About those May Numbers
ICv2 News - Top 300 Comics Actual--May 2006
There's the link to the boffo May comics numbers, as posted over at ICV2. Folks are ecstatic about these. 13 of the top 15 titles (ordered) sold more than 100K copies. They moved at least 50K copies of everything in the top 38. 52 occupied 40% of the top 10, and DC owns it with 7/10 titles, though they lose the top spot to CIVIL WAR #1. This is all cause for celebration, right?
*shrug*
I can't see it that way. Let's look around a little bit. Now, for instance, where can we find the first book that isn't built on characters that are 20+ years old (and thus showing some kind of renewal of the character and creative base of the franchise superhero titles that dominate the DM).
Top 5? Nope. Top 10? Nuh-uh. Top 20? Keep rolling. Okay, there's the SECRET SIX at #34. That's a new team, right? Uh, kinda. Really it's all very old characters put together and fun at that, but not new.
Top 50 then, surely? Nope. #50 is X-FACTOR, which is what, a twenty year old title now? Would the adventures of Madrox, the Multiple Man sell quite so well without that name?
Hey, look, there's NEXTWAVE at #77. A new vision perhaps, but more old characters. Deranged superhero satire like you like it, but not an easy sell for the most part.
We roll all the way down to #87 and there, selling 25K copies (very respectable in today's market) is Y: THE LAST MAN, which isn't even a superhero book and actually sells better in trades than in singles as I understand it. FABLES comes in at #90, though debates as to pastiche and originality, I'll leave to others at this time.
The first superhero book with all-new characters shows up at #93. RUNAWAYS moved 23.8 K in initial orders (and again, as I hear it, sells better in digests/trades). We have to get nearly halfway through our list of 200 to get to new characters driving a book in the dominant mode/trope of the DM. Sure, the numbers at the top are inflated, perhaps even hyperinflated due to big events that will not always be replicable (you can only unmask Spidey once in the national press, though those numbers hit next month.)
Oh, for reference, the first non-superhero book I spotted on the list was RED SONJA at 73, followed nearly immediately by CONAN at 75. There's another CONAN book at 104, JONAH HEX at 105, more RED SONJA at 106 and 108, SGT. ROCK at 111, FELL at 118 (which is the first appearance by a brand new character, following Y in the 80s above). LOVELESS comes in at #132, moving almost 16K units (not bat for a mature book.)
We actually get to a bit of diversity (well, at least amongst the holy trinity of genres - horror, sci-fi, fantasy) down in the lower third. However, we're looking at drastically different kinds of numbers there as well. Top 50 cuts off at 45K, top 100 at 23K, top 150 at 13K, top 200 at 7.5K, roughly losing 50% of sales per 50 marks in the sales rank.
Do I expect the majority of sales to be driven by new characters and concepts? Well, certainly not new concepts, because there are very few of those. And sadly, no, I can't expect new characters to drive any kind of sales because it's pretty obvious that the majority of readers don't want something new. So, no I don't expect it.
But I should.
Superhero comics desperately need new creative blood. Yes, it's a tough sell (look at HARD TIME, which had a wide cast of compelling characters plus crazy superpowers and sold piss poorly -- DC should be commended for giving it a second chance and letting it end with some kind of dignity.) But it needs to be done. The superhero market is finite and the blood is getting thinner all the time. Sure, we can drive up our unit profits by jacking up the cover prices. But that does nothing for market expansion.
I'll stop now, else I'll just go into the rant I've replayed regularly for the last several years since I got into comics. Market expansion is key. You will only have market expansion when you have a diversity of product to support your efforts to branch beyond the Direct Market. And you need the will to do it.
Okay, back to work for me. There's cities to be levelled...