Posted in: Comics | Tagged: Comics

September And October – Fun Times In Comic Market Analysis

There seem to be two contradictory analyses of current comic book mareketplace trends.

Once sees DC smashing Marvel's dominance on the marketplace, kicking them into a very lowly second place, and maintaining that grip into the future.

The other sees DC's numbers made up of returnable comics, with copies now sitting on shelves, a massive retraction expected in the new year, and the status quo returned.

So what's actually going on?

It's true that a big chunk of the DC's October numbers were made up with overprint, second print and third prints of certain titles. But only a few of them actually made the top hundred. It's also true that a number of stores received in October a bunch of first prints that they had given up on receiving and had ordered second prints instead. And they got both, sometimes on the same day. One store wept at receiving a hundred extra Voodoo #1 a month late, after that particular ship had sailed. And the later orders and second and third prints will not be made returnable.

While at Marvel, the DC Relaunch has only helped them, with Fear Itself staggeringly putting on thousands of sales from the previous month in September and in October, despite mixed reviews and the usual expected attrition of sales of an event comic. Amazing Spider-Man has also similarly benefitted, as have the main Xbooks.

However, Marvel is suffering in two directions. It's mid list is falling, with the likes of Hulk, new Mutants, Deadpool, et al losing thousands of sales each.. While simultaneously, the company has been given new, higher, minimum sales bars for their titles to achieve. Taken together this could lead to a wiping out of a chunk of what Marvel publishes, to match the editors and other staff who have been let go.

And while no one expects DC to maintain the initial first and second issue orders for their books, it is likely that their sales will continue to remain higher than they would have done without the launch for quite some time, including the books that normally no one would have expected to even have been published as ongoing series. I Vampyr anyone? Mister Terrific? Shops report anecdotally of people who ordered a few DC Comics before, if that, who are now ordering them all. And seem quite committed to doing so for months to come.

So the expected outcome is overthe next few months for Marvel to regain marketshare lead, first in dollars then in units, but with a much stronger DC than a year ago, while Marvel chase from event to event to keep their own plates spinning.

2012 is going to be an interesting one.

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