Mayo Report

[NiklasJ]

After a few listens to the latest excellent mayo report comic
This will be as wordy and confused as usual... sorry.

I want to clarify its totally ok to be hard on Marvel for doing gimmicks!

I just think the critique on gimmicks should be evenly distributed. It isnt, since gimmicks usually dont work as well (or just as bad) for the competitors they are ignored, as you noticed about green lantern corps edge of oblivion #1. (unrelated I noticed the heavy drop on green lantern #48 for some reason... -20% ouch, whyy?). Its clearly working good in many cases for Marvel and puts the spotlight on them but others also do similar stuff almost as frequently.

Lets do a round of gimmick bashing at DC, the DKR#3 and coming of the supermen(i think?) sells high, gimmick events and #1s, DC You and DC rebirth lots of new #1s, flooding the comic book stands with double shipping titles noone was really asking for? Image is also guilty of releasing many new #1s of totally new properties, many exciting and good ones to be sure, but with a haltingly slow schedule they stumble.

I dont follow IDW or other smaller publishers but im sure ive seen restarts on X-0 manowar, Unity, ninjak, eternal warrior (sorry very unfamiliar territory here). The archie restart for that matter, high initial sales down to 20k sales now, totally ok and nothing to be ashamed of but still very low compared to first issues that were very high. Bloated early issue numbers anyone? For that matter, Walking Dead #150 anniversary gimmick, but you talked about that so...

Another matter, I think its a deliberate experiment by Marvel not having a flag-ship avenger or xmen book? The different titles have a slightly varied flavor and different characters but not one sticks out particularly. Reason for this just plain because they can? ANAD Avengers and Extraordinary XMen are the most flag-shippiest of the properties imo... its easier to choose to just read a flag-ship title, with no clear cut maybe you read more or less avenger/xmen titles?

[NiklasJ]

Since you mentioned it yourselves on the cast, what would be so wrong with a generic monster of the month superman title, and a companion book with clark kent and lois lane doing journalistic digging? Good consistent art and solid writing (would write itself) goes a long way. I dont know about other comic readers but most of my superman/clarkkent knowledge comes from the reeves movies, wellings smallville and cains lois and clark live action. That hasnt been the same dude in the comics ive read since New52 started.

Get him back to the american hero boyscout, basics of superman as the most super of superheroes. I know its been done but so what, thats something you can say about most things in comics, dude in suit beats up bad guy, end of story. Keep it simple. Think spider-man brand new day, back to roots with new villains, some new supporting cast and some old, and more fun! It doesnt have to be hard and depressing.

I know I complain a lot about DC but i want comics i read to be good and ive tried the latest versions of superman and they really dont feel right to me.

[MisterFerro]

John, there is something wrong with the site. The newest Mayo Report nor the Weekly Spotlight doesn't appear on the homepage. I didn't notice until NiklasJ just talked about the newest Mayo Report.

I was only able to access the new stuff by going into the RSS feed and the archive.

[fudd71]

Since you mentioned it yourselves on the cast, what would be so wrong with a generic monster of the month superman title, and a companion book with clark kent and lois lane doing journalistic digging? Good consistent art and solid writing (would write itself) goes a long way.
.....
I know I complain a lot about DC but i want comics i read to be good and ive tried the latest versions of superman and they really dont feel right to me.

I completely agree and that is why I brought it up in the episode. I don't think there is anything wrong with this basic method of Superman story telling. You will get the its redundant, simple, he is too powerful etc.. arguments for a certain number internet critics and people that want to sound smart if you do it that way. However I would argue that still preferable to the long arcs of de-powered and unheroic Superman we have seen over the last few years even back to before the New 52 with the Straczynski "Grounded" story line.

[erickowabunga]

Since you mentioned it yourselves on the cast, what would be so wrong with a generic monster of the month superman title, and a companion book with clark kent and lois lane doing journalistic digging? Good consistent art and solid writing (would write itself) goes a long way.

To that end, why can't we go back to a Bat title with a villain of the week? Better yet, I have enjoyed Batman Beyond, still wrong with no Terry, but its been good, why not a new Batman Adventures monthly series?

[JohnMayo]

John, there is something wrong with the site. The newest Mayo Report nor the Weekly Spotlight doesn't appear on the homepage. I didn't notice until NiklasJ just talked about the newest Mayo Report.

I was only able to access the new stuff by going into the RSS feed and the archive.

Apparently I forgot to upload the file for that part of the main page when I posted the episodes. That happens sometimes as it is a manual process.

You can always get to the current episodes from the Show Notes and Episode Archive options under the Podcast menu option on the menu bar of nearly every page on the site.

[drew]

lots of expanded info in hibbs bookscan article for the trades episode, if you run out of things to discuss
http://www.comicbookresources.com/artic ... 5-analysis

data file is here https://www.dropbox.com/s/o95cw82hnrq7t ... .xlsx?dl=0

[NDHorse]

John,

I have a couple questions for you for the upcoming Mayo Report - Trades podcast. In my Comic Bento this month, 3 out of the 4 books were in the Top 300 Trades list at #9, Spider-Man: Edge of the Spider-Verse, at #13, Alice Cooper V1: Welcome to My Nightmare, and at #14, Put The Book Back On The Shelf: A Belle and Sebastian Anthology. (The fourth book in the box, Death Sentence from Titan Comics, didn't make the list somehow. Comic Bento must have gotten it somewhere else).

