August 2016 Sales Discussion

[Keith]

And so it begins...

RETAIL MARKET SHARE
DC ENTERTAINMENT - 39.27%
MARVEL COMICS - 30.78%
IMAGE COMICS - 7.66%
IDW PUBLISHING - 4.92%
DARK HORSE COMICS - 3.08%
BOOM! STUDIOS - 1.98%
DYNAMITE ENTERTAINMENT - 1.57%
TITAN COMICS - 1.19%
VIZ MEDIA - 1.14%
ONI PRESS - 0.83%
OTHER NON-TOP 10 - 7.58%

UNIT MARKET SHARE
DC ENTERTAINMENT - 44.59%
MARVEL COMICS - 32.11%
IMAGE COMICS - 7.78%
IDW PUBLISHING - 3.53%
DARK HORSE COMICS - 2.28%
BOOM! STUDIOS - 1.57%
DYNAMITE ENTERTAINMENT - 1.14%
TITAN COMICS - 1.09%
VALIANT ENTERTAINMENT - 0.88%
ARCHIE COMIC PUBLICATIONS - 0.64%
OTHER NON-TOP 10 - 4.38%

[sonicdan]

Man, DC is *SQUEE* -ing destroying right now!

[dornwolf]

Man, DC is *SQUEE* -ing destroying right now!

Would it be safe to say that Marvels constant events and refreshes are finally catching up to them?

[TheFerg714]

Man, DC is *SQUEE* -ing destroying right now!

Would it be safe to say that Marvels constant events and refreshes are finally catching up to them?

God I hope so.

[grendeljd]

Man, DC is *SQUEE* -ing destroying right now!

Would it be safe to say that Marvels constant events and refreshes are finally catching up to them?

God I hope so.

Might just be more of a case of DC having a particularly successful 're-launch' this time out. I don't read any DC, but I keep hearing others talking favourably of them since the latest Rebirth began.

[Donovan]

DC has had their share of crossovers over the last 15 years as well - they're not innocent.

They were just all named some variation of Crisis, so it just *seemed* like there was only one.

[Bl00dsh0t]

DC's Rebirth by all accounts has been pretty good. I started reading Flash and so far (6 issues in to the series proper) it's great.

[TheFerg714]

DC has had their share of crossovers over the last 15 years as well - they're not innocent.

They were just all named some variation of Crisis, so it just *seemed* like there was only one.

Actually compared to Marvel, they really are innocent...

Marvel
2005- House of M
2006- Civil War
2008- Secret Invasion
2010- Siege
2011- Fear Itself
2012- Avengers vs. X-Men
-*Marvel NOW!
2013- Infinity
-*All-New Marvel NOW!
2014- Original Sin
-*Avengers NOW!
2014- AXIS
2015- Secret Wars
-*All-New All-Different Marvel NOW!
2016- Civil War II
-*Marvel NOW(er?)

DC
2004- Identity Crisis
2005- Infinite Crisis
2008- Final Crisis
2009- Blackest Night
2011- Flashpoint
-*The New 52
2013- Forever Evil
2015- Convergence
-*DC You
2016- DC Rebirth

So yea, not saying DC is perfect, but I get kind of frustrated when people try to equate DC's event schedule to Marvel's. They're not even comparable. Not only does Marvel publish significantly more events (especially lately), the only DC events that hold a candle to the scale and scope of Marvel's mega-events are Infinite Crisis, Blackest Night, and maybe Forever Evil, but even these don't go near as over the top as Marvel likes to do. Every single one of the Marvel's events listed took over at least half of the publishing line for months at a time.

[dornwolf]

DC has had their share of crossovers over the last 15 years as well - they're not innocent.

They were just all named some variation of Crisis, so it just *seemed* like there was only one.

Actually compared to Marvel, they really are innocent...

Marvel
2005- House of M
2006- Civil War
2008- Secret Invasion
2010- Siege
2011- Fear Itself
2012- Avengers vs. X-Men
-*Marvel NOW!
2013- Infinity
-*All-New Marvel NOW!
2014- Original Sin
-*Avengers NOW!
2014- AXIS
2015- Secret Wars
-*All-New All-Different Marvel NOW!
2016- Civil War II
-*Marvel NOW(er?)

DC
2004- Identity Crisis
2005- Infinite Crisis
2008- Final Crisis
2009- Blackest Night
2011- Flashpoint
-*The New 52
2013- Forever Evil
2015- Convergence
-*DC You
2016- DC Rebirth

So yea, not saying DC is perfect, but I get kind of frustrated when people try to equate DC's event schedule to Marvel's. They're not even comparable. Not only does Marvel publish significantly more events (especially lately), the only DC events that hold a candle to the scale and scope of Marvel's mega-events are Infinite Crisis, Blackest Night, and maybe Forever Evil, but even these don't go near as over the top as Marvel likes to do. Every single one of the Marvel's events listed took over at least half of the publishing line for months at a time.

Man when someone lists them out Marvel really does too much. One for every season it seems. By the time one starts they've announced the next. Hell bleeding cool is reporting that Dan Slotts begging retailers to order more Clone Conspiracy. Marvels got some issues going and DC is getting a lot of the benefits with lower prices, less books, and a really strong PR case this time around

[Paul Nolan]

Nice numbers there. Consider Dark Horse had 3 times Valiants titles out in August, but they have 2.5 times the unit share.

