Comic sales figures for July
Aug. 18th, 2009 12:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
angelophileICv2 have now posted the estimated sales figures for July.
Bad news for fans of Runaways, but before that...
For the second month running, sales appear to be up, which gives a positive indication that the market has indeed bottomed out and is finding its level. Captain America Reborn was the big winner, with sales of 193k. That's a decent total and the first comic topping the charts to get near the 200k mark for a while. Blackest Night does well, with DC's event picking up seven of the top spots. It ties with Dark Reign, which picks up another seven.
On Amazing Spider-man, only two issues shipped this month and the issue 600 anniversary issue picks up sales of 116k while #599 72k, so well ahead of the magic figure this month. Again, its whether any of those readers stick around which is going to be telling.
Now on to the titles I've been tracking:
Uncanny X-men receives a boost this month from its close association with the Dark Reign event, up from last month's increasing 76k to 83k. That's looking far healthier, but, again, it's the sustainability that's telling. After Dark Reign there's a Greg Land arc about Magneto, which should keep sales fairly buoyant. I still find the title every time I look at it, though, so the Dark Reign and Land art makes it an even more unattractive prospect in the future, even before Matt Fraction's 'writing'.
X-Force just keeps going from strength to strength. It's safe to say this book has been the one true success from the X-men line reshuffle following Messiah Complex. It's the first issue of a new arc following the crossover with Cable and it hits sales of 61k, up 10k on where it was pre-crossover and even 3k on the last issue of it. I think it's safe to say this book's a success story and has been widely well received, despite its deliberately violent 90s stylings. An increase of this size is highly impressive.
And below it is X-men Legacy, apparently not a core X-title any more. It's a Dark Reign tie in, however, and benefits from that, increasing sales slightly from 58k to 59k. With Legacy languishing and Astonishing irregular, Marvel do seem to be focusing their attention purely on Uncanny X-men at the moment as their only flagship X-men title, tie-ins aside.
Deadpool is another success story for Marvel. Suddenly something appears to have clicked and the character's getting a lot of attention from readers - not only does the main title get a sales increase, a huge one from 52k to near 59k (most likely thanks to a variant cover and the Dark Reign tie in) but the new second Deadpool title - Deadpool: Merc with a Mouth - debuts at 55k. Even his Suicide Kings miniseries sees a bump - up from 35k to 38k. Impressive.
New Mutants is looking solid too. An inflated debut with five variant covers dropped to 43k for issue 2 and almost identical figures for issue 3. There's still a couple of variants for each of these issues but those are still decent figures compared to the highest levels for the New X-men and Young X-men titles. If the title sustains these sorts of figures, perhaps Marvel might click that there was an audience for these characters all along which wasn't being served in the past by half-assed semi-reunions. Now how about Gen X?
X-Factor - 31k again. It's getting predictable. If Marvel don't mess with the format, this could last forever.
A slight increase for Incredible Hercules this month, up 1k to 29k. There was a variant, so that probably explains that. It's still losing ground but slowly. The long term future isn't rosy but it's not quite there yet.
X-men Forever debuted at 36k, dropped to 31k for the second issue and #3 and #4 sell identical numbers of 28.6k. If that's the level it remains at, there's a future for the book at least. No figures for the reprints of the sold out #1 and #2 as they don't make the top 300, so they must have been under the 4k level. I honestly expected the book to do better than this, I must confess.
Oh, and Marvel Divas debuts at 21k. I think we can safely say that Marvel will once more use this as evidence that female-centric comics don't sell, instead of concluding that wafer thin attempts to cash in on Sex in the City, wallpapering existing characters over set molds, with off-putting cheesecake covers don't sell.
The last issue of Captain Britain and MI13 only manages 16.5k. Cancelled and with figures like that, unsurprisingly, and you can't say Marvel didn't give it a fair crack. But maybe the book was just too parochial to be a success.
However, that's still ahead of Runaways at 16.3k, another slight dip. Considering this was the start of a new creative team, that's a big blow as people appear to have used it as a jumping off point rather than a jumping on point. With a movie in the works, it would be logical to assume that Marvel will keep on publishing this title, but Blade and other movie hits didn't guarantee the longevity of any comic so I don't think it's so clear cut. The fact that the readership has halved in the space of 12 issues has to be a cause for concern and while figures of around 22k were sustainable with the bonus of digests, it's hard to believe that 16k is.
Last month I said I thought the title would probably be safe til issue 24, but with continuing slides, I'm afraid I'm starting to concur with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
newnumber6. Issue 18 and then a hiatus seems likely while Marvel formulate a long term plan. I don't think cancellation at this point will be the end for these characters, by any means, but I do think they need to pause for longer than the two months then renumber from 1 approach and put another named creator behind the book, unfortunately for Kathryn Immonen who I think has been doing a decent job.
More discussion on the book's fate over at![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
the_hostel.
EDIT: Solicits for November have now been released and for the second month running, there's no Runaways. The title's solicited up to issue 14 and the only Runaways release in November is a hardcover of issues 11-14 padded out to trade length with a backup story from Marvel What If? That's very indicative that the axe has fallen and way sooner than I expected - I was expecting Immonen to get a fair crack of the whip but I suspect that Marvel had her working on future plots on the understanding that sales would pick up with the first issue of the new creative team and they haven't, so they've pulled the plug.
I may be proved wrong, but it looks like Runaways is now officially cancelled or on hiatus at least. The question is what Marvel do next. Relaunch again immediately, hold on for a few months and put some resources behind a relaunch in the form of a new creative team and advertising, cancel the title entirely, or continue a couple of months down the line when word of the events of issue 14 have got out and maybe drawn old readers back in. Lots of options, none of them with guaranteed success.