Spider-Man was about 3100 copies and the other two were about 3000 copies. Where did these books show up in the Retail Rank? I am curious if you can calculate somehow how much Comic Bento paid for these books. Based upon the Alice Cooper and the Belle and Sebastian books selling around 3000 copies, I am guessing that Comic Bento's subscriber base is up to 3000. I assume these 99% of these 3000 copies are attributable to Comic Bento given that these books have never been on the list before and this month's sales count for all of its Diamond total sales. (My guess is that the Spider-Man book had about 100 copies of reorders this month.)

Also, is it safe to assume that the Alice Cooper book and the Belle and Sebastian books never broke the Top 300 trade list in prior months given that this month's sales are also their total sales? (these books came out in 2015 and 2006, respectively).

Given the high ranking of these books, it looks like Comic Bento can have a material affect on the top of the list. It's nice to see them succeeding.

Thanks again for all the info you give in these reports. I look forward to them every month.

[NiklasJ]

About the many books of the Spider. Id rather have many spider-books with different characters than a lot of books with the same character in different universes... all the different batbruces and superkents make me very annoyed about the dc comics.

The spiderwomen are there because fans asked for it and bought the books. They had jessica drew spiderwoman in the spiderverse event to draw an audience to the new spiderwoman comic. In the beginning that was the plan and what was announced. Remember manarabutt

Around the same time Silk was introduced in ASM and the whole SpiderGwen monster exploded from the edgeofspiderverse mini. Slott wrote a post in the cbr forums (http://community.comicbookresources.com ... vs-Reality) stating the Silk character got a chance at a solo title because of fan interest, instead of trying again with one or the other earlier spidergirls. Must be doing ok since its still around. Silk and maybe especially the Hopeless SpiderWoman title has been really good so far.
= three spiderwomen titles at the same time is just a lucky coincidence (or a publishing company interested in selling comics that sells)

EDIT: at least they sell enough to warrant continuing with the title up to now. I hope the spiderwomen event will shoot some increased numbers into it but then again, if ms marvel is big digital theres no reason these ones cant do well there also and if so we wont see any numbers on that.

[RowdyFromScrubs]

John,
It looks like you have kept Monthly Units data for DC & Marvel, since 2003. Congrats on that! I was wondering what the slope of the trend-line is on that amount of data. I started keeping track on my own in Jan 2015. I see both DC & Marvel 's trend-line have a slope of -90 & -680, respectively.

[JohnMayo]

John,
It looks like you have kept Monthly Units data for DC & Marvel, since 2003. Congrats on that! I was wondering what the slope of the trend-line is on that amount of data. I started keeping track on my own in Jan 2015. I see both DC & Marvel 's trend-line have a slope of -90 & -680, respectively.

I've actually been tracking the data since mid/late 1998. Prior to February 2003 the data was initial orders, not final orders. Those are very different metrics. Initial orders includes items that never ship and doesn't include reorders. Final orders includes reorders (both first month and later months if they are high enough to make the list) and obviously don't include items that never shipped.

[NDHorse]

Here is your monthly Comic Bento update for the trades list.

2 of the 4 books in the box made the list this month:
#14 Project Superpowers Black Cross, 3718 copies sold
#24 Ninjak Vol 1, 3057 copies sold

2 others that didn't show up on the list were:
Stumptown vol 2 by Greg Rucka and Matthew Southworth
Ordinary Vol 1 by Rob Williams and D'Israeli

Once I get around to reading these, I will make a post in the Subscription Boxlight thread.

[JohnMayo]

Here is your monthly Comic Bento update for the trades list.

2 of the 4 books in the box made the list this month:
#14 Project Superpowers Black Cross, 3718 copies sold
#24 Ninjak Vol 1, 3057 copies sold

2 others that didn't show up on the list were:
Stumptown vol 2 by Greg Rucka and Matthew Southworth
Ordinary Vol 1 by Rob Williams and D'Israeli

Once I get around to reading these, I will make a post in the Subscription Boxlight thread.

Great. Thanks for the information.

[MisterFerro]

Congrats to Scott and Greg for their whole run on Batman being over the 100k mark. I wonder if the final issue #52 can stay above or become the first issue of Nu52 Batman to be under the 100k mark.

Star Wars 18 is the first issue to be under the 100k mark, the issue took a bigger dive from 17 than I thought it would and with that likely ends Marvel's hopes of having a book stay above the 100k mark for 20 straight issues.

The last thing is in regards to TMNT 57 at rank 236 down almost 10k and 59% from issue 56. The issue was due out April 27 but IDW delayed it 1 week to May 4. I guess there had to be some error with shipping and the few shops who got their orders went ahead and sold the issue on April 27.

[SpideySavestheDay]

What I find extremely curious with the latest release of Diamond's sales data is the number of comments on CBR's forums about April's sales figures.

http://community.comicbookresources.com ... ion-Copies

80 comments have been posted mainly about Black Panther's (a big two comic written and drawn by black men) ascent to top of the chart. Previous sales figures released received only a few comments.

A few questions...
>Is the early success of an original black character with black creators a remarkable feat at the big two? If so, could it be replicated?
>Did Marvel perfectly time and execute a synergistic relationship between a comic and movie (Civil War)?

Some of the comments have decent questions about Black Panther as number 1. I found this interesting and maybe something to ponder for the next podcast.