FUTURES END Powers DC to September Comic Book Sales Win

Dr. Poison
Friendly Neighborhood Regular

Who's ready for an injection?

Posts: 1,203

FUTURES END Powers DC to September Comic Book Sales Win Oct 3, 2014 11:26:10 GMT -5

Quote

Post by Dr. Poison on Oct 3, 2014 11:26:10 GMT -5

From

DEATH OF WOLVERINE is #1, But FUTURES END Powers DC to September Comic Book Sales Win
by Michael DoranDate: 03 October 2014 Time: 11:07 AM ET 126 44Reddit0Submit0

The first two issues of Marvel’s Death of Wolverine event were the bestselling comic books of September 2014 in the Direct Market, but this year’s Futures End edition of DC’s now annual September event month, along with their 3D lenticular covers and the fact DC shipped over 40 more items in September than Marvel, helped the publisher to now-rare Market Share wins over their chief rival.

According to data released by Diamond Comic Distributors Friday morning, DC led all publishers with 36.58% of Dollar Share, compared to 32.04% for Marvel, and 40.76% of Unit Share, compared to Marvel’s 34.11%. In a press release Friday morning, DC announced that 40.76% of Units equals 3.5 million comic books sold to retailers. As the publisher themselves noted this makes the fourth year in a row DC has led the market in the month of September.

DC was also helped by the #1 bestselling graphic novel of the month, the Batman: Death of the Family Book & Joker Mask Set.

“Our publishing business continues to be a top priority for DC Entertainment and I couldn’t be more proud of our team’s success this September,” said Diane Nelson, DC Entertainment President in the press release, adding the publisher expects 2014 to be a “record-setting year for the entire DC Entertainment business.”

As noted, fans often deride killing characters temporarily, but it’s inarguably effective. DC’s Futures End event wasn’t enough to overcome the “death” of Wolverine, the first two issues of which outsold all other comic books last month, at least to retailers. In other words, Marvel probably isn’t going to stop what works any time soon.

The DC-Marvel horserace aside, more importantly, overall industry sales while slightly down in Unit Sales versus September 2013, were up a strong 5.64% in Dollar Sales. Yes, that means readers just footed the bill with higher cover prices, but it does put positive dollars in the hands of Direct Market comic book retailers heading into the holiday season.

Sales of the just-completed 3rd Quarter of 2014 are up significantly over 3rd Quarter 2013 in Units and Dollars and overall, year-to-date 2014 sales are down slightly in terms of Unit sales (- 1.51%) but up 3.19% in Dollars with graphic novel sales growing at a greater rate than comic book sales.

The September 2014 Market Share, Comparative Sales Data, and New Titles Shipped charts, along with Top 10 Comic Books and Top 10 Graphic Novels charts follow below.

