Question?
THE BEAT - DC Comics Month-to-month Sales: April 2007
Okay, a quick look at the above, skipping over the bulk of the numbers and right to the 6 month numbers, I'm struck that only thee monthly titles (out of thirty-five surveyed)have shown growth in their sales (according to the numbers given, granted.) And that growth, largely, is pretty anemic.
Things look better on the one year comparison, where at least one title (JSA) shows great growth (84%), but the next highest growth figure is MANHUNTER at 9.5%. That's a major, major gap.
On the two year numbers, the growth is better still, with three titles posting more than 100% growth. Then DETECTIVE shows 44%, MANHUNTER 20%. A couple more titles follow and then we're looking at shrinkage again.
Interestingly, average sales per title are up, pretty substantially. From 25K or so in 2003 to 39K in 2007. So which of these figures is truthin'? And what happens when you remove event books or 52 from the mix? I'd suspect that the numbers wouldn't be quite so rosy. I know, that's the kind of easy call you expect me to make these days.
Not only do the Big Two like event comics, they depend on them. Without them, I see a lot of belts tightening and a major drain on resources that allow them to even try to get into markets aside from the DM.
But it begs the question, why is this format still hanging around when it's clear that the market for it doesn't seem all that sustainable? What happens when SECRET WARS III doesn't blow the doors off of everything? Not that this seems likely given the market we're in, but one day, it's something they're gonna have to face.
Kudos, as always, to Paul and Mark-Oliver getting the numbers crunched every month.