bolhafner (Steve)
Check out This Week's Good Read!
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Zone/9923/thisweek.html
"Anyone who is not intelligent enough to agree with me
is too stupid to live." - Josef Stalin
WindyTWise
>God knows I'm not advocating fewer comics. I'm merely advocating BETTER
>ones (again, yes, subjective call). So should we all.
I think you make an excellent point. Good for you.
But anytime anyone slams any creative type for any reason, the yap goes out
that "well, the critic never could do this good, the critic has no room to
talk."
Everyone loves to point at Siskel and Ebert and how (one? both?) did some of
the writing to "Valley of the Dolls" - it falls on pretty weak ears, but that's
the nature of humanity.
I think the main point is, if one (or a whole set) of reviewer(s) focus on one
segment of the market, like the alternative (and/or relatively low selling)
comics, any random criticism of more "mainstream" publications might or might
not be valid, but the source of the criticism may not give the review much
credence.
The reverse is also true. Focusing on the mainstream market might get the
reviews seen by the most people, but those that read and support the smaller or
alternative comics will feel that the reviewer has "sold out" or otherwise is
trying to curry favor with movers and shakers in the business.
As the market shrinks, the bigger publications aren't quite the juggernauts of
popularity they once were. By comparison, the smaller publications have, by
default of just hanging in there HAVE become more important.
So, there are cross purposes at work. Push the good, but increase the market
to current non-readers.
The comic book market by and large is being added to by readers that, for the
most part, aren't going to read too much besides what is on the stand right
next to the comic they buy for the first few times.
It stands to reason that Wizard is almost like a comic book itself.
There is room for valid criticism on an artistic side and a story side of most
publications, as well as the magazines' "sell-out-quotient"(my term) which in
Wizard's case seems pretty high. (In other words, anything put in that
magazine is going to be pretty well spoken of.)
Online reviews, be they in Usenet or on web pages or e-zines as well as the
smaller mags, reach an audience that for the most part already have a comic
book habit, er, budget.
Criticism in the reviews that reach those that already buy comics can afford to
be harsher.
If anyone expects Wizard to have the same level of criticism as trade mags, it
looks like they have the wrong idea.
But, as a intro magazine into comics, has Wizard done it's job?
In that, all mags within the industry can (and should) freely comment.
Sure. Any commentary that anyone makes about Wizard could be tinged with the
appearance of sour grapes, but no matter.
I think we all have some thoughts on the fact that Wizard is making money on
advertising the "collectiblity" of toys (Toy-fare) as well as comics, and that
most of us beilieve that collectiblity has caused this relative downturn in the
comic book market.
I don't believe there are too many here that wouldn't want to tell Wizard to
tone down the "collectiblity" aspect of the comic book collecting, but that
part of the industry is still very addictive at the same time it (in my
opinion) damages the overall viability of that same industry.
Walt "will suck up to almost anyone for a winning Powerball ticket" Stone
lordj...@geocities.com
David W. Stepp wrote:
> A point I would make here is that one needs to consider DM outlets vs
> comics store. They are not entirely synonymous. For example, a "chain" in
> Milwaukee is called "Capital Collectibles" or some such drivel and owns a
> few stories in various shopping malls. In general, there comics selection
> is pretty dismal and I have no recollection of Chase being offered there.
> They way the make up the income is to diversify their kinds of merchandise
> (sports card, statues, action figures, beanie babies) rather than the
> kinds of comics. While they no doubt qualify as a DM outlet (they carry a
> lot of the other specialty junk Diamond sells), they are not all that big
> on comics. A key question would then be what percentage of Diamond
> customer that make all their income from comics don't carry Chase?
> Probably less than 50%. It would also be interesting (and telling) to know
> what percentage of Diamond customers fit either of those descriptions.
This is a VERY good point. Once upon a time there were five or six thousand comic book stores, most of which had comics as their main business (although many had
gaming materials and/or baseball cards). Now, many of the DM outlets Diamond supplies seem to have comics as an afterthought, and damned few of them. I know one
mall outlet that calls itself "Comics & Cards" but has space for only a dozen or so comics on one wall. This is not an exaggeration. It's a tiny hole in the wall
along a walkway connecting two sections of the mall, but the point is this that this place cannot be thought of as a comic shop in any real sense, yet it is one
of the 4,000 Diamond reports as existing.