TOP COMIC BOOK PUBLISHERS

RETAIL MARKET SHARE

PUBLISHER

SHARE

DC ENTERTAINMENT

36.58%

MARVEL COMICS

32.04%

IMAGE COMICS

7.49%

IDW PUBLISHING

4.52%

DARK HORSE COMICS

4.11%

BOOM! STUDIOS

2.34%

DYNAMITE ENTERTAINMENT

2.18%

EAGLEMOSS PUBLICATIONS LTD

1.29%

RANDOM HOUSE

1.15%

VIZ MEDIA

0.96%

OTHER NON-TOP 10

7.34%

UNIT MARKET SHARE

PUBLISHER

SHARE

DC ENTERTAINMENT

40.76%

MARVEL COMICS

34.11%

IMAGE COMICS

8.24%

DARK HORSE COMICS

3.30%

IDW PUBLISHING

3.24%

DYNAMITE ENTERTAINMENT

2.31%

BOOM! STUDIOS

2.28%

VALIANT ENTERTAINMENT LLC

0.71%

AVATAR PRESS INC

0.66%

ZENESCOPE ENTERTAINMENT INC

0.63%

OTHER NON-TOP 10

4.77%

NEW TITLES SHIPPED

PUBLISHER

COMICS SHIPPED

GRAPHIC NOVELS SHIPPED

MAGAZINES SHIPPED

TOTAL SHIPPED

DC ENTERTAINMENT

124

27

0

151

MARVEL COMICS

80

26

1

107

IMAGE COMICS

57

12

0

69

DARK HORSE COMICS

36

21

0

57

IDW PUBLISHING

35

18

0

53

BOOM! STUDIOS

30

7

0

37

DYNAMITE ENTERTAINMENT

34

0

0

34

VIZ MEDIA

0

24

0

24

RANDOM HOUSE

3

20

0

23

EAGLEMOSS

0

0

12

12

OTHER NON-TOP 10

85

110

21

216

COMPARATIVE SALES STATISTICS

DOLLARS

UNITS

SEPTEMBER 2014 VS. AUGUST 2014

COMICS

28.33%

23.90%

GRAPHIC NOVELS

12.12%

-1.67%

TOTAL COMICS/GN

23.40%

21.86%

SEPTEMBER 2014 VS. SEPTEMBER 2013

COMICS

4.58%

-0.12%

GRAPHIC NOVELS

8.49%

-1.61%

TOTAL COMICS/GN

5.64%

-0.22%

YEAR-TO-DATE 2014 VS. YEAR-TO-DATE 2013

COMICS

2.69%

-2.04%

GRAPHIC NOVELS

4.33%

4.99%

TOTAL COMICS/GN

3.19%

-1.51%

THIRD QUARTER 2014 VS. SECOND QUARTER 2014

COMICS

13.59%

13.56%

GRAPHIC NOVELS

0.75%

0.77%

TOTAL COMICS/GN

9.50%

12.51%

THIRD QUARTER 2014 VS. THIRD QUARTER 2013

COMICS

10.30%

6.15%

GRAPHIC NOVELS

7.04%

4.17%

TOTAL COMICS/GN

9.33%

6.01%

TOP 10 COMIC BOOKS

RANK

DESCRIPTION

PRICE

VENDOR

1

DEATH OF WOLVERINE #1

$4.99

MAR

2

DEATH OF WOLVERINE #2

$4.99

MAR

3

BATMAN: FUTURES END #1

$3.99

DC

4

HARLEY QUINN: FUTURES END #1

$3.99

DC

5

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #6

$3.99

MAR

6

JUSTICE LEAGUE: FUTURES END #1

$3.99

DC

7

ORIGINAL SIN #8

$4.99

MAR

8

DETECTIVE COMICS: FUTURES END #1

$3.99

DC

9

JUSTICE LEAGUE #33

$3.99

DC

10

BATMAN/SUPERMAN: FUTURES END #1

$3.99

DC

TOP 10 GRAPHIC NOVELS & TRADE PAPERBACKS

RANK

DESCRIPTION

PRICE

VENDOR

1

BATMAN: DEATH OF THE FAMILY BOOK & THE JOKER MASK BOXED SET

$39.99

DC

2

FOREVER EVIL HC (N52)

$24.99

DC

3

YU-GI-OH! 5DS VOLUME 6 GN

$9.99

VIZ

4

GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOLUME 2: ANGELA TP

$19.99

MAR

5

THE WALKING DEAD VOLUME 10 HC (MR)

$34.99

IMA

6

HARLEY QUINN: VENGEANCE UNLIMITED TP

$19.99

DC

7

SAGA VOLUME 1 HC (MR)

$9.99

IMA

8

KICK-ASS 3 PREMIERE HC (MR)

$29.99

MAR

9

FATALE VOLUME 5: CURSE THE DEMON TP (MR)

$14.99

IMA

10

SAGA VOLUME 3 TP (MR)

$14.99

IMA

Currently Reading: Aquaman, Birds of Prey, Green Arrow, Hal Jordan & The Green Lantern Corps, Justice League of America, Titans, Trinity, Wonder Woman, & Wonder Woman '77..

Deleted

Posts: 0

FUTURES END Powers DC to September Comic Book Sales Win Oct 3, 2014 14:32:06 GMT -5

Quote

Post by Deleted on Oct 3, 2014 14:32:06 GMT -5

The caveat here is that while they won the month, they hadn't since last September, and they did not win his September as handily as they did last September, the September event did not sell as well as last year's Villain's month (and this year all orders were met, as opposed to last year where there were allocations and they could have sold more if they had made more.

DC's whole marketing strategy is to win September it seems, but the sales are diminishing, Future's End didn't do as well as Villains month which did not do as well as Zero Month, so what happens next September if they diminish again or they do a September event and don't win the month?