Bad news for fans of Runaways, but before that...
For the second month running, sales appear to be up, which gives a positive indication that the market has indeed bottomed out and is finding its level. Captain America Reborn was the big winner, with sales of 193k. That's a decent total and the first comic topping the charts to get near the 200k mark for a while. Blackest Night does well, with DC's event picking up seven of the top spots. It ties with Dark Reign, which picks up another seven.
On Amazing Spider-man, only two issues shipped this month and the issue 600 anniversary issue picks up sales of 116k while #599 72k, so well ahead of the magic figure this month. Again, its whether any of those readers stick around which is going to be telling.
Now on to the titles I've been tracking:
Uncanny X-men receives a boost this month from its close association with the Dark Reign event, up from last month's increasing 76k to 83k. That's looking far healthier, but, again, it's the sustainability that's telling. After Dark Reign there's a Greg Land arc about Magneto, which should keep sales fairly buoyant. I still find the title every time I look at it, though, so the Dark Reign and Land art makes it an even more unattractive prospect in the future, even before Matt Fraction's 'writing'.
X-Force just keeps going from strength to strength. It's safe to say this book has been the one true success from the X-men line reshuffle following Messiah Complex. It's the first issue of a new arc following the crossover with Cable and it hits sales of 61k, up 10k on where it was pre-crossover and even 3k on the last issue of it. I think it's safe to say this book's a success story and has been widely well received, despite its deliberately violent 90s stylings. An increase of this size is highly impressive.
And below it is X-men Legacy, apparently not a core X-title any more. It's a Dark Reign tie in, however, and benefits from that, increasing sales slightly from 58k to 59k. With Legacy languishing and Astonishing irregular, Marvel do seem to be focusing their attention purely on Uncanny X-men at the moment as their only flagship X-men title, tie-ins aside.
Deadpool is another success story for Marvel. Suddenly something appears to have clicked and the character's getting a lot of attention from readers - not only does the main title get a sales increase, a huge one from 52k to near 59k (most likely thanks to a variant cover and the Dark Reign tie in) but the new second Deadpool title - Deadpool: Merc with a Mouth - debuts at 55k. Even his Suicide Kings miniseries sees a bump - up from 35k to 38k. Impressive.
New Mutants is looking solid too. An inflated debut with five variant covers dropped to 43k for issue 2 and almost identical figures for issue 3. There's still a couple of variants for each of these issues but those are still decent figures compared to the highest levels for the New X-men and Young X-men titles. If the title sustains these sorts of figures, perhaps Marvel might click that there was an audience for these characters all along which wasn't being served in the past by half-assed semi-reunions. Now how about Gen X?
X-Factor - 31k again. It's getting predictable. If Marvel don't mess with the format, this could last forever.
A slight increase for Incredible Hercules this month, up 1k to 29k. There was a variant, so that probably explains that. It's still losing ground but slowly. The long term future isn't rosy but it's not quite there yet.
X-men Forever debuted at 36k, dropped to 31k for the second issue and #3 and #4 sell identical numbers of 28.6k. If that's the level it remains at, there's a future for the book at least. No figures for the reprints of the sold out #1 and #2 as they don't make the top 300, so they must have been under the 4k level. I honestly expected the book to do better than this, I must confess.
Oh, and Marvel Divas debuts at 21k. I think we can safely say that Marvel will once more use this as evidence that female-centric comics don't sell, instead of concluding that wafer thin attempts to cash in on Sex in the City, wallpapering existing characters over set molds, with off-putting cheesecake covers don't sell.
The last issue of Captain Britain and MI13 only manages 16.5k. Cancelled and with figures like that, unsurprisingly, and you can't say Marvel didn't give it a fair crack. But maybe the book was just too parochial to be a success.
However, that's still ahead of Runaways at 16.3k, another slight dip. Considering this was the start of a new creative team, that's a big blow as people appear to have used it as a jumping off point rather than a jumping on point. With a movie in the works, it would be logical to assume that Marvel will keep on publishing this title, but Blade and other movie hits didn't guarantee the longevity of any comic so I don't think it's so clear cut. The fact that the readership has halved in the space of 12 issues has to be a cause for concern and while figures of around 22k were sustainable with the bonus of digests, it's hard to believe that 16k is.
Last month I said I thought the title would probably be safe til issue 24, but with continuing slides, I'm afraid I'm starting to concur with
newnumber6. Issue 18 and then a hiatus seems likely while Marvel formulate a long term plan. I don't think cancellation at this point will be the end for these characters, by any means, but I do think they need to pause for longer than the two months then renumber from 1 approach and put another named creator behind the book, unfortunately for Kathryn Immonen who I think has been doing a decent job.More discussion on the book's fate over at
the_hostel.EDIT: Solicits for November have now been released and for the second month running, there's no Runaways. The title's solicited up to issue 14 and the only Runaways release in November is a hardcover of issues 11-14 padded out to trade length with a backup story from Marvel What If? That's very indicative that the axe has fallen and way sooner than I expected - I was expecting Immonen to get a fair crack of the whip but I suspect that Marvel had her working on future plots on the understanding that sales would pick up with the first issue of the new creative team and they haven't, so they've pulled the plug.
I may be proved wrong, but it looks like Runaways is now officially cancelled or on hiatus at least. The question is what Marvel do next. Relaunch again immediately, hold on for a few months and put some resources behind a relaunch in the form of a new creative team and advertising, cancel the title entirely, or continue a couple of months down the line when word of the events of issue 14 have got out and maybe drawn old readers back in. Lots of options, none of them with guaranteed success.
