MayoReport-2008-07-Comics

[Lobo]

If you're going to subtract Kirkman's books from Image to "see where they fall," why not take the Buffy, Star Wars and other media-licensed books away from Dark Horse, IDW, and Devil's Due to see where they fall? How about Ross' Project Superpowers and Ennis' The Boys from Dynamite?

What percentage of Dark Horse's sales does Buffy account for? How about Star Wars titles? Combined?

How about the Transformers and Buffy-related titles (Angel & Spike) at IDW? GI Joe & Voltron at DDP? Superpowers and The Boys at Dynamite?

Fair's fair.

[JohnMayo]

That is a good point. And I think we talked about how much of the total Dark Horse sales that Buffy accounted for at some point in the past few months.

Given that Kirkman recently was extolling the virtues of creator owned properties at Image and how that would save comics, it made sense to look at how his stuff was doing versus the rest of the Image output.

On my next pass of reworking my number crunching system, I'll try to add this sort of grouping functionality so that it is easy to pull out that sort of data.

[Lobo]

I'd be willing to bet that few people picking up the Buffy comics even look at the shelf in comic shops. I think it's more likely that they have pull lists for "the Buffy comics," which for some customers probably includes Angel & Spike.

I'll go double-or-nothing on the Stephen King titles.

[JohnMayo]

I'd be willing to bet that few people picking up the Buffy comics even look at the shelf in comic shops. I think it's more likely that they have pull lists for "the Buffy comics," which for some customers probably includes Angel & Spike.

I'll go double-or-nothing on the Stephen King titles.

While I'd agree with you on that, this is where I think the industry as a whole could benefit from some serious market research. Potentially there is this customer profile that, like you suggest, goes in for a specific title or narrow group of titles and that is it. The question is how big is this group and what could be done to expand the selection of titles they are getting.

[Lobo]

While I'd agree with you on that, this is where I think the industry as a whole could benefit from some serious market research. Potentially there is this customer profile that, like you suggest, goes in for a specific title or narrow group of titles and that is it. The question is how big is this group and what could be done to expand the selection of titles they are getting.

As I've never been one to only go half-way out on a limb, I'll even bet that these customers come for their comics monthly rather than weekly.

If my assumptions are even close to accurate, I'd think that unless shop owners, cashiers or other customers suggest a title, it's unlikely that they'll be inclined to try other titles.

House ads may help, but even with that, how much crossover audience is there between Buffy and Star Wars, The Goon, Conan, Criminal Macabre, Hellboy, Rex Mundi or Fear Agent? What else is DH going to put in their house ads? Some of their Manga titles?

[JohnMayo]

I agree that this profile of customer is coming in only when they expect the next issue to be at the store. That implies monthly visits to the store.

As for house ads, I'm not really sure how effective those are in general. In this specific case, I would agree that Dark Horse probably doesn't have any other titles that would interest fans of Buffy that aren't otherwise interested in comics in general.

[Lobo]

Your comments about the "clustering" of the Star Trek titles suggests (to me) that people picking up these titles probably have "Star Trek Titles" on their pull list, with some people getting all of them, and some people dropping some series and getting others.

I'd guess the same holds true for the Star Wars and Transformers titles. Maybe even GI Joe.

Watch for the "bump" when GI Joe moves from DDP to IDW, with Larry Hama writing.

Since I seem to be a betting man today, I'd bet that most of the customers for these titles are "regular customers," not people who come in exclusively for these titles.

[Lobo]

Wolverine #66 shipped roughly 35,000 more copies than Wolverine #65.

War Heroes #1 shipped roughly 30,000 copies, outselling Walking Dead #50 by 10%.

This suggests to me that Kirkman may have been on to something.

Peter David does not seem (to me) to be at the height of his popularity. This seems to explain why people who aren't Star Trek fans probably won't be inclined to pick up a Star Trek title just because he's writing it, doubly so when they don't know how intertwined it is with IDW's other Star Trek titles.

I don't know how much Star Trek fans are talking about the comics on forums, but I know that The Conan, Red Sonja & Solomon Kane books from Dark Horse are discussed regularly on the Conan, Red Sonja and Robert E Howard forums and Yahoo! groups.

There's even an TheREHcomicsgroup@yahoogroups.com

Even Pigeons from Hell, which was a mini-series based on an old REH story was discussed.

[IanG]

I have a question about the Marvel Adventures comic books you guys discussed on the most recent Mayo Report. What comic books would you recommend for a six year old boy? One of you mentioned they are dropping their Marvel Adventures because they talk down to kids. Before you released this episode I was just thinking what I could buy for my nephew. I know he likes Batman and Spider-Man. He's learning to read and I thought a couple comic books per month would help encourage him. Comics book are what made me want to learn to read more at that age. I secretly want to infect him with the comics bug too. I'd consider Johnny DC also, or is it DC Kids?. Thanks.

