Diamond Comics Distributors released their top 10 sales chart for January 09, and much to no one’s surprise, Amazing Spider-Man #583 was the biggest selling comic of the month with an estimated mid-300,000 copies sold throughout the direct market. Can anybody remember the last time a single issue sold that many copies? Maybe Marvel’s next variant cover gimmick should be President Obama meeting all the Marvel superheroes. It’s certainly a more original idea than monkeys and zombies, or whatever the “Wolverine Art Appreciation” covers are from April’s solicitations.
Of course, the mid-300,000 number is low-balling the issue’s overall sales, because it doesn’t count the number of copies sold outside of the direct market. Back in the halcyon days of yore, comic books were all over the place: grocery stores, convenience stores, toy stores, drug stores and the like. These days, just about the only places you can still find comics hanging around the shelves are in book stores. So imagine my surprise when I came across a stack of Spidey #383′s second printing on the magazine rack of my local Kroger supermarket. It was the only comic book available, but it makes sense that this particular comic would be there, given the astronomical demand and publicity surrounding the issue’s release weeks ago. It’s not like we’re going to start seeing other titles hitting the supermarket stands now, as retailers won’t spare the shelf space for the minimal profits comics bring them. Still, I wonder how many extra copies of Amazing Spider-Man #583 were sold outside of the direct market? I wouldn’t be surprised if the total sales for the issue push the 400,000 copies mark.
I ended up buying a copy at Kroger, even though I wasn’t caught up in the buying frenzy like everyone else when it first came out. Seeing it there made me wistful for the days when my mom would take me grocery shopping, and I would spend the entire time in the store’s deli sipping a can of RC Cola and reading as many comics as I could while Mom shopped. Thinking about it now, it makes me sad that kids today can’t have that same experience. Maybe that’s one of the reasons kids don’t read comics much anymore? Oh well, at least they can still squat in the manga section in the book stores.
February 13th, 2009 at 3:03 am
I often wonder why comics aren’t “everywhere” anymore. I mean, why not have Marvel Adventure/Johnny DC stuff at toy stores? Or Vertigo trades at Starbucks? Hot Topic sells enough nerdy merchandise, why not kick them some trades to go along with the T-shirts? Maybe Minx would have sold better if they’d been sold in Claire’s and Icing.
February 13th, 2009 at 3:26 am
I saw “Dark Avengers #1″, “Iron Man The End”, “Fantastic Four Cosmic Special” and that Hulk/Iron Man movie tie-in book in the magazine section of my local Publix last week.
February 13th, 2009 at 11:16 am
My local Wegmans grocery store (in Syracuse, NY) has a comic spinner rack with a varied selection of comics. It also has a spinner rack of manga. There’s also a small, locally owned grocery store that currently has an issue of Flash, but no other comics. Kind of strange.
February 13th, 2009 at 11:47 am
Maybe it’s a regional thing, then? I’m in Houston, and like I said, comics have all but disappeared from everywhere except comic stores.
February 13th, 2009 at 11:55 am
More like 500,000 actually.
February 13th, 2009 at 2:07 pm
I did some checking into the subscription count and initial newsstand draws for the book to add to my mid-300s estimate; that alone gets it close to 400k, as you suggest:
http://blog.comichron.com/2009/02/obama-spidey-and-newsstand.html
As to how much further it goes, it becomes hard to say. Sometimes newsstand reprintings are in vast numbers (as in the case of Star Wars #1-3); sometimes they’re tiny (as in the case of the Gold UPC Spider-Man #1).
February 13th, 2009 at 4:31 pm
“Maybe that’s one of the reasons kids don’t read comics much anymore?”
Gee, ya THINK?
At the NYCC, Bob Wayne gave a very calm and reasonable explanation on how, because of the current economy, the chances of seeing comics back in the returnable market were slim to none. And that is an absolute shame.
I know I’m a broken record about this, but I maintain that the single most important thing that can bring new readers into the industry is to bring the comics to the new readers, and not make them seek them out in destination stores.
Have you ever seen anyone buy an Archie comic at a comic shop? Yet is Archie hurting for money? No. Why? They’re selling those digests at the supermarket. They’re the ONLY ones selling those digests at the supermarket. They’re not doing it cause it LOSES them money, you know?
So help me, if I ever hit the Powerball, I will make the deal to get comics into Wal-Mart.
February 13th, 2009 at 4:37 pm
>>I know I’m a broken record about this, but I maintain that the single most important thing that can bring new readers into the industry is to bring the comics to the new readers, and not make them seek them out in destination stores.<<
So where’s the disconnect then? Are the publisher not trying to put their product into stores, or are the stores not seeking out the product which you seem pretty certain that they could sell, if it was only in their store?
February 13th, 2009 at 5:10 pm
Publishers have to pay the grocery stores plenty to be in those digest slots — though, interestingly, Archie is an exception. As I recall, Archie, through its involvement with the Comics Magazine Association of America, actually played a role in inventing the checkout counter magazine display program — and, as I understand it, receives a grandfathered slot in those displays which, otherwise, would be prohibitively expensive. That’s the reason you only ever see Archies there.
While we mostly remember the CMAA for the Comics Code, it did a number of things relating to getting comics placed on newsstands. You might remember how the comics of the 70s and 80s had little splotches of color on the edge of the issues — that was a CMAA color code so the dealers could quickly look at the top of the comics and know which ones needed to be replaced that week.
February 13th, 2009 at 7:20 pm
“So where’s the disconnect then?”
Speaking totally from opinion (no facts; why start now?) I think it’s simply a case of not wanting to spend the money to make the money. I’ve never actually researched it, but I know the publishers pay a tidy sum to get their magazines in those racks by the registers. Archie comics usually have two or three pockets at each register; they certainly have to be making a profit at it, or they’d have stopped years ago.
Marvel will be starting Spider-Man Magazine very soon. Mark my words, if they spend the cash to get it next to Nickelodeon Magazine at the registers, they will do more to get their characters in front of new readers than possibly any of their cartoons or movies.
That book is a marketing tool. If it makes money, that’s gravy. Like in the old days of pro wrestling, where the TV show was merely intended to drive fans to the house shows, so too such a book should be intended to drive new readers to comic shops.
It’s a real shame no one is willing to make the experiment.
February 13th, 2009 at 7:23 pm
JJM – that is information I didn’t know. Wow, that one bit of business probably makes Archie’s digests the most profitable comic out there.
My argument stands tho – a magazine in that pocket is an infomercial, intended to drive new business to comic shops. Jell, it should be packed full of coupons for comic chops.