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk

[Keith]

152 Generation Zero 1 - 16,270
184 4001 AD 4 -11,857
195 Faith 2 - 10,588
198 4001 Ad War Mother 1 - 10,289
230 X-O Manowar 49 - 7,782
233 Bloodshot Reborn 16 - 7,707
250 Ninjak 18 - 7,043
261 Rai 16 - 6,575
272 A&A 6 - 6,247
313 Wrath of the Eternal Warrior 10 - 5,149
394 Valiant Universe Handbook 2016 1 - 3,355

TPB
201 A&A vol 1 - 678

[TheeBaldMoose]

Keith, while not as high as last month's when Faith hit, this does seem to be a growth from earlier in the year.

Is there a graph out there laying out Valiant's monthly? Seems the summer did them quite well, with tons of goodness right around the corner (Bloodshot USA, Britannia, Divinity III).

Each of those are a month apart, could we see steady movement to solidify a 1% plus share of the market???

[Paul Nolan]

When did the 100,000 faith #1 2nd prints hit?

[jeremycoe]

When did the 100,000 faith #1 2nd prints hit?

They don't count since retailers received them for free.

[Paul Nolan]

Oh absolutely. Just wondering when the repercussions of the retailers' intelligent handling of the free issues will be seen in the statistics.

[jeremycoe]

Oh absolutely. Just wondering when the repercussions of the retailers' intelligent handling of the free issues will be seen in the statistics.

I'm guessing we'll see over the next few months as hopefully Faith's numbers don't drop as rapidly as other series tend to.

[mateo107]

you're omitting a few DC crossovers. Amazons Attack didn't tie into the whole line, but it was actually bigger in scope than Identity Crisis. Countdown as probably their biggest ever, with 52 issues, tie-ins all year, and smaller spin-off events (Arena, the Search for Ray Palmer, Death of the New Gods, and more).

[TheFerg714]

Does anyone have the numbers for Faith's previous issues? I'm curious...

you're omitting a few DC crossovers. Amazons Attack didn't tie into the whole line, but it was actually bigger in scope than Identity Crisis. Countdown as probably their biggest ever, with 52 issues, tie-ins all year, and smaller spin-off events (Arena, the Search for Ray Palmer, Death of the New Gods, and more).

It only really tied into Wonder Woman. The only other titles that tied in were Catwoman, Supergirl, and Teen Titans, which only had 1 tie-in issue each. If that's a major line-wide event, then so are all of Snyder's New 52 Bat-crossovers.
I suppose Countdown counts, but even that is not in the same vein as Marvel mega-events. At least DC tried something a little different with the whole weekly thing. When DC does line-wide "events" (using the term loosely here), they tend to do things a little differently. Look at the September "events" from the New 52: Villain's Month, Futures End, Zero Month, or Convergence which replaced everything with stories from past iterations of the DCU. These are legitimately different ways of doing major line-wide events that sort of shake up the status quo. Marvel, on the other hand, just does the same thing over and over. Every single example in my last post had basically the same format (besides Secret Wars, I suppose).

[mateo107]

you're omitting a few DC crossovers. Amazons Attack didn't tie into the whole line, but it was actually bigger in scope than Identity Crisis. Countdown as probably their biggest ever, with 52 issues, tie-ins all year, and smaller spin-off events (Arena, the Search for Ray Palmer, Death of the New Gods, and more).

It only really tied into Wonder Woman. The only other titles that tied in were Catwoman, Supergirl, and Teen Titans, which only had 1 tie-in issue each. If that's a major line-wide event, then so are all of Snyder's New 52 Bat-crossovers.

It was still bigger than Identity Crisis (Tie-ins: 3 issues of the Flash, 1 issue of Manhunter, 1 issue of Firestorm)

[Psiot X]

It's not like Marvel is really hurting yet but if that number continues to slide...

[GammaJosh]

184 4001 AD 4 -11,857
230 X-O Manowar 49 - 7,782

Would that make the 1:100 Sook variant of 4001 AD #4 and the 1:50 Gorham variant of X-O #49 two of the rarer VEI books? 11,857/100=119 copies. 7782/50=155 copies.

[greg]

In theory... but there are likely 400 copies of all Valiant books, even when the calculation points under 200. Divinity #1 1:40 had 350 copies, and is still the lowest book announced.

North American first month sales estimates are reported by Comichron, so there are more copies sold globally and more copies sold after the first month.

The retailer ratios are true, in the sense that a retailer who orders 50 is guaranteed to get 1 copy of a 1:50 (if they want it), but they might get 2 or more... if the publisher or distributor has extra. Publishers can print as many as they want and set the rules however they want, with no rules for themselves...if they want.

Some worker at the distributor might simply make an error if they can't tell a stack of Djurdjevic from a stack of Kotaki... or don't care enough to pay attention all day.

A shop that doesn't order 50 might get a 1:50 copy if the publisher or distributor wants to supply it as a "free sample", probably in the hope that it will lead to future sales. The artists/writer may get copies. VEI may want a box for themselves. Damaged copies need backups for returns.

It seems like every book could easily have 100 or 200 copies more than the calculation, since that's likely no more than a box or two, and basically nothing when VEI sells 90,000+ comics per month (not counting reorders, second month sales, reprints, and trades/hardcovers). For gold books, expect that 1,000 copies are printed. They're handed out regularly at conventions and as general "goodies" to promote Valiant.