Kube

Do you know of a reliable website that posts comic book circulation figures.

And would that include sales from ebook versions like Comixcology?

Thanks

Kube

PS..looking for hard numbers about sales.

And sorry about spelling error in subject heading.

majorjoe23

There are no numbers released on digital sales. Comixology and the comic companies don't release them. I suspect they never will, but there might be occasional and inexact "milestone" announcements ("Watchmen has sold 1 million digital copies!" and so on).

Technically, no numbers are released for physical books either, but Diamond does release its top 300 selling books each month with a figure showing how each book sells in relation to Batman. People on the web then use that to reverse-engineer sales estimates for all the books.

ICV2 is the site that puts that together, you can find those here: http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/1850.html

These numbers are just for North America, so don't include books sold in Europe. Some creators have piped up saying these numbers are often 10-20% lower than actual sales.

Kube

First of all...thanks for explaining all that.

So...when a site like Comichron publishes the following it's that reverse-engineering you were talking about?

1 Superman Unchained 2 $3.99 DC 165,754
2 Batman 22 $3.99 DC 132,047
3 Guardians of Galaxy 5 $3.99 Marvel 110,372
4 Justice League 22 $3.99 DC 110,194
5 Batman Annual 2 $4.99 DC 101,726
6 Batman Superman 2 $3.99 DC 92,558
7 Justice League of America 6 $3.99 DC 86,192
8 Superior Spider-Man 13 $3.99 Marvel 81,678
9 Superior Spider-Man 14 $3.99 Marvel 80,839
10 Superior Spider-Man Team Up 1 $3.99 Marvel 76,959
11 All New X-Men 14 $3.99 Marvel 74,848
12 Walking Dead 112 $2.99 Image 72,975
13 Avengers 16 $3.99 Marvel 72,842
14 Hunger 1 $3.99 Marvel 70,835
15 Uncanny X-Men 8 $3.99 Marvel 70,274
16 Uncanny Avengers 10 $3.99 Marvel 68,768
17 Avengers 15 $3.99 Marvel 68,472
18 Avengers AI 1 $2.99 Marvel 68,130
19 Uncanny X-Men 9 $3.99 Marvel 67,338
20 X-Men 3 $3.99 Marvel 65,270

http://www.comichron.com/monthlycomi...3/2013-07.html

Iron Man is 39th on the list with 44 thousand or so. I would have thought that he would have been up there.

And your saying that they quote figures in relation to Batman sales. I guess that's because Batman is usually the top selling comic?

For some reason I thought Marvel and SpiderMan sold more comics. Maybe that's just cumulative and that DC still has the number #1 character.

taffer

Batman is used as the base index because its typically the most stable. It hardly ever drops out of the top 3. Other titles can fluctuate all over the place. One month a title might be #5 and next month be #25.

Spider-Man does typically sell well, but I think a lot of readers dropped it when Doc Ock became Superior Spider-Man, and it hasn't likely recovered from that yet. Plus it looks like Superior Spider-Man double shipped that month. Double shipping titles usually lose some readers too due to the increased cost of keeping up with it.

namja

Fixed

movieguru

It seems this site only counts sales to North American comicbook stores only. So it doesn't include international sales, book stores, other retail outlets, or subscriptions. Therefore, the true circulation figures could be much higher than reflected here.

Kube

Ok...so looking at that other site...to randomly pick a few titles we already discussed.

Looking at regular issues and not team ups...etc

SUPERIOR SPIDER-MAN #13 ---81,678

SUPERIOR SPIDER-MAN #14 ---80,839

IRON MAN #12 ---------------40,405

IRON MAN #13-------------- 39,534

That's basically the same or similar figures between the two sites. So basically a single issue of Iron Man sells about 40K and a single issue of the new Spider-Man sells 80k

PhantomStranger

Marvel had outsold DC for a number of years, but that all changed when DC relaunched their new universe in 2011. These days Marvel needs gimmicks to outsell DC, like double-shipping their popular titles. Marvel also releases more individual titles these days, so that can help.

I can't think of them off the top of my head, but there are entire blogs and websites dedicated to discussing comic book sales.

Trevor

Are most shops over-ordering most titles and keeping the extras as back issues? The stores I check seem to have tons of stuff from the last year or more still on the racks. Do these extras count in those sales figures?

rw2516

You would have to have a copy to see, but doesn't the legend of all magazines/comics state the circulation number? Also, seem to remember a yearly statement, required by law, published by each magazine/comic in the magazine that states circulation.

majorjoe23

Yeah, every book that makes it into a shop is a sale, since (with few exceptions) comics aren't returnable.

Image, Vertigo and some others are experimenting with making first issues returnable, encouraging retailers to order higher on first issues.

Kube

What is double-shipping? Is that two different issues of the same comic book title in the same month. I see Spider-Man has two, same thing with a bunch of different heroes. And those sales are still on the very low side.

exharrison

John Mayo on the Comic Book Page Podcast often laments that there isn't sell-through data available and all that we have is what the shops order from Diamond.

rw2516

All except comic shops are returnable. All other type retailers can return for credit. Don't know if DC ever did it, but in late 70s Marvel started different covers for direct sales vs regular retail. The upper left corner where price and issue number was located was different design and any with that cover could not be returned.

majorjoe23

Yeah, it's two issues in a month.

majorjoe23

True, but newstand sales make up a tiny fraction of sales, and only certain books get distribution there.

PhantomStranger

I don't believe the vast majority of comics are distributed through newsstands anymore and haven't been for years. That was a relic the direct market killed off in the late '90s. Archie comics are about the last titles to have widespread newsstand distribution.

majorjoe23

Barnes & Noble and Toys R Us both have comics sections. I was in Target the other day and was surprised to find a limited comics section of around 12 titles.

So there's not a lot, but they are out there.