Mayo Report for 2014-03
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Top Comics List Top Comics Breakdown Top Trades List Top Trades Breakdown
During March 2014, Image released "Walking Dead" volume 20 trade paperback which topped the trades list at around 25,290 units and "Saga" volume 3 trade paperback with an estimated 21,030 units. The "Nemo: Roses of Berlin" hardcover from Top Shelf sold approximately 8,777 units to retailers and "Avatar: The Last Airbender" volume 7 trade paperback did about 8,084 units. Any one of those would have normally topped the list by a wide margin. Having four such strong sellers in a single month help March 2014 have one of the highest unit sales totals for the top 300 trades in years, surpassed only by April 2009 in total unit sales for the top trades.
The top 300 comics had an estimated total of 6,218,948 units in March 2014. While a little below the average of 6,467,944 units for the final order era (from March 2003 to present), it is only about 250,000 units below it. "Batman" #29 was the only item over 100,000 units with an estimated 116,926 units. A few more items over 100,000 units could have made up the difference from the month being below average to average or above. Early word on "Amazing Spider-Man" #1 has those sales at or above 500,000 units and that alone would have moved the needle upwards a significant amount. We'll see what the direct market numbers for "Amazing Spider-Man" turn out to be once it is released.
Marvel accounted for 41.36% of the unit sales for the top 300 comics with DC taking another 31.16%. Image had a strong showing with 10.71% of the units beating out both Dark Horse with 4.71% and IDW Publishing with 4.23%. The remaining 7.83% of the unit sales for the top 300 comics were split across ten publishers including Dynamite Entertainment, Boom Studios and Valiant.
There is a bit of a chicken and the egg situation going on here. The smaller publishers are in fewer stores causing them to sell less which in turn causes them to be in fewer stores because they sell less. In many cases, sales will go up on a title if retailers and readers would just give it a chance. The problem is there is no major incentive for retailers to put a title on the rack in the hopes it will sell. When ordering in the single digit number of units, it is very risky for a retailer to take a chance on a title. The best way to remove that risk for a retailer is to tell you retailer about the comics you are planning on buying during the preorder phase. If you seem something you want to buy in Previews, help your retailer out and tell them. Some people dislike the preorder nature of the comic book industry and there are many valid reasons to not like it. The reality is the current marketplace is preorder driven and those preorders determine what does and does not get published in the future.
There was about a gap between the breakdown of the total units for the top 300 of about 10% between Marvel and DC. It isn't unheard of. Marvel often has very robust sales. Two things will almost certain increase that gap in April. First, "Amazing Spider-Man" #1 is scheduled to ship on April 30th. As mentioned above, the early reports are projecting sales at or above 500,000 units. But the second thing is what won't happen in April. Three of the four top items for DC in March won't ship in April.
DC is experiencing some delays on a few titles. Part of the solicitation for a comic is the expected shipping date. When a comic shipped after that date, it is late. Given the publisher set the expected ship date originally, it doesn't seem unreasonable for them to meet that self-imposed deadline.
"Forever Evil" #7 was scheduled to ship on March 26th but is being delayed until May 21st. Related issues are also impacted. "Justice League of America" #14 will ship on May21st instead of the original expectation of April 9th."Nightwing" #30 was going to ship on April 9th is now scheduled for May 28th. "Justice League" #30 will ship on May 21st instead of April 9th. Presumably this will delay "Justice League" #31 which was originally expected to ship on May 21st. There have been cases at Marvel and some other publishers in which two issues of a title shipped the same week. Doing so robs the earlier of the two issues from every being the most recent issue on the rack making it something of a lame duck issue in some respects. Habitual readers are most likely going to get both issues and casual readers might not even notice both issues shipped the same week so maybe it doesn't really matter. That having been said, shipping a single issue of a title a week seems like the better way to go as it reinforces the habitual buying pattern and downplays the delay of the earlier issue. "Suicide Squad" #30 will ship on May 28th instead of April 9th. Obviously this will make April 9th a smaller shipping week for DC than originally expected.
