Paul O’Brien looks at the July sales figures for Marvel, and he likes what he sees:
Well, here’s something I never thought I’d see - a month where most of the six-month comparisons are going up. July was an extremely good month for Marvel, mostly thanks to CIVIL WAR. On top of that, X-MEN and UNCANNY X-MEN get new creative teams, a new GHOST RIDER title launches, and the BEYOND! miniseries begins. Once again, Marvel are the runaway market leader. They beat DC in dollar share by 40.4% to 33.9%, and in unit share by 44.3% to 35.9%.
As could be expected, he also comments on what the Civil War delays mean in the larger picture:
[T]he omens look bleak for huge disruption to Marvel’s top selling comics over the next few months. DC must be breaking out the party hats. Marvel, meanwhile, have gone to great lengths to publicise a project that now makes them look like a bunch of incompetents. And while readers are merely inconvenienced, retailers can stare at their cashflow forecasts and weep.
The CIVIL WAR miniseries itself will still sell just fine when it resumes. That’s not really in doubt. The interesting question will be how badly the knock-on effects mount up - there are real financial consequences here, in terms of months when Marvel’s major titles could be missing from the shelves.
As with everything Paul writes, it’s well worth a look.