WindyTWise
>In the same manner, the first Cerebus comic book, with its still-rough art
>and its
>matte-finish inside cover (because they couldn't afford to use paper coated
>on both
>sides, which was and is the standard) is more valuable - not just in
>Overstreet but
>in real terms - than almost any other comic published in December 1977.
>Today, there
>are 10 comics that resemble that Cerebus for every "professional" (by your
>definition) comic published. Personally, I do not think this is a bad thing.
"Let's all get together and have a good ole' fashioned barn raising!"
Yep. That's what it sounds like. Yes, I know that flash and packaging doesn't
equal content, but the fact of life is that, sad but true,
CONTENT ISN'T KING.
I'd like, no, I'd love to say otherwise, but that isn't the case.
In sports, they have a saying for it. It's called "Scoreboard."
(folks tell me that the weaker team won the Superbowl this last year.
Technically this isn't true, but the stronger team (on paper) didn't win the
game that day. That's why they still play the game.)
Talent in smaller publications is an opportunity to get noticed.
It's not a guarantee of money, fame, or a ticket anywhere.
Yeah, yeah. Crap floats, and in the entertainment biz, it's been known to sing
the national anthem.
Comics today lend themselves to self publishing, and we all love the underdog.
Those obscure movies that occasionally pop up that are worth it often have
creative talents that are eventually rewarded. But it takes distributor
profits for those movies ever to make it to any screen in town. Profits from
the movies like Twister.
And like it or not, profits from X-Men and the like allow the comic book stores
to exist, allowing the other comic book startups along the lines of Cerebus to
actually have a smidgen of a chance.
Walt "flying cow, stomping lizard, tank bug = audience" Stone
Elayne Wechsler-Chaput
lordj...@geocities.com wrote:
Gah, those line lengths! Can you reconfigure next time, Stephen? Thanks.
: Elayne Wechsler-Chaput wrote:
: > This is one of the things I've been harping on. If you're going to go to
: > the trouble and expense of putting out a comic book that, by its
: > trappings, is supposed to represent a professional endeavor, and compete
: > with the other professional-looking stuff out there from the major
: > companies, by God at least have the talent or presence of mind to make it
: > look professional!
: I tried many times to pick up and read superhero books in the early
: 90s...
I'm not speaking of only superhero books. I'm talking about well-drawn
and well-crafted comics, period. But it can't be denied that, at least to
potential readers, the artistic standards of self-published stuff are
probably going to be compared to the standards set by superhero artists,
simply because they're the most prevalent at present, and in most cases
the self-published stuff will be found wanting.
: What you seem to be saying is that surface level "professional
: standards" is more important than quality story...
No, I'm saying you can't divorce craft from story, at least most of the
time. Craft is PART of storytelling. To ignore that is to dismiss those
professionals who've spent years learning how to draw and write, as well
as all those aspiring pros learning how to do it now.
: A big-budget completely empty Hollywood movie ("Twister") is somehow
: better than an obviously low budget "amateurish" film, no matter how
: well done and heartfelt...
Yeah, I'll go out on a limb and say "Twister" is better than "Begotten."
Money has nothing to do with it. Many low-budget films are crafted
extremely well. Many low-budget comics are crafted extremely well.
Elayne Wechsler-Chaput
WindyTWise (windy...@aol.com) wrote:
: >God knows I'm not advocating fewer comics. I'm merely advocating BETTER
: >ones (again, yes, subjective call). So should we all.
: I think you make an excellent point. Good for you.
Thanks. I honestly don't think I have to defend my record here-- I
probably read and review more self-published and smaller-press stuff than
anyone else on rac*, and I'm advocating it constantly. But I'm also going
to call 'em as I see 'em, and if I think something's not up to the
standard it should be, and it's passing itself off as a more professional
endeavor than it is, I want to be honest about that in my reviews.
: But anytime anyone slams any creative type for any reason, the yap goes out
: that "well, the critic never could do this good, the critic has no room to
: talk."
Well, hell, I readily admit I can't draw worth a sack of beans! :) But
then you get into a kind of slippery area, the old "are you qualified to
judge the quality of something if you can't do it yourself" bit. But we
do this all the time when we make buying decisions in the first place.
