Marvel is handing do their asses so the numbers speak for themselves. Golgo is crying that marvel and the people at Disney have well thought out plans just booming on all phases. They bought Star Wars and are absolutely hammering because of it. I look at this as marvel as the big one and dc the little annoying brother.
And they'd have a big advantage even without star wars.
Though I think the more important number is the total industry sales, and how they continue to rise.
As the analysis notes, '97 had the first place book with 11 variants.
Length tends to be based on story length. Often it's more like 2-3 years.
If a book lasts 8, that's probably it, no relaunch for it, unless it's a case where the book just started before a line-wide, which is more luck than normal policy, and quite often in that case they don't renumber (like Daredevil, it's mid-Waid run relaunch came *well* after Marvel One).
And even '12 issues, then relaunch with new direction,' doesn't strike me as particularly annoying. I mean, it means the ones before the relaunch are a complete story arc, and the ones after are the beginning of a new one. And often, it's significantly longer, they have a pretty good number of books in the 20s and 30s.
In my experience, plenty of people have wanted books with beginnings, middles, and ends, so it makes sense to me.
Relaunch *can* be, but their sales are way up over a decade ago, and they've got tons of healthy mid and high selling books. They changed what used to be a sign of flagging sales into a mere component in a strategy, and it worked.
I mean, they're up in the double digits from 10 years ago.
The industry as a whole is +39% from 10 years ago (using the same chart I linked), and on that month, Marvel was +4% over DC in units, and now they're +15%.
In other words, DC is up in units from 10 years ago, Marvel's just even more-so, significantly.
The narrative of a flagging industry is pretty much done with, comings are killing.
You said 'according to the mayo report,' you didn't actual link or show anything.
I posted a link that noted how this was the highest units since '97.
And duh, 'if it wasn't for the successful strategy that boosted sales it'd be worse,' but it'd still be quite good. Very good even, just maybe not as record breaking.
"Retailers ordered 8.39 million copies of the Top 300 comic books in the month. That bests any figure since December 1997, "
"Comics unit sales are up by more than 50% over the same month five years ago."
"TOP 300 COMICS UNIT SALES
April 2015: 8.39 million copies
Versus 1 year ago this month: +20%
Versus 5 years ago this month: +51% Versus 10 years ago this month: +39%
Versus 15 years ago this month: +45%
YEAR TO DATE: 29.16 million copies, +15% vs. 2014, +29% vs. 2010, +24% vs. 2005, +29% vs. 2000"
So yes, number of units sold, the industry is up 39% since ten years ago. And with it's 43% market share in units, much greater than it's market share back then, Marvel is, as they say, 'shredding it.'
You may not likely the tactic, but I'm strictly talking the numbers here.
Another poster gathered the estimated units sold throughout the years. Marvel is up some years, but down on others. Without the constant relaunches, the numbers would be lower.
And this is the mayo report link I was talking about :
Ah, yes, those weren't posted before. Note how those are a year old, Marvel was only somewhat ahead last year, it's expanded it's lead considerably this year..
Personally, I consider Comichron the most reliable source, it shows it's numbers in depth. It strikes me as somewhat questionable that Marvel's rising in market share at the same time the industry is expanding, both talking units sold, yet it's not supposed to have gained much ground at that point.
Of course, again, it is a sales strategy that has helped bring in readers, and it's been working for years now, company sales are up, their average title is doing great.
The purpose of a sales strategy is to build sales, after all.
I will also note that it's not just about the relaunch. Plenty of books simply end, and then a new, possibly-related but maybe not, book gets launched. Which is something I think some may miss- beginning/middle/ends to 12 issue comics means readers get satisfying experiences even if things end, unlike many normal cancelations. This leaves readers more likely to jump ship to something similar. They liked Young Avengers? They're probably going to jump to Loki and Hawkeye, and so on.
I'd like to know how many new readers they actually brought in. Month to month sales don't really indicate that, because it's how many copies the store bought, not how many the customers bought. I used to work at a comic shop and I'd always see tons of copies not sold and go into the 25 cent bin.
Supposedly, the Trade sales are the ones to look at and DC generally does extremely well.
Leftovers are just the difference between sold and not-sold, if you sell a whole ton of a title and have 5 left, that's better than selling a few of the title and having none left. I see copies of Star Wars #1 around, but that's just because people are still buying them so stores bought more.
One important thing is the number of comic stores has risen. Diamond has 2,638 stores with accounts with them as-of 2013, when back in the 90s it was sub-2k after the speculator crash. I think you'll agree that more stores is a good indicator of more readers, and I'd bet it's continued to improved.
I get my comics from a gaming store that used to have only a small selection of comics, but gradually expanded as they've been selling better in recent years, and now has a fairly good selection of big 2 plus even a few other companies' titles. Anecdotal, but I've taken that as a good sign.
It's hard to say precisely how many readers that translates into, but one other notable thing is female-focused/appealing books have been doing a good deal better. Ms. Marvel and Batgirl, either company, it seems like a threshold has been crossed. So there's expansion of type of reader at least.
Yes, I'm not sure what the ratio between the two companies in TPB is, I expect it to be different than the floppy ratio since DC has it's evergreen characters, but that's another segment that has expanded so I expect both are up.
Of note there, every Barnes & Noble in my area just expanded the size of their graphic novel section significantly.
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