VALIANT(DMG) APRIL 2022 SALES CHART!

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agent_graves
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VALIANT(DMG) APRIL 2022 SALES CHART!

Post by agent_graves »

162 SHADOWMAN #8 (VALIANT ENT) 4,804

169 ARMORCLADS #2 (VALIANT ENT) 4,293

180 HARBINGER #7 (VALIANT ENT) 3,517

381 SHADOWMAN #7 (VALIANT ENT) *208

*RE-ORDERS
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Re: VALIANT(DMG) APRIL 2022 SALES CHART!

Post by syzhang28 »

oh my god, its so much worse than i would have thought. These numbers make Vh2 look not so bad and really show how wrong DMG were to push out VEI

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Ryan
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Re: VALIANT(DMG) APRIL 2022 SALES CHART!

Post by Ryan »

agent_graves wrote: Sun May 29, 2022 10:53:21 pm 162 SHADOWMAN #8 (VALIANT ENT) 4,804

169 ARMORCLADS #2 (VALIANT ENT) 4,293

180 HARBINGER #7 (VALIANT ENT) 3,517

381 SHADOWMAN #7 (VALIANT ENT) *208
I'm not sure how they can get much lower? The least they could do for the old fans is hire Bob Hall to finish his Shadowman storyline and get Shooter and Lapham to do Harbinger. If sales don't matter anymore and no one is reading then at least make the old fans happy :? But I know they would never do that.

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Re: VALIANT(DMG) APRIL 2022 SALES CHART!

Post by depluto »

Looks like some Armorines 4s in there ...

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Re: VALIANT(DMG) APRIL 2022 SALES CHART!

Post by Ryan »

depluto wrote: Tue May 31, 2022 9:31:25 am Looks like some Armorines 4s in there ...
But will there be any completionists left to hunt them down? I think all the variant covers also hurt the completionist mentality long term. It just gets to be too much.

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Re: VALIANT(DMG) APRIL 2022 SALES CHART!

Post by TheeBaldMoose »

agent_graves wrote: Sun May 29, 2022 10:53:21 pm 162 SHADOWMAN #8 (VALIANT ENT) 4,804

169 ARMORCLADS #2 (VALIANT ENT) 4,293

180 HARBINGER #7 (VALIANT ENT) 3,517

381 SHADOWMAN #7 (VALIANT ENT) *208

*RE-ORDERS
Those are shockingly low. I am kind of surprised with Shadowman, but maybe I shouldn't be. That's about right where I thought that book would be, especially so far into the series.
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Re: VALIANT(DMG) APRIL 2022 SALES CHART!

Post by jmatt »

I was looking for something to read the other day and grabbed issues of Fallen World. It was then that I realized that I had not read a Valiant comic in three years. Yikes, where does the time go?

It started when Livewire's non-stop expanding power set allowed her to turn off everything electrical on planet Earth in seconds during HW2. Then the Livewire title just bored the heck out of me. Tried an issue of The Visitor but got a completely gratuitous lesbian thing by page three and bailed. I don't care what your sexuality is but that's not why I read comic books.

But I was still having stuff pulled at the LCS. But they still had this ridiculous covid mask nonsense six months after the world came to its senses, and I just stopped going. I won't reward medical hysteria with my money either. Mask up until Doomsday for all I care just don't expect me to play along.

Anyway. Wow. Three years.

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Re: VALIANT(DMG) APRIL 2022 SALES CHART!

Post by grendeljd »

jmatt wrote: Tue May 31, 2022 7:42:19 pm I was looking for something to read the other day and grabbed issues of Fallen World. It was then that I realized that I had not read a Valiant comic in three years. Yikes, where does the time go?

It started when Livewire's non-stop expanding power set allowed her to turn off everything electrical on planet Earth in seconds during HW2. Then the Livewire title just bored the heck out of me.
Wow, dude! I’ve largely fallen off picking up much of their output over that same span of time too, but I do keep a spark of the former flame alive. I still enjoy what they’ve been doing with Shadowman for the most part and I still currently buy print copies of that series…

I hear you on that call back to Livewire’s powers increasingly diverging from the original intent and extent of her abilities though… speaking of both her *&* Shadowman, it was a bit of a low point seeing her make a one panel cameo in current Shadowman #7 - she was just floating in the air, surrounded by energy and firing off generic energy blasts from her hands… just a complete disregard for anything to do with who she was as a good character. Disappointing.
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Re: VALIANT(DMG) APRIL 2022 SALES CHART!