And it's done all the time with just about all media. "I don't think this
movie was well-directed" doesn't mean "Put me behind the camera and I can
do better," it means "In my opinion, the director didn't do the job for
which she was paid."
: I think the main point is, if one (or a whole set) of reviewer(s) focus on one
: segment of the market, like the alternative (and/or relatively low selling)
: comics, any random criticism of more "mainstream" publications might or might
: not be valid, but the source of the criticism may not give the review much
: credence.
Well, I review both mainstream and alternative stuff, so "don't point at
me, daddy-o, I break your finger!" :)
: As the market shrinks, the bigger publications aren't quite the juggernauts of
: popularity they once were. By comparison, the smaller publications have, by
: default of just hanging in there HAVE become more important.
I wish you were right. But the numbers just don't reflect that. Like I
said, it's criminal that some of the best stuff out there, the stuff that
gets recognized with Eisner nominations and the like, isn't even pulling
10 thou in sales.
: It stands to reason that Wizard is almost like a comic book itself.
Wizard outsells like, what, the top five comic books put together?
: Online reviews, be they in Usenet or on web pages or e-zines as well as the
: smaller mags, reach an audience that for the most part already have a comic
: book habit, er, budget.
I know. That's my "preaching to the choir" bit. My "preaching to the
rest of the congregation" bit happens during my stints at the Friends of
Lulu booths. And I'm looking forward to preaching to people completely
outside of the congregation once FoL/New York's outreach committee gets in
gear and starts going to high schools, Girl Scout meetings, career days
and so forth.
: Criticism in the reviews that reach those that already buy comics can
: afford to be harsher.
Yeah, if you want to get hate letters from people who take honest critique
too personally. :) :) :)
I don't set out to critique harshly, except when someone like Bendis
pisses me off and I do a drive-by (and I identify it as such; I was a real
scumbag in my last post to him). I don't think it's constructive. When I
don't like something, I want to figure out why (as with my participation
in the thread about SILLY DADDY). And I'll try to be as specific as I can
about what I don't like, or else how's the person doing it going to know
what the (perceived) problem is? "It sucks" just ain't helpful, y'know?
: If anyone expects Wizard to have the same level of criticism as trade
: mags, it looks like they have the wrong idea.
I dunno. I think most trade mags are beholden to comic book companies for
their ad revenue, which tends to make some of their reviews just as
suspect.
: But, as a intro magazine into comics, has Wizard done it's job?
Good lord, with the amount it's selling? I don't think there's any
question that Wizard is a success-- for good or ill. I don't read it
myself, I don't think I'm the target audience. But neither do I think
anyone can deny that the magazine has made a significant impact on the
industry.
PatDOneill
>What you seem to be saying is that surface level "professional standards" is
>more
>thing
>as "attractive" or "professional" by your standards) art
I dunno about Elayne, but what *I* am saying is that a quality story and
effective art can be sabotaged by less than professional production standards.
I know many a science-fiction fan, for instance, who will acknowledge the
quality of the writing in a TV series such as DOCTOR WHO when given a book or
script of an episode, but who cannot *watch* the show because they can't get
past the cardboard sets and bargain-basement alien makeup.
To return to the baseball analogy--if you're going to play in the big leagues,
get used to the tighter strike zone the big league umpires insist on.
PatDOneill
>Everyone loves to point at Siskel and Ebert and how (one? both?) did some of
>the writing to "Valley of the Dolls" - it falls on pretty weak ears, but
>that's
>the nature of humanity.
>
>
Ebert--and it was "Return to the Valley of the Dolls" he co-wrote.
PatDOneill
>: If anyone expects Wizard to have the same level of criticism as trade
>: mags, it looks like they have the wrong idea.
>
>I dunno. I think most trade mags are beholden to comic book companies for
>their ad revenue, which tends to make some of their reviews just as
>suspect.
As one who has worked in trade mags in industries as diverse as office
products, jewelry, and broadcast engineering (as well as comics), it is a
truism that ALL trade mags are beholden to the manufacturers in their
industries for ad revenues...and more so in most industries than in comics,
because in most industries the trade mags are free to "qualified subscribers,"
and thus have no circulation revenue to supplement the ad revenue.