I am not a fan of putting marketing before storytelling an d having every title disrupted once a year for a special September that I can skip and not affect the stories I do want to follow, but I understand it's a business and you do what you need to do. But when you do it, you should be growing sales each time, not losing them. It just seems the PTB at DC aren't looking at the big picture of long term success and are selling themselves short for these short term gains that really are meaningless in stopping the sales attrition on their books over the long haul. The additional sales in Sept hasn't brought additional reader sot the books in the other 11 months, which is what the goal of these things should be, not to get press that you "Won" the month. Win one battle, lose the war. Great strategy.

-M

Dr. Poison
Friendly Neighborhood Regular

Who's ready for an injection?

Posts: 1,203

FUTURES END Powers DC to September Comic Book Sales Win Oct 3, 2014 14:51:29 GMT -5

Quote

Post by Dr. Poison on Oct 3, 2014 14:51:29 GMT -5

I'll admit that I didn't enjoy Future's End Month as much as I did Villains' Month but I did enjoy Villains' Month more than Zero Year Month. The Future's End series just seems all over the place. In fact, it's the first major event series from DC since Crisis On Infinite Earths that I'm not collecting/reading. We've seen the future stuff before in Armageddon 2000. We saw a major Cadmus threat on the JLU cartoon. Brother Eye made his mark in the OMAC series leading up to Infinite Crisis. It's like Azzarello, Giffen, Jurgens, and Lemire were tasked with coming up with an event and didn't really have a good single idea so they decided to make a casserole out of previous interesting story arcs.

Currently Reading: Aquaman, Birds of Prey, Green Arrow, Hal Jordan & The Green Lantern Corps, Justice League of America, Titans, Trinity, Wonder Woman, & Wonder Woman '77..

hondobrode
The Power Cosmic!

Posts: 8,266

FUTURES END Powers DC to September Comic Book Sales Win Oct 3, 2014 18:54:02 GMT -5 Dr. Poison likes this

Quote

Post by hondobrode on Oct 3, 2014 18:54:02 GMT -5

I'm liking Future's End though I haven't bought the one-shots yet.

Pretty sure DC is going to reveal that these actual Future's Ends will tie into one of the 52 earths and actually happen there, but not Prime or whatever.

Next September will be post-next-Crisis.

Deleted

Posts: 0

FUTURES END Powers DC to September Comic Book Sales Win Oct 3, 2014 20:23:57 GMT -5

Quote

Post by Deleted on Oct 3, 2014 20:23:57 GMT -5

The difference a year makes...

last year all through September our shop was getting calls form other comic shops in the area looking to see if we had copies of the Villains lenticular covers because they did not have enough because of allocations, this year we are getting calls from the same shops, but now they are asking if we need copies because they ordered too many and no one is buying them and they need to get their money back on them...

-M

Earth 2 Flash
Full Member

Posts: 421

FUTURES END Powers DC to September Comic Book Sales Win Oct 3, 2014 20:43:10 GMT -5

Quote

Post by Earth 2 Flash on Oct 3, 2014 20:43:10 GMT -5

Oct 3, 2014 20:23:57 GMT -5 @mrp said:

The difference a year makes...

last year all through September our shop was getting calls form other comic shops in the area looking to see if we had copies of the Villains lenticular covers because they did not have enough because of allocations, this year we are getting calls from the same shops, but now they are asking if we need copies because they ordered too many and no one is buying them and they need to get their money back on them...

-M

That is both sad and scary. I hope the next 6 months of comics and Blood Moon is more successful for DC.

Deleted

Posts: 0

FUTURES END Powers DC to September Comic Book Sales Win Oct 3, 2014 20:52:07 GMT -5

Quote

Post by Deleted on Oct 3, 2014 20:52:07 GMT -5

Oct 3, 2014 20:43:10 GMT -5 Earth 2 Flash said:

Oct 3, 2014 20:23:57 GMT -5 @mrp said:

The difference a year makes...

last year all through September our shop was getting calls form other comic shops in the area looking to see if we had copies of the Villains lenticular covers because they did not have enough because of allocations, this year we are getting calls from the same shops, but now they are asking if we need copies because they ordered too many and no one is buying them and they need to get their money back on them...

-M

That is both sad and scary. I hope the next 6 months of comics and Blood Moon is more successful for DC.