"Superman Unchained" #7 should have shipped in February but is now schedule for April 30th. "Superman Unchained" #8 seems to now be scheduled for July 30th and "Superman Unchained" #9 presumably will be resolicited. "Batman/Superman" #8 shipped three weeks late starting the crossover behind schedule. "Worlds' Finest" #20 shipped two weeks late. "Batman/Superman" #9, the third chapter of the crossover, should have shipped on March 5th and is delayed until April 23rd but "Worlds' Finest" #21, the final chapter of the crossover shipped two weeks on March 26th. "Worlds' Finest" #22 gets back on schedule with it shipping on April 9th.
Lateness isn't unique to DC. Far from it. It does seem like DC is having a sudden problem with lateness with the New 52 titles. How much of that is perception and how much is reality?
Here is a chart of the number of issues released as of the end of March for each of the New 52 titles counting the 2D cover and 3D covers during Villains Month as distinct issues. The green portion of each bar represents the number of issues that shipped on time, the yellow are the number of issues shipping a single week late and red is the number of issues shipping more than a week late. The location of the colors does not reflect which issues were late.
Looking at the various New 52 titles, including annuals, specials, miniseries and one-shots, we see DC has a fairly impressive track record of getting issues out on time. Certain titles such as "Forever Evil," Batman/Superman" and "Superman Unchained" are suffering from repeated delays while the majority of titles have a perfect record for shipping on time.
Looking at the date from a monthly perspective, we see there were only 11 items that shipped late during the first year and 7 of those were late by a single week. From October 2012 to August 2013, 37 items shipped late with 19 being a single week late. From October 2013 to March 2014, there have been 20 delays with 6 being a single week and 14 delays longer than a week.
I skipped over the September months for two reasons. The first is everything shipped on time in each September. September 2011 was the launch of the New 52 so DC had time to prepare the titles and get however many they were able to before the launch date. September 2013 was the Zero Issue month and September 2013 was Villains Month. In both cases, many of the issues were done-in-one stories which could have been done in advance or by a different creative team. In short, those months acted as built in catch up months in the schedule. Even so, we are seeing more delays in recent month and few particular titles seem to have more scheduling issues than the majority which are able to ship on time every month. By my math, only 3.94% of the 1,723 issues shipped were late with only 2.08% being more than a week late.
If you are interested in how things look on a week by week basis:
In addition to those delays, "Sandman Overture" is taking longer to come out than originally expected. Both the second and third issues had to be resolicited due to the delays. Actually, that might not be technically true. DC probably didn't have to resolicit the issues but opted to do so. If so, we should thank DC for having the courtesy to do so. "Brilliant" #5 from the Icon line at Marvel shipped 110 weeks late on March 26th off the December 2011 item code making it unclear what mandates a resolicitation.
Each of these delays represents either a permanent loss of income or a delay in getting that income. This impacts both the publisher and creative team but also the retailers. A single week delay can have a big impact but is also somewhat understandable. A minor delay resulting in a key thing not happening on time can cause an issue to ship a week late. But titles chronically shipping late, shipping out of order (like happened with "Hawkeye") or the lateness being measurable in years (such as with "Brilliant") kills story momentum and doesn't help anyone. The definition of "on time" is defined by the publisher with the solicitation.
The bottom line is DC will be shy a number of titles in April because of these delays. Even the launching of the weekly "Batman Eternal" series might not be enough to compensate for around 500,000 units on the list in March that won't be on the list in April due to delayed issues, the end of the various ongoing titles and the "Forever Evil" related miniseries titles. Since the launch of the New 52, the average difference in sales between Marvel and DC within the top 300 comics is around 145,223 units in favor of Marvel. Close enough for a single top of the chart title to make the difference. We've seen Marvel outperform DC by over million unit only once since the launch of the New 52. April has all of the signs of it happening again, as much because of delays within DC and because of a high profile relaunch at Marvel.
With the August 2012 Marvel Previews, Marvel kicked off the Marvel Now initiative which started shipping in October 2012. It was such a big deal, they even relaunched the Marvel Previews catalog with a new first issue. Over the last year and a half, Marvel has launched a number of new titles and relaunched even more existing titles. Conventional wisdom is first issues sell better and this is one of the core beliefs justifying relaunches. Since launches and relaunches seem to be a key aspect of Marvel's publishing plan, why don't we see if the strategy is working for them?