Matches Malone
PatDOneill (patdo...@aol.com) wrote:
> Look at it this way--would you consider it OK if a baseball club owner hired
> players who couldn't live up to the standards of the professional leagues?
Heh. Ever heard of the Florida Marlins? :)
--
- Matches (no matter what name my server gave me today)
********************************************************
** "Look!! Defenseless babies!!" - Irwin M. Fletcher **
*************************** schm...@email.unc.edu *****
Elayne Wechsler-Chaput
PatDOneill (patdo...@aol.com) wrote:
: >: If anyone expects Wizard to have the same level of criticism as trade
: >: mags, it looks like they have the wrong idea.
: >
: >I dunno. I think most trade mags are beholden to comic book companies for
: >their ad revenue, which tends to make some of their reviews just as
: >suspect.
: As one who has worked in trade mags in industries as diverse as office
: products, jewelry, and broadcast engineering (as well as comics), it is a
: truism that ALL trade mags are beholden to the manufacturers in their
: industries for ad revenues...
And therefore, anything they "review" of that nature is de facto suspect.
Not saying the reviews can't be fair, just that you have to follow the
money in a lot of these cases.
lordj...@geocities.com
PatDOneill wrote:
> I dunno about Elayne, but what *I* am saying is that a quality story and
> effective art can be sabotaged by less than professional production standards.
> I know many a science-fiction fan, for instance, who will acknowledge the
> quality of the writing in a TV series such as DOCTOR WHO when given a book or
> script of an episode, but who cannot *watch* the show because they can't get
> past the cardboard sets and bargain-basement alien makeup.
And there are others who would rather watch a good episode of DOCTOR WHO than a
more slickly produced but idiotic show like TEKWARS (or whatever that show was
based on the novels Shatner "wrote"). In fact, there are rather more of us, which
is why the public television stations that introduced DOCTOR WHO to America can't
afford it anymore and TEKWARS didn't last long.
Substance is more important than surface "professional standards." It just is. That
not everybody notices this no more negates it than everybody saying 2+2=5 would
make it so.
PJW
patdo...@aol.com (PatDOneill) writes:
> >What you seem to be saying is that surface level "professional standards" is
> >more
> >important than quality story and effective (which is not necessarily the same
> >thing
> >as "attractive" or "professional" by your standards) art
>
> effective art can be sabotaged by less than professional production standards.
> I know many a science-fiction fan, for instance, who will acknowledge the
> quality of the writing in a TV series such as DOCTOR WHO when given a book or
> script of an episode, but who cannot *watch* the show because they can't get
> past the cardboard sets and bargain-basement alien makeup.
Then again, while STAR TREK VOYAGER has superior special effects and
make-up to the original STAR TREK, the original blows VOYAGER away.
We may laugh at the bad fx, the papier mache boulders, the go-go dancer
eyeliner and costumes, but the writing and the characters still redeem it.
Why? The story. (btw, DR WHO blows VOYAGER away, too. Well, at least
some of the DR WHOs. The last few years of WHO were pretty wretched --
bad stories.)
> To return to the baseball analogy--if you're going to play in the big leagues,
> get used to the tighter strike zone the big league umpires insist on.
>
>
WindyTWise
>> quality of the writing in a TV series such as DOCTOR WHO when given a book
>or
>> script of an episode, but who cannot *watch* the show because they can't
>get
>> past the cardboard sets and bargain-basement alien makeup.
>And there are others who would rather watch a good episode of DOCTOR WHO than
>a
>more slickly produced but idiotic show like TEKWARS (or whatever that show
>was
>based on the novels Shatner "wrote"). In fact, there are rather more of us,
>which
>is why the public television stations that introduced DOCTOR WHO to America
>can't
>afford it anymore and TEKWARS didn't last long.
>
>Substance is more important than surface "professional standards." It just
>is. That
>not everybody notices this no more negates it than everybody saying 2+2=5
>would
>make it so.
Perhaps. But when big money is spent on putting any story on the screen, flash
has it's place.
Count me on those that side with Pat on this. We all want quality FX with a
quality story, but we all know that it is hard to bring both together on screen
at the same time. Production by committee sees to that in many cases.
