Marvel editor Tom Brevoort comments on Marvel’s sales figures for September, where the company had an “unprecedented” 50 percent of unit sales:
From my point of view, it scares the heck out of me.
As a general rule of thumb, I believe that the comic book industry functions best and is most healthy when there are three viable companies all vying for the top spot—the “Big Three” that you hear about every once in a while. We really haven’t had that kind of a field for awhile now—time was, it was Marvel, DC and Image, then maybe Valiant, and much later CrossGen. But right this second, while there are still many companies publishing comics, we’re having a hard time finding a “Big Two”, let alone a “Big Three.” And that means that the pressure is even greater on us to bring readers into the stores every month, and in a very uncertain economic climate. That’s almost too big a responsibility for any one company to have.
October 28th, 2008 at 10:04 am
Was there a Big Three even when CrossGen was at its peak? I know that Image eclipsed DC for a very short time in the 90s. But it’s hard to see a Big Three even if you take *everyone* who isn’t DC or Marvel and combine them.
Unless you’re just doing a title count, that is.
October 28th, 2008 at 11:27 am
I wonder, if DC was making better quality books (which is an opinion, but the sales are showing people agree with my opinion) would the recession be hurting comic sales all that much? Or, if in Marvel taking the lion’s share, they’re merely pulling more sales AWAY from DC, away from a small pool of direct market fans? When DCU books lack quality, does it cause DC fans to come over to the MU and buy more of their titles?
Basically I’m asking, IF DC had better books right now, would the overall sales for the direct market actually be up, or would Marvel just have lower sales because of it, the overall sales tally remaining mostly unchanged?
That’s a question I’d like to see someone write an informed article about.
October 28th, 2008 at 11:35 am
Not “informed” I meant to say, “write an article with actual research in it.”
Lol “informed,” something can always be poorly informed, etc.
October 28th, 2008 at 12:17 pm
In my case, I used to buy about 50/50 Marvel/DC up til about 5 years ago. You would think that being an old school fan from the 70′s that I would have been happy with the return of many of the Silver Age elements that have returned to the DCU since then but that was overshadowed by the increased “darkening” of the DCU and the overall direction of the main continuity. Too much death, gore, and focusing on retcons and legacy characters coupled with an unending crossover finally made me give up on DC’s books. Sadly, as old as I am, I doubt I’ll be back to the DCU again.
That being said, I’m not buying that many more monthlies from Marvel than I normally would but I am spending the extra cash from not buying DC on more collections from Marvel so, in my regards, you are pretty much correct, ejulp.
October 28th, 2008 at 12:43 pm
If Marvel is doing that well maybe the rumor Rich Johnston reported won’t come to pass–that Marvel was planning to raise its average cover price in 2009 to $3.99. There does come a time when some things just plain cost too much and if comics hit that price point I’ll slash my buying of them by 50 percent.
October 28th, 2008 at 12:58 pm
@James Van Hise
Which is why they probably want to get their original digital comics (odc?) line up and running soon.