The thing to remember about those Diamond sales figures is that they do not reflect sale sot end customers but sales to retailers. If you want to see what is actually selling, look at the top books on the reorder charts, as that is where you see what is moving out the door of comic shops in numbers greater than expected.

We ordered our regular number of copies for every book in Sept., no extras, and we have copies left of a lot of the books that came out after the first week. A lot of pull customers (who weren't the completists in our customer base) passed on the event issues, and outside of a few speculators the initial week, we had basically zero casual pick up sales of the books. Once speculators saw these books weren't going to skyrocket on ebay like they did last year, interest totally fell off for these. Since a lot of retailers order based on track record, I won't be surprised to see orders down on next September's event since so many retailers are stuck sitting on copies of these, unless DC comes up with something that draws massive reader interest and not completist/speculator interest.

-M

Dr. Poison
Friendly Neighborhood Regular

Who's ready for an injection?

Posts: 1,203

FUTURES END Powers DC to September Comic Book Sales Win Oct 3, 2014 21:24:34 GMT -5

Quote

Post by Dr. Poison on Oct 3, 2014 21:24:34 GMT -5

I think a large portion of the disinterest in Future's End is that all of the stories from September are just possible futures with most of them not actually coming to pass. It's basically imaginary story month.

Currently Reading: Aquaman, Birds of Prey, Green Arrow, Hal Jordan & The Green Lantern Corps, Justice League of America, Titans, Trinity, Wonder Woman, & Wonder Woman '77..

Deleted

Posts: 0

FUTURES END Powers DC to September Comic Book Sales Win Oct 3, 2014 21:25:39 GMT -5

Quote

Post by Deleted on Oct 3, 2014 21:25:39 GMT -5

Oct 3, 2014 21:24:34 GMT -5 Dr. Poison said:

I think a large portion of the disinterest in Future's End is that all of the stories from September are just possible futures with most of them not actually coming to pass. It's basically imaginary story month.

Every comic is an imaginary story. Unless it's a bio comic like March Book One.

-M

Dr. Poison
Friendly Neighborhood Regular

Who's ready for an injection?

Posts: 1,203

FUTURES END Powers DC to September Comic Book Sales Win Oct 3, 2014 21:28:44 GMT -5

Quote

Post by Dr. Poison on Oct 3, 2014 21:28:44 GMT -5

Oct 3, 2014 21:25:39 GMT -5 @mrp said:

Oct 3, 2014 21:24:34 GMT -5 Dr. Poison said:

I think a large portion of the disinterest in Future's End is that all of the stories from September are just possible futures with most of them not actually coming to pass. It's basically imaginary story month.

Every comic is an imaginary story. Unless it's a bio comic like March Book One.

-M

I was referring to the phrase that DC used to use in the 60s/70s/80s when they would tell a story in their books that fell outside of continuity like "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?".

Currently Reading: Aquaman, Birds of Prey, Green Arrow, Hal Jordan & The Green Lantern Corps, Justice League of America, Titans, Trinity, Wonder Woman, & Wonder Woman '77..

Deleted

Posts: 0

FUTURES END Powers DC to September Comic Book Sales Win Oct 3, 2014 22:04:28 GMT -5 hondobrode likes this

Quote

Post by Deleted on Oct 3, 2014 22:04:28 GMT -5

I understand that, but the concept that some fictional stories are more imaginary than others and some count and other's don't is a bit ludicrous, especially at DC where they change continuity as often as some folks change their socks, and when they do stories that people championed because they "mattered" suddenly don't. A story is a story is a story, it's good or it's not. Tell good stories. Read good stories. Don't worry if they matter or not. If you liked it, it mattered because it entertained you. If it stunk, it didn't matter because you will try to forget it or find different stories that do entertain you. One good Elseworlds story matters more to me than 20 bad stories in continuity because I don't care about them, I care about good stories.

DC needs to look at what types of stories make up their evergreen trades-i.e. the trades that stay in print and are perennial sellers. Watchmen-imaginary story. Dark Knight Returns-imaginary story with only a possible future, Batman Year One-story that doesn't "matter" any more because Zero Year changed the story, but it keeps selling and people keep coming back to it, etc. etc. They become evergreen sellers because they are good stories not because they are "not Imaginary" stories.

-M

Edit to add: PS Let's add Kingdom Come with it's only a possible future tag to that list of perennial sellers.

Last Edit: Oct 3, 2014 22:08:30 GMT -5 by Deleted