Names and contacts will get a book or series produced, and we all know that the
attachment of Shatner's name to that Tek stuff sold it. It might have flown
without it (we'll never know) but sometimes money behind entertainment doesn't
know the genre, only the way in which the product can be sold.
Gene Roddenbury's "Earth: The Final Conflict" SHOULD have sold without Gene's
name attached, but it sold with it.
This isn't the Sci-Fi newsgroup, but the examples cross over well to the comic
book industry.
There are groups that would watch something initially for the first time based
on the name, or the flash, or the special effects, and there are those that
will turn off something based on the story, or on the extra cheesy FX.
I am not extremely familiar with the production of the early DOCTOR WHO (though
my screen name was derived in part from that show), but I guess that IF the
powers that were producing that show insisted on high production values, the
show might not have aired, or aired for long.
Yes, you are right, Steve, the show was good in spite of its FX. But there was
reportedly a fight early on and a split up of one of the creative teams based
on a request to tone down the horror aspect of the early shows. (somewhere
around, what, the fourth doctor?)
The thinking was, that people were tuning out (or not tuning in) based on the
reportedly unnecessary horrific elements.
So, it's not just FX, or pure story, it can be other more um, esoteric things.
I think the same thing can be said for most comics.
Walt "Windy The Wise was a character I had in mind for one of The Doctor's many
assistants... back when I thought being an assistant to The Doctor was like
wearing a red uniform on a guest shot in the original Star Trek series" Stone
WindyTWise
>: As one who has worked in trade mags in industries as diverse as office
>: products, jewelry, and broadcast engineering (as well as comics), it is a
>: truism that ALL trade mags are beholden to the manufacturers in their
>: industries for ad revenues...
>
>And therefore, anything they "review" of that nature is de facto suspect.
>Not saying the reviews can't be fair, just that you have to follow the
>money in a lot of these cases.
I don't think you'll find too much disagreement in this part of the discussion.
Even though I have driven cars, and would be happy to give car reviews, I
couldn't put a car together if I owned the factory.
Most folks would read reviews in their own paper, but when they know they need
to only buy ONE car, many folks turn to Consumer Reports, because it doesn't
accept ads.
I think we have to remember the audience of the newest entries to the comic
buying realm.
The turnover in the comic book business' "buying public" is higher than most
other industries, and as such constantly has to be made aware of what is going
on.
And they're(the youngest members) are easily swayed by flash.
So, there is a difference between the assumed "journalistic reporting" of a
Wizard style publication (or www.mania.com) than most other publications in the
industry.
Walt "watch for US Marshall Walt Stone in the pages of THE WALLFLOWER, now the
main feature on the opening web page of Harlequin's web site, www.romance.net"
Hernan Espinoza
dr...@OMELETTEDUFROMAGEfastlane.net (Bradly E. Peterson) writes:
>espi...@cgl.ucsf.edu (Hernan Espinoza) done said this here deal:
>> I am probably not the best spokeman for this position because
> ^^^^^^^^
>Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah,
>nah, nah, nah, SPOKEMAN! heh... Isn't he in the upcoming
>"Suicide Squid Super Spectacular" coming out this fall?
Yes, to do battle with his arch nemesis Rimman, but the
story just goes round and round....
-Hernan
Hernan Espinoza
fire...@panix.com (Elayne Wechsler-Chaput) writes:
>Hernan Espinoza (espi...@cgl.ucsf.edu) wrote:
>: Elayne, you realize how snobbish that sounds, don't you? 8-)
>: (professional snobbiness is just as bad as intellectual, IMHO. ;-) )
>I disagree. It would be snobbish if I were to exclude myself.
Wow, so exclusive as to exclude oneself... I bow to your
superior snobbery. 8-) 8-) 8-)
> I draw as
>badly as some of these people, but I have no illusions about putting my
>scribbles in a professional format. And I've been publishing and writing
>on an amateur level, via the zine world, for 25 years. Yeah, I think my
>writing might be at a more professional level now, I'm certainly working
>towards that, but I see nothing wrong with going the zine route if your
>stuff just isn't up to professional snuff. I speak from experience.
I understand that (believe me, I can't understand how some
stuff gets published and why people would want to put their names
to it)...*but* if someone can get their work published
professionally, why begrudge them the opportunity?
