February's comic sales figures

[angelophile]

February's comic sales figures have been released in estimated form. This may differ from the final Diamond sales charts, but they're normally in the same ballpark, so I'll take a peek.

The general downward trend continues, but for some of the titles I've been tracking, the decline is... extreme. It's not unusual to see drops of 5% as the recession starts to bite hard, but some titles are well above that. Interestingly, the line wide Ultimate universe crossover seems to be paying off in the short term (Ultimate Spider-man's rock steady, Ultimate Fantastic Four's jumped 9% in sales) but those are the exceptions.

Uncanny X-men's the big loser here. The sales chart has the previous issue listed at 82k. That seems to be generous, as the charts I looked at put it closer to 77k. The estimated chart has the latest issue, #506, coming in at 71.6k. Ouch. It's listed as nearly a 13% drop. Mid arc. Even if you consider the 82k generous, that's a big drop on the X-men's supposed flagship title. Matt Fraction's run seems popular inside Marvel themselves and well regarded by a certain percentage of the fanbase, but it looks like the slide continues and is gathering pace. It'll be interesting to see how long the goodwill lasts and how far sales slide before Fraction's replaced.

There's now a clear month without the Obama boost to see how Amazing Spider-man is holding up. As you might remember, the math was that Amazing needed to shift 63k an issue to match the combined sales of the pre-BND separate titles. Well, it's now officially below that, hovering around the 59k-60k per issue mark. Those offended by the crass removal of Spider-man's marriage will now be able to cite the sales as an indicator that Spider-man was doing better before. I'm not sure it proves that, it's merely that the book is following the same general downward trend in the present economic climate. What it does seem to prove is that whatever sales boost Marvel may have been expecting from new readers who would be attracted by the "uncomplicated" stories of an unmarried Peter Parker and his mangled love life haven't materialized and the book's just holding steady. It doesn't seem like it's made the slightest difference, apart from irritating a substantial faction of the fanbase. But not, apparently, substantial enough to leave the book in droves. Or if they did, they were replaced.

X-men Legacy continues its downward trend. As a group book it was regularly selling 75k-85k each issue with the same writer. Now in its Professor X-centric form it stumbles in at 56k, down another 3k from the previous issue. How Low can you go?

X-Force seems to have halted its slide and weighs in with 51.5k in sales, barely down on the previous issue. It's a bit too early to state that it's found its level, but it certainly continues to rack up sales above and beyond anything I expected. It's the one title launched out of Messiah Complex that seems to be working, up to a point. Unlike Legacy's continuing drawn out death.

Deadpool sees a small slide, a couple of thousand down to 44k, but nothing alarming. It's remarkably steady and must be the most successful Deadpool book in some time now.

Likewise, X Infernus has levelled out. The first issue drops behind it, it lost about 1k for issue 3, but still comes in at a healthy 36.5k. Impressive for a miniseries and well beyond anything the Young X-men title was mustering. That bodes well for the New Mutants relaunch.

With that, X-Men Kingbreaker is also impressively steady and there's barely a blip from the last issue's 31k. I can't comment on the content, but it seems there's an audience for these characters and to see the loose ends from Brubaker's X-men run addressed.

X-Factor's hoped for 30% sales increase unsurprisingly fails to materialize. It does, however, also hold steady, which is something to comment on. It has its audience and only lost 800 readers this issue. However, the hype machine (spoiler free) has been working overtime too. David's approach keeps the book on an even keel, but there's little to be that excited about.

Pity poor Incredible Hercules. Another 2k jumps ship this issue and the early success story seems to be fading. The title's managed to have a solid run for an oft neglected B-lister, however, and has been critically acclaimed, so maybe there's not too much to be upset about here. However, it's a drop and I'm not sure how long that will last before Herc gets amalgamated into an Avengers title and Hulk jumps back on. Interestingly it's not on an almost identical footing with the first issue of the new Agents of Atlas series, which seems to share a similar audience.

The lame duck that is Young X-men slumps towards its final issue. Marvel claimed not to be happy with the sales of New X-men because they expected more from an X-men ongoing. Well, they backed the wrong hose here and another 1500 readers go, meaning sales of about 25.5k and the young X-men concept dead in the water. If X-men Infernus is any indicator, Marvel can expect better things from the New Mutants series which effectively replaces it.

As Paul Cornell reported a couple of weeks ago, Captain Britain and MI:13 is on more solid ground. Despite the hairy looking 18k sales for the previous issue, there's a generous 2k increase as new readers flood on board for the Dracula arc. It seems that the reports of the title's demise led to the push in marketing and the new direction which has got people interested. An increase of 10%+ on sales without variant covers, new creative teams or crossovers is something impressive and while it still doesn't put the book out of danger, it's very positive news. The trade of the first arc does pretty well too, charting at 22 in the trade charts.

Less so for Runaways. Another 700 readers go and while that doesn't sound like a lot, it's enough to dip the title just under the 20k mark. The new creative team looks great, but whether they'll make a big impact in sales isn't clear. Mind you, Marvel continue to invest in the book and the Runaways/Young Avengers SI trade charts at 17 in the graphic novels charts, so that's possibly positive. I don't think any digests have been released of Moore's run yet, but it'll be worth noting when they do. Marvel have yet to officially officially announce the new creative team yet, but when they do it may lead to another boost.

Best not mention New Warriors. The final issue of which raked in about 15k in sales. Not down from the previous issue, but a sad ending for a book that was misjudged from the start and had so many of my favourite characters in it, being tossed away. I don't hold out much hope for seeing Jubilee, Chamber, Beak, Winddancer and the others any time soon. Marvel can once again proclaim this means there's not a market for the characters, instead of recognising that, like the Young X-men characters, they've thrown them away.

So mixed news there.

Comments

[kirke-novak.livejournal.com]

Huh? The death of S_D didn't boost the sales up 500%. But... but... Marvel lied to us? :O

[angelophile.livejournal.com]

No, I don't think they ever claimed it would. Peter David's belief that a spoiler free environment would still create hype for his book and boost sales appears to have been disproved, though.