Post by jaspersk »

You guys were keeping the home fires burning before the VEI
Revival. And now even this site is super quiet. It’s almost like
a funeral for hopes of anything good in the Valiant universe.
No top 10 lists. Not even always published issue discussions.
Hopefully someone else will buy this from DMG.
I want to ask how many of you still have pretty much every cover.
Just curious. I guess I’ll keep buying only one cover of each title
every month which isn’t hard but I’m not sure the last book I’ve
actually read was.

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Re: VALIANT(DMG) APRIL 2022 SALES CHART!

Post by Dallow Spicer1 »

I’m not surprised by those numbers at all. I don’t read Shadowman but let’s say it’s a decent book, the fact that the rest of the line is so dire means that people have list interest in the Valiant universe so who’d know if they had a good book? There’s no ‘Dinesh’ type promo man hyping the books, and even if there was the books aren’t worth hyping.

There so much damage been done over the last 3 years or so, it’s hard to envisage someone saving the line and getting people interested again.

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Re: VALIANT(DMG) APRIL 2022 SALES CHART!

Post by jmatt »

grendeljd wrote: Thu Jun 02, 2022 12:00:44 am - she was just floating in the air, surrounded by energy and firing off generic energy blasts from her hands… just a complete disregard for anything to do with who she was as a good character. Disappointing.
At the end of Fallen World, Raijin starts talking about their anti-grav abilities. I half expect that if I read the follow up title, Rai, that he's flying in it.

All of that said, Fallen World was very good.

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Re: VALIANT(DMG) APRIL 2022 SALES CHART!

Post by nycjadie »

How often was Shadowman a bigger title than Harbinger?

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Re: VALIANT(DMG) APRIL 2022 SALES CHART!

Post by SwiftMann »

nycjadie wrote: Sun Jun 05, 2022 12:09:12 pm How often was Shadowman a bigger title than Harbinger?
In the VEI era, they've been pretty much the same (give or take a few hundred copies).

2013 - Both were in the 10-12k range (decreasing from 12k to 10k as the year went on).

2014 - By 2014 they were both in the 7800 range.

And while there are no direct, same month comparisons after that, from 2017 on both series were in the VEI standard 5-7k range.

In January 2019 Shadowman #11 sold around 5165 copies. May 2019 LaDoTH #3 sold around 5110.

Frankly, the fact that Shadowman has only slipped by about 300 copies in the three years since is relatively impressive. Probably helps that Shadowman's art doesn't make peoples' eyes bleed like this Harbinger run's does. But about 4,000 copies per book is generally where VEI has been for 3+ years now and the reality is sales haven't been "healthy" since the second year of the launch.


Generalization of VEI sales per issue excluding #1s:

2012 - 15k
2013 - 12k
2014 - 8k
2015 - 7k
2016 - 6k
2017 - 5k
2018 - 6k
2019 - 4k
2020 - 4k
2021 - 4k
2022 - 4k
Last edited by SwiftMann on Sun Jun 05, 2022 4:31:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: VALIANT(DMG) APRIL 2022 SALES CHART!

Post by Dallow Spicer1 »

SwiftMann wrote: Sun Jun 05, 2022 12:50:05 pm
In January 2019 Shadowman #11 sold around 5165 copies. May 2019 LaDoTH #3 sold around 5110.
There’s no justice in the world, LADOTH is as good as comic books get and it only sold Shadowman numbers facepalm

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Re: VALIANT(DMG) APRIL 2022 SALES CHART!

Post by Ryan »

nycjadie wrote: Sun Jun 05, 2022 12:09:12 pm How often was Shadowman a bigger title than Harbinger?
Going back to VH1 times, Shadowman has always been considered to have the best 'run' in all of VALIANT, at least in terms of a long run of consistent quality. It survived Chaos Effect, Birthquake and the constant upheaval of most post-Unity titles to just be a solid, entertaining read. I think it still had bunch of readers at the end (anecdotal), but it became a victim of the whole line failing.

IMO Shadowman/Jack Boniface was one of the more generally beloved characters on the V roster, I never understood why it needed a reboot that went VH2 (Deadside) and all-in on the Voodoo Fantasy magic angle.