Obviously some relaunches involve changing the creative team, the line-up of characters, the status quo for the title or some other fundamental change to the title. Other relaunches are more along the lines of just slapping a #1 on the cover. The question isn't if actually changing something about the title can improve sales. Hopefully, if a substantive change is made to the contents of a series than there should be a change in sales reflecting it. The question is if a relaunch in and of itself will increase sales.
The notion first issues sell better has a couple of questions baked into it. What is a first issue? Does relaunching a title actually increase the sales of the title beyond the first issue? And, perhaps most importantly, can relaunching a title actually increase the sales of the title over the previous volume on a sustained basis?
The question of what a first issue is seems like it would be easy enough to answer: It is the issue of the title which ships before any other issue of the title and usually has a #1 very visibly on it. By and large, this is a good definition. The various #0.1 issues start to cloud the issue. The large #1 at the top of new story arcs on recent Marvel Now titles also creates some confusion. To some degree, can an issue really be considered the first issue in any meaningful way if it is just a continuation of the previous volume but renumbered with a #1? For the purposes of this discussion, a first issue is simply any issue with #1 as the issue number.
Another thing which is usually a key aspect of a first issue is the promotional push the title gets with it. Not only do the first issues get a lot of press, they often come with a number of alternate covers and retailer incentive covers. The marketing push increases potential interest in the title and the plethora of covers increase the sales of the first issue. The question of what makes for a good first issue is a completely different topic which I won't talk much about here. For me, a good first issue introduces the characters and status quo for the title and gives the readers a sense of the tone and style of the series enabling them to make an informed decision of if the title is one they should continue buying. Some of the Marvel first issues fit that description while a number of others fail to do so.
Here is a chart of the ongoing titles launched by Marvel since the start of the Marvel Now initiative plus a few leading up to it. The titles are ordered by launch date and the sales are the total known estimated sales which includes both the sales during initial month sales and any reported reorder activity:
The first thing notice is while a few titles have launched very strong, most of the recent titles have launched under 90,000 units. "Wolverine (2014)" #1 launched with an estimated 93,142 units making it the strongest Marvel Now launch/relaunch so far this year. That will change soon since "Amazing Spider-Man" is about to relaunch. Titles like "Uncanny Avengers (2012)" which launch at levels far above what any ongoing title is currently able to sustain are anomalies. The question here isn't if Marvel can launch titles over any given threshold but around how strong are the typical relaunches. With first issues normally setting the high water mark for sales on a title, the trend of first issue sales getting weaker is not good for Marvel.
Another thing to notice about the chart is how some titles are on it multiple times. The lifespan of volumes at Marvel is now better measure in months than years. With each relaunch, readers have a jumping off point. The theory is more new readers will jump on than existing readers jumping off. After all, that is one of the core aspects of the conventional wisdom that first issues sell better.
Does relaunching a title actually increase the sales of the title beyond the first issue? This question is the most revealing about relaunching a title with the expectations sales will increase because of the relaunch in and of itself. This chart is the same one as above with the inclusion of the total reported estimated sales of the second and third issues (where available):
On average, the second issues sold around 59.02% of the sales of the first issue and the third issue around 50.89% of the first issue sales. In a strange way this seems to both decrease and increase the importance of those first issue sales. On the one hand, it decreases the important of the first issue sales since almost half of those units are gone within two issues and therefore don't really count as a sustained increase in sales. On the other hand, because the average drop is by nearly half within two issues the first issue sales are arguably more important since starting from a higher point should mean ending up at a higher point after the drop. This second point is not reflected by the chart since the lower selling first issues tend to have correspondingly lower drops on the second and third issues. "Uncanny Avengers (2012)" had the highest first issue sales and largest second issue drop while "Punisher War Zone (2012)" had the lowest first issue sales and the lowest second issue drop.
If anything, inflating the sales of a first issue using tactics like retailer incentive covers practically guarantees huge second and third issue drops. Based on the frequent relaunches, Marvel is after a short term bump in sales from first issues and is willing to relaunch titles on a yearly basis if needed.