>: Thing is, snobs (like me) always say that the very existence
>: of sub-par material diminishes and endangers works of true quality (usually
>: by virtue of its volume)...and yet, quality never quite drowns in the
>: sea of crap that's always been there.
>See, I think it has. Why else would something like PATTY CAKE be selling
>less than 800 copies? Or AKIKO less than 15,000? That's criminal.
That's the market. High quality doesn't translate into high
sales or popular acclaim, but if life were fair...geez, it would be hell
for cynics and doomsayers. Anyway, I'm just not sure it's proper to
blame the creators for something the audience is doing.
-Hernan, quality has dealt with crap since the beginning
of time, it's nothing new
-Hernan
Hernan Espinoza
fire...@panix.com (Elayne Wechsler-Chaput) writes:
>Exactly so. This is what the minors are for. I see nothing wrong with or
>degrading about "minor league" comics, I buy a number of them myself, but
>I'd rather they didn't go around pretending to be in the majors.
My contention is the harm they do will be minimal because they're
not fooling anybody.
-Hernan, and anyone who is fooled has it coming 8-)
Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice shame, shame, shame on me
-Gomer Pyle
WindyTWise
>>Exactly so. This is what the minors are for. I see nothing wrong with or
>>degrading about "minor league" comics, I buy a number of them myself, but
>>I'd rather they didn't go around pretending to be in the majors.
>
> My contention is the harm they do will be minimal because they're
>not fooling anybody.
Do comic shop owners suffer much (when they do suffer) from buying
non-returnable comics that can be catagorized as low sellers? I know that a
few publishers like Antarctic have a comp policy, (which is a good thing), so
those wonderful publishers can't be contributing any thing negative to the
bottom line.
I guess I am curious about this. I'm guessing that it's not the smaller comics
that pose the biggest problem, but that's an easy guess without much input.
Walt"The merchandizers of Godzilla crap must be sweating now!" Stone
PatDOneill
> I understand that (believe me, I can't understand how some
>stuff gets published and why people would want to put their names
>to it)...*but* if someone can get their work published
>professionally, why begrudge them the opportunity?
Just because you can afford to pay to publish your work (which is what
self-publishing is, after all) that doesn't mean you've been published
professionally.
In prose publishing, that's called "vanity press" and it's a damned good
description.
WindyTWise
>In prose publishing, that's called "vanity press" and it's a damned good
>description.
There is an organization of professional authors that is very picky about who
joins. Vanity press, no matter what the print runs and sell through, will not
qualify the author to join.
The line in comic books must be much more blurred than that.
I won't try to discuss what constitutes a "professional" comic book publisher.
The Direct Market makes many things happen that wouldn't happen with the same
volume (number of issues) as without (the Direct Market.)
Walt "contributing to the 'Kevlar-to-school' campaign" Stone
Hernan Espinoza
patdo...@aol.com (PatDOneill) writes:
>> I understand that (believe me, I can't understand how some
>>stuff gets published and why people would want to put their names
>>to it)...*but* if someone can get their work published
>>professionally, why begrudge them the opportunity?
>Just because you can afford to pay to publish your work (which is what
>self-publishing is, after all) that doesn't mean you've been published
>professionally.
Whoops. Good point.
>In prose publishing, that's called "vanity press" and it's a damned good
>description.
LOL! Exactly!
-Hernan, I guess I just can't take something like that seriously
Mark Evanier
On 21 May 1998 10:31:49 -0400, fire...@panix.com (Elayne
Wechsler-Chaput) posted:
>Mark Evanier, if
>you're out there, how have the GROO volumes done?
ME: Well, it's hard to say. When we were at Marvel, they sold well
enough to continue...but that was mostly a matter of a low breakeven
point. If every comic book shop bought 2 copies, Marvel made a
profit, even if the copies rotted on the shelves.
We were never able to get Marvel to put them into non-comic shops.
Sergio's MAD paperbacks sold very well in places like Brentano's and
Barnes & Noble, so we designed the GROO paperback format for those
venues...but Marvel never tried them there.
Dark Horse is probably going to resume publishing the paperbacks and
they're going to try getting them into mass-market outlets. So
perhaps we'll find out.
---------------------------
Mark Evanier - 363 S. Fairfax Ave., #303 - Los Angeles, CA 90036