Harbinger never lived up to the initial 7 issues. Lapham became a good writer later, but I think him and Fontenot were way too green to carry a team book like that. By the time of the issue 26 reboot it seemed like reader interest in the book was totally cratering (again, anecdotally). So it's never really been that popular of a title, it's just always remembered for being the first VALIANT team and those early great issues that became so valuable to readers and collectors. :twocents:

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Re: VALIANT(DMG) APRIL 2022 SALES CHART!

Post by Ryan »

jaspersk wrote: Sun Jun 05, 2022 12:55:51 am You guys were keeping the home fires burning before the VEI
Revival. And now even this site is super quiet. It’s almost like
a funeral for hopes of anything good in the Valiant universe.
No top 10 lists. Not even always published issue discussions.
Hopefully someone else will buy this from DMG.
I want to ask how many of you still have pretty much every cover.
Just curious. I guess I’ll keep buying only one cover of each title
every month which isn’t hard but I’m not sure the last book I’ve
actually read was.
It seems the current VALIANT comics aren't being made with the VALIANT fanbase's concerns in mind. Why is a bigger question. We see it a lot in various action/adventure franchises these days. Many want to blame politics, but that doesn't explain everything.

VALIANT is unique in that the fanbase has been big enough for people(publishers) to keep trying to publish comics off and on for 30+ years, but not big enough that people(creators/editors) think they need to stick with what was popular originally. So everyone(creators) comes in with their brilliant new take on 'Harbinger' or 'Shadowman' or 'Bloodshot' etc. that's somewhat similar to the one before but not a true continuation, and we're left with so many different versions and variations of the characters that even the fans start to lose track and lose interest.

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Re: VALIANT(DMG) APRIL 2022 SALES CHART!

Post by Tim »

I am dumbfounded as to how these numbers allow a company to stay in business. What am I missing here?

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Re: VALIANT(DMG) APRIL 2022 SALES CHART!

Post by SwiftMann »

Red line is when it was announced DMG had taken full control.

Caveat/Disclaimer: The numbers here are intended to show the long-term patterns over time. The numbers can't be perfect as they do not include reorders and then there's your standard icv2 and comichron do they best they can but are always said to be low. Plus there is some educated estimates happening throughout for books that were off the charts completely and when Diamond wasn't providing info just after they started shipping in 2020 and again when they had the ransomware attack.

While it's obviously all been downhill since the highs of July 2015's Book of Death, adding a trendline shows that the decrease really starts in March of that year. Things really start looking bad by Fall 2016 and by Fall 2017, the drop has become a bit precipitous. So, while DMG may be putting the nails in the coffin, the prognosis was already dire when they took over.

And whoo-boy, does it sure show why they keep putting out #1s.

Image
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Re: VALIANT(DMG) APRIL 2022 SALES CHART!

Post by Dallow Spicer1 »

Very interesting graph SwiftMann, thanks for doing that :thumb:

I think we’d have seen a significant uptick when the Bloodshot film was released had Dinesh still been at the helm which I think would have been felt across the line.
For sure we wouldn’t be where we are now under DMG.

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Re: VALIANT(DMG) APRIL 2022 SALES CHART!

Post by Ryan »

Tim wrote: Thu Jun 16, 2022 6:26:06 am I am dumbfounded as to how these numbers allow a company to stay in business. What am I missing here?
Your guess is as good as anybody's. If I had to make a guess the comics exist as a way to sell the properties in other mediums. They can say "these characters have been published in comics for __ years" and show examples. I know it's a pretty thin reason for someone to be spending 100K+ per month but I can't imagine what other reason they're making these for.

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Re: VALIANT(DMG) APRIL 2022 SALES CHART!

Post by Ryan »

SwiftMann wrote: Thu Jun 16, 2022 7:43:23 pm Red line is when it was announced DMG had taken full control.

Caveat/Disclaimer: The numbers here are intended to show the long-term patterns over time. The numbers can't be perfect as they do not include reorders and then there's your standard icv2 and comichron do they best they can but are always said to be low. Plus there is some educated estimates happening throughout for books that were off the charts completely and when Diamond wasn't providing info just after they started shipping in 2020 and again when they had the ransomware attack.

While it's obviously all been downhill since the highs of July 2015's Book of Death, adding a trendline shows that the decrease really starts in March of that year. Things really start looking bad by Fall 2016 and by Fall 2017, the drop has become a bit precipitous. So, while DMG may be putting the nails in the coffin, the prognosis was already dire when they took over.

And whoo-boy, does it sure show why they keep putting out #1s.