To answer if relaunching a title actually increases the sales of the title over the previous volume on a sustained basis, we need to see how the sales of different volumes of the same title compare.
"Captain America" is an interesting title to look at in terms of relaunches. Back in 2004, Ed Brubaker started a new volume of the series with the Winter Soldier storyline which later involved the death of Captain America. As we can see from the chart, there were some huge bumps in sales reflecting substantive changes to the story content. We can also see how the later relaunches did not significantly impact sales in and of themselves beyond the bumps on the first issues. Even in the cases there was an increase in sales, it didn't take long for the title to gravitate back to the 40,000 to 50,000 units it was selling back in 2003. Keep in mind that with these relaunches there were changes to both the creative team and the story content of the title. Had those same changes taken place without relaunches, the only likely difference would be the lack of the first issue bumps.
The chart for the "Fantastic Four" illustrates the sharp increases and subsequent attrition typical for many titles. A new creative team or dramatic story shift can create a sudden surge in interest for the title followed by months of diminishing interest until the cycle repeats itself. In this case, the death and later return of a member of the Fantastic Four and the media blitz around those story points caused a number of the peaks in the chart.
"Ghost Rider" is a fascinating case because of the time gap between some of the volumes. While it is too soon to know the magnitude of the second issue drop on the volume which just started, based on past history, the title will likely fall below 30,000 units in short order. This sort of clear trending across volumes is not uncommon.
"New Avengers" is another case in which the trending across volume indicates relaunches have a negligible impact beyond the first issue bumps.
The chart for "Secret Avengers" illustrates how a new volume can start off selling multiple times the sales the previous volume ended at only to return to that same level within a few issues. The bump on the first issue is impressive. The increase on the second and third issues of the 2013 volume are much more in line with the increase in sales sometimes seen at the start of story arcs. Often, the beginning of a story arc is seen as one of the few jumping on points for an ongoing title after the first issue. With many Marvel titles only lasting two or three story arcs, readers might start only considering sampling a title when it launches.
While conventional wisdom is first issues are a viable and successful way to increase sales, the data indicates otherwise. While there is normally a significant bump in sales on the first issue, the gain is usually lost within a few issues with the title returning to the level it sold at before the relaunch. There is no evidence supporting the idea relaunching a title with a new first issue increases sales in and of itself. Combining a relaunch with a creative team change or major changes to the storyline can result in an ongoing increase in sales but there is strong evidence sales would have gone up had the previous volume continued. The renumbering is sometime coincidental with a sales increase without being the cause of it.
In addition to not being a successful way to increase sales, the tactic doesn't seem to be viable over the long term. The more recent relaunches at Marvel are coming in at lower sales levels both because of how recently some of the previous volumes of those titles launched and because of the number of new first issues at Marvel these days. A new first issue a month might be viable but one or more a week clearly isn't.
Another unintended consequence of the repeated relaunches is it makes recommending past story arcs increasingly challenging. Individual issues are available digitally on Comixology, the Marvel app and Marvel Digital Unlimited. It is no longer possible to easily point a casual reader in the direction of a good story arc with just a title and an issue number. Explaining to a casual reader which issue of "Captain America" starts the storyline which is the basis for the "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" movie requires referencing volumes, creators and story arc titles. One volume too early and they get the "Enemy" arc by John Ney Rieber. One volume too late and they get Ed Brubaker's "American Dreamers" arc instead of the "Out of Time" arc. Unfortunately, that bell can't be unrung.
Relaunches are usually the result of weak sales. Downward sales are caused by perceived shortcoming in the content and have nothing to do with the issue number. Downward trend on a title often continue onto the next volume even if that next volume temporarily reset sales at a higher level. Instead of propping up sales of titles with new first issues and retailer incentive covers, the way the stories in the individual comic book issues are told is what needs to change. Are the issues accessible to new readers? Do readers finish the issues feeling like they got something whole or do they feel like they only got an incomplete fragment of a story? Maybe more pages are needed for the current storytelling style. Odds are the solution to declining sales has more to do with the content of the issues than the issue numbers place on them.
