April set some records, in both units and dollars (sales list). Most units since Dec '97, which was way back in the 'tons of variant covers' day.
Graphic novels reached an all-time dollar record.
And even though it was a big event for DC, Convergence, Marvel still came out on top. Not that either company has reason to complain! 11 titles over 100k, most since '07.
I find it interesting that it does so well, as it's not like there wasn't SW around before, Dark Horse SW was solid stuff. Strength of being put out by the big two and attached to the new continuity, I guess!
The event hasn't ended yet, we don't even know what most of the changes are yet ^^;
Of course, it could be that the known ones are enough to make him personally jump ship (Peter's going to be more focused on running his company, Logan will be old, etc.), but I don't think that's sign of any mass exodus.
It's a combo of their relaunches and events, not to mention Star Wars is still hot. I wonder if Kirkman's prophecy of Marvel killing the industry will come to fruition one day. Their relaunches are less and less as time goes by. According to the Mayo report. Plus, they're are doing ANOTHER relaunch this October. Overkill.
Man, it wasn't even close. DC You has been crazy good, IMO. Especially books like Omega Men, Midnighter, Constantine, etc... DC is following more relaunches this January as well.
I think the Kirkman prophecy isn't very good foretelling, and/or Marvel's taken steps to avoid it, depending on how you read it. A number of their currently really-popular books, like Ms. Marvel, have a lot of younger readers, which is the crux of his criticism of them aiming too much for the older audience.
Marvel's been steadily growing for awhile now, I've been fairly impressed. Especially since they've avoided gimmicky tricks like 3-d covers.
What do you mean 'relaunch'? I don't think they've done one since Marvel One, unless you mean individual title relaunches, which tend to coincide with new directions and have been pretty good at helping books build audience. Right now the 'season' model is their modus operandi.
Marvel has their own gimmicks, though. It's hardly just DC. some of their practices like double shipping, more 3.99 books, constant relaunching, etc..have off put some readers.
Yes, I mean individual titles. I know a lot of people who are turned away by Marvel's season approach.
They have their own sales strategies, yes, but their 'season' model of relaunches tied to actually new story directions and/or creators is a lot less gimmicky than 3-d covers. I mean, the last time 3d was big, was back in the 90s and tied directly into the specular market that crashed the industry.
Personally I'm pretty surprised DC hasn't picked up on the model, what with their tendency to change direction between creators even more than Marvel does. Batgirl really seemed like it should've had a new number one with it's radical change of direction. They aren't actually renumbering but they're even more radical with their direction shifts, so I'd have expected them to get the benefit of it....
Not everyone likes it, of course- Heck, I very much love a long continuing comic. The Transformers books are great for that right now, and one of my long-time favs, Gold Digger, is in the triple digits- but telling the stories in pre-planned chapters makes a lot of sense. And it doesn't prevent fairly long runs, like Waid's Daredevil.
---
3.99 is the industry standard price point at this point nowadays. I think only Image regularly does 2.99, plus some 3.50s. DC does it on a *few* books but it's mostly 3.99. Archie and IDW are all 3.99, Dark Horse is 3.50 or 3.99, etc..
It's only one month out of the year and is much less annoying than relaunching every 8-12 issues or so plus, they didn't even do it this year. People seemed to enjoy the 3-D covers.
I much prefer DC's tactics of less relaunching. The month of September is annoying, because it puts the current story on hold for one month, but I can at least live with that.
Like the Mayo report stated, relaunching is a sign of weak sales. Marvel's units are down (although more up this year than previous) compared to a decade ago.
KMC Community Forums
May 19th, 2015 06:44 PM