Image
Thanks for posting this. When VALIANT (VH1) started to hit around Unity, the numbers just skyrocketed, would love to see a chart like this for VH1 print run numbers.

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Re: VALIANT(DMG) APRIL 2022 SALES CHART!

Post by greg »

Ryan wrote: Fri Jun 17, 2022 9:40:57 pm Thanks for posting this. When VALIANT (VH1) started to hit around Unity, the numbers just skyrocketed, would love to see a chart like this for VH1 print run numbers.
Done (and already online for about 20 years), for the averages, anyway. :lol:
Image

http://valiantarchive.com/valiant/printchart.php

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Re: VALIANT(DMG) APRIL 2022 SALES CHART!

Post by Ryan »

greg wrote: Sat Jun 18, 2022 12:27:23 pm
Ryan wrote: Fri Jun 17, 2022 9:40:57 pm Thanks for posting this. When VALIANT (VH1) started to hit around Unity, the numbers just skyrocketed, would love to see a chart like this for VH1 print run numbers.
Done (and already online for about 20 years), for the averages, anyway. :lol:
Image

http://valiantarchive.com/valiant/printchart.php
Should've guessed :lol: . This is very cool to see laid out like this. Relative stability through 91 and 92, the explosion of 93, then precipitous and steady decline, new 'events' failing to provide a bump and Birthquake finally providing the final nail to even the loyal diehards.


:rant:
Jim Shooter is not infallible, but one thing about his approach to comics that I really like is that his goal seemed to be to develop a steady, consistent line of superhero action/adventure comics that would attract a stable and consistent readership. Post-Unity VH1 with Shooter may not have hit the heights '93, because he didn't chase 'events' and hype, but I also highly doubt it ever would have hit the '95/'96 lows.

It's too bad comics still hasn't seemed to learn from this and always chase hype and the next fad instead of trying to build a steady, consistent universe for readers. Or maybe they've just collectively lost those skills.
:rant:

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Re: VALIANT(DMG) APRIL 2022 SALES CHART!

Post by dino »

SwiftMann wrote: Thu Jun 16, 2022 7:43:23 pm Red line is when it was announced DMG had taken full control.

Caveat/Disclaimer: The numbers here are intended to show the long-term patterns over time. The numbers can't be perfect as they do not include reorders and then there's your standard icv2 and comichron do they best they can but are always said to be low. Plus there is some educated estimates happening throughout for books that were off the charts completely and when Diamond wasn't providing info just after they started shipping in 2020 and again when they had the ransomware attack.

While it's obviously all been downhill since the highs of July 2015's Book of Death, adding a trendline shows that the decrease really starts in March of that year. Things really start looking bad by Fall 2016 and by Fall 2017, the drop has become a bit precipitous. So, while DMG may be putting the nails in the coffin, the prognosis was already dire when they took over.

And whoo-boy, does it sure show why they keep putting out #1s.

Image
Numbers aren't quite right here but the trend is until 2016. 2017 was our strongest year by far. X-O and Bloodshot Salvation in 2017 both easily crossed 100k

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Re: VALIANT(DMG) APRIL 2022 SALES CHART!

Post by Ryan »

Tim wrote: Thu Jun 16, 2022 6:26:06 am I am dumbfounded as to how these numbers allow a company to stay in business. What am I missing here?

Found an interesting quote from a youtube comment talking about current Marvel comics that might be relevant to this discussion:
...Disney considers comics to be marketing, not product, so it's a cost center rather than a profit center. And you know who Disney is not interested in marketing to? Answer: The 40-year old and up male who is the core customer for the floppy at comics shops.

...To Disney, the core is the IP, which is the character. They then strategize how to make money off the IP through various channels: movies, TV, video games, books, broadway, theme parks, icecapades, cruise lines, toys, whatever. Floppy comics barely even register on that list. They are mostly a form of marketing and for Disney it's a bonus they can get some fools to pay to subsidize their marketing.
I think it's relevant because VEI has seemed to have always been molded after the post-MCU Marvel business model. The comics are a means to generate visibility, excitement, word-of-mouth, etc (aka marketing) for the IPs so that the doors would open to the more lucrative true business of movies, tv, games, etc.

Even though it seemed in the initial VEI publishing phase (2012-2018) there was a serious effort to make the comics as viable on their own as possible, it never seemed like the goal was solely to build a solvent comic book universe.


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