[JohnMayo]

I have a question about the Marvel Adventures comic books you guys discussed on the most recent Mayo Report. What comic books would you recommend for a six year old boy? One of you mentioned they are dropping their Marvel Adventures because they talk down to kids. Before you released this episode I was just thinking what I could buy for my nephew. I know he likes Batman and Spider-Man. He's learning to read and I thought a couple comic books per month would help encourage him. Comics book are what made me want to learn to read more at that age. I secretly want to infect him with the comics bug too. I'd consider Johnny DC also, or is it DC Kids?. Thanks.

Bob was the one that mentioned he was dropping the Marvel Adventures line.

From DC, recent Justice League Unlimited and Batman Strikes titles would have been good picks but both either have ended or are ending soon. Billy Batson and the Magic of SHAZAM just started and might be worth checking out.

From Marvel, Ultimate Spider-Man and the various Power Pack miniseries should be kid safe. Likewise, Amazing Spider-Girl is a kid friendly title.

PS 238 is a kid appropriate title that doesn't talk down to kids.

Bob can probably answer this better than I can.

[Lobo]

I have a question about the Marvel Adventures comic books you guys discussed on the most recent Mayo Report. What comic books would you recommend for a six year old boy? One of you mentioned they are dropping their Marvel Adventures because they talk down to kids. Before you released this episode I was just thinking what I could buy for my nephew. I know he likes Batman and Spider-Man. He's learning to read and I thought a couple comic books per month would help encourage him. Comics book are what made me want to learn to read more at that age. I secretly want to infect him with the comics bug too. I'd consider Johnny DC also, or is it DC Kids?. Thanks.

The Batman Adventures from the early '90s were fun books. You can probably find them in cheap bins or in TPBs.

I didn't pick up The Superman Adventures (late '90s), but I've heard good things about the Mark Millar issues. It looks like Scott McCloud also wrote some issues, and Paul Dini occasionally wrote for both series.

Even if you find them in back-issue bins, a shop owner would be smart to give you a deal to take them off his hands. Don't be afraid to ask.

[JohnMayo]

This suggests to me that Kirkman may have been on to something.

Peter David does not seem (to me) to be at the height of his popularity.

I'm not saying that Kirkman isn't right. I just question how many creators have a fan base that is following them from title to title these days. And how many have a large enough group like that to "make a good living" if they were to make the jump to creator owned titles only.

Any creator that can't do it is then by definition not at the height of his popularity. And isn't that a bit of a circular argument?

Peter David is a great example. His work at Claypool seems to prove that fans won't follow him to anything he does. He did Soulsearchers and Company for about a decade but it sold a fraction of his work at DC and Marvel during that same time.

The problem isn't who owns the properties. The problem is more likely to be in how accessible the material is to new readers. And I mean that in terms of story accessibility, price accessibility and physical/marketplace accessibility.

[JohnMayo]

The Batman Adventures from the early '90s were fun books. You can probably find them in cheap bins or in TPBs.

I didn't pick up The Superman Adventures (late '90s), but I've heard good things about the Mark Millar issues. It looks like Scott McCloud also wrote some issues, and Paul Dini occasionally wrote for both series.

Even if you find them in back-issue bins, a shop owner would be smart to give you a deal to take them off his hands. Don't be afraid to ask.

I think Lobo is on to something here. Your best bets are probably back issues of some of the Johnny DC titles that were based on the cartoons.

[Lobo]

I'm not saying that Kirkman isn't right. I just question how many creators have a fan base that is following them from title to title these days.

Off the top of my head?

Bendis
Millar
Ennis
Ellis
Morrison
BKV
Brubaker
Johns

I'm sure there's more, but that's a good start.

[Lobo]

More random thoughts...

Dark Horse & Dynamite have active forums. I've been waiting nearly a year for approval on the IDW forum. How this affects sales of the Star Trek & Transformers titles is beyond me, but I can't imagine it helps.

I check in on IDW's forum every few months, and all it says is that my approval is still pending...

Since Virgin closed their New York office, we may never see a Dan Dare TPB. I just deleted Nowhere Man #0 from my current order...

Kirkman didn't exactly say that Marvel & DC should target younger audiences. He said that they should try to appeal to the all-ages demographic that they used to target.

If Kirkman said that Image "doesn't have the resources to reach a younger audience" (I don't remember him putting it that way, but if he did) I'd think he meant that Image doesn't have the iconic characters that most people recognize that DC & Marvel have...

I'd say that when Image was formed, artists had the cache to pull audiences from corporate-owned to creator-owned titles. These days, it seems that writers like Bendis, Millar, Ellis, Ennis, Morrison, Johns, BKV and Brubaker have that ability more than any artists I can think of, except for Jim Lee.

When was the last time another artist was the sole reason for an increase in sales on a comic, as opposed to a writer like Millar or Morrison?