Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Books / Money / Nerd The Great Comic Book Crash of '09
Posted by Paul Constant on Tue, Jun 16, 2009 at 3:11 PM
According to ICv2, comic book sales took a dive in May, down almost 20% from the year before. Graphic novel sales fell 13%. If you add April into the mix, comic sales are down 7% over last year and graphic novel sales 10% over the same period.
This is especially odd because Free Comic Book Day, which is the event that's supposed to bring all sorts of new bodies into comic book shops, was in May this year. Reportedly the local shops did really well for FCBD. For the most part, the comics industry has been considered recession-proof compared to the rest of the publishing industry, due to diehard fans who are addicted to the serialized monthly product.
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4
Illegally downloadable comics might be a culprit here. I've got a cousin who's been keeping up with his series via torrent and not spending a red cent. I hate him for having the same attitude with music as well...and he's a lawyer in a private practice, fer chrissake...he should be able to afford these things.
5
@4 - Front list comics and trades are virtually unavailable through legitimate digital channels. There is significant demand to consume comics digitally, which has been met by a huge vacuum from the industry ( which has learned little from the last decade of MP3). This is an issue throughout publishing. CBR scans filled a void, and not just because they're free. Until an end-to-end digital alternative exists which is both a great experience and incredibly hassle-free, illegally downloaded scans will continue to thrive, depriving all the great content creators of additional revenue (potentially depriving us of more awesome comics to read).
8
Maybe if they made it easier for people to subscribe (digitally or hard copy) I would still be buying comics. My local shop closed in February and I can't take 5 hours out of my week to drive to the next nearest store.
I tried subscribing, but the issues were so torn up by the mail service, I cancelled. They were unreadable.
And Borders and Barnes & Noble don't special order comics - trades, yes. But not everything I read is collected into trades. Indy comics? Forget it.
I've since become a follower of a few web comics, which has made me more receptive to digital delivery. But I won't download them illegally. That just fucks over everyone in the long run.
I tried subscribing, but the issues were so torn up by the mail service, I cancelled. They were unreadable.
And Borders and Barnes & Noble don't special order comics - trades, yes. But not everything I read is collected into trades. Indy comics? Forget it.
I've since become a follower of a few web comics, which has made me more receptive to digital delivery. But I won't download them illegally. That just fucks over everyone in the long run.
9
Well, the last couple of years had been through several events that pissed off Comic fans (Marvel's Civil War, One More Day, and the 'Zombie Dead Horse Parade', and DC's 'Crisis of the Week with more Character Derailment!'), so that's also a factor in the decrease in sales.
It's pretty much a "Hmm... people are not buying, let's add more... pizazz! throw in more tits, let's kill a few guys off, put them on the edge of their seats"
Unfortunately for them the reaction generally is "...What the fuck? I don't want some feeble attempt at porn. And why the FUCK did you kill off my favorite character?"
"...crap, no one's buying, let's do something really drastic! Let's kill off the A-listers, that'll get them going! Let's get rid of this guy's marriage, so he'll be more RELEVANT!"
"Fuck this, I'm going to buy Ice Cream"
Even if the writers are getting back on their feet - the fans, having been burned by some monumentally dumb editorial stances will not spend what little spare change they got on a medium that doesn't seem to understand that the people buy this stuff to be entertained, and more importantly as a means of escape.
It's pretty much a "Hmm... people are not buying, let's add more... pizazz! throw in more tits, let's kill a few guys off, put them on the edge of their seats"
Unfortunately for them the reaction generally is "...What the fuck? I don't want some feeble attempt at porn. And why the FUCK did you kill off my favorite character?"
"...crap, no one's buying, let's do something really drastic! Let's kill off the A-listers, that'll get them going! Let's get rid of this guy's marriage, so he'll be more RELEVANT!"
"Fuck this, I'm going to buy Ice Cream"
Even if the writers are getting back on their feet - the fans, having been burned by some monumentally dumb editorial stances will not spend what little spare change they got on a medium that doesn't seem to understand that the people buy this stuff to be entertained, and more importantly as a means of escape.
10
I guess you could complain about the stories, but for me, it's all about the $$$$.
I was never a big splurger, but I was addicted to the Ultimate Spider-man and Ultimate X-men remakes. I'd wait a month or two for the compilation to come out in the quasi-harder cover, and purchase both to add to my growing collection.
Then when I couldn't afford my mortgage, that seemed like a pretty stupid expenditure. Alcohol, food, mortgage and Internet. Unfortunately comic books are a luxury item.
I was never a big splurger, but I was addicted to the Ultimate Spider-man and Ultimate X-men remakes. I'd wait a month or two for the compilation to come out in the quasi-harder cover, and purchase both to add to my growing collection.
Then when I couldn't afford my mortgage, that seemed like a pretty stupid expenditure. Alcohol, food, mortgage and Internet. Unfortunately comic books are a luxury item.
11
Add the cover price increase on a lot of Marvel/DC's flagship titles to what other folks have already mentioned (recession, torrents and lack of solid digital distro, continued marketplace marginalization, etc.), along w/ the attitude from the major companies that comics consumers will buy whatever they tell us to buy at any price.
I regularly read torrents for titles that I might've tried but wasn't willing to spend $$$ on (or to get the gist of some bloated editorially mandated crossovers,) and if I like them I buy them in trades or as ongoing titles. I might be in the minority, but without torrents, there are plenty of comics I would've ignored.
I regularly read torrents for titles that I might've tried but wasn't willing to spend $$$ on (or to get the gist of some bloated editorially mandated crossovers,) and if I like them I buy them in trades or as ongoing titles. I might be in the minority, but without torrents, there are plenty of comics I would've ignored.
12
Die-hard? It's always been boom-bust, just like everyone else, and mainstream comics sales will NEVER ever come close to approaching 1995 levels again.
13
@10: The weird editorial mandates and clumsily handled stories/tie-ins just makes it less likely for anyone to spend their extra cash on the comics (even if you're rolling in the dough, would you buy Amazons Attack?).
And as @12 said, Comics have never been stable, there's too much speculation going on - not as bad as the nineties, and as @11 said, the industry has been full of downright questionable marketing practices.
And as @12 said, Comics have never been stable, there's too much speculation going on - not as bad as the nineties, and as @11 said, the industry has been full of downright questionable marketing practices.
14
I gave up on monthly's back in the early 90's. Now I just collect the trades. Individual issues are just too goddamn expensive.
15
1995? Try 1945. Captain Marvel (the Shazam guy) used to sell one and a half million copies of every issue back in the nineteen forties, when comics actually sold in any appreciable numbers.
Handwringing about a drop in comic sales now, six decades later, is like fretting about a decline in radio mystery play listenership.
Handwringing about a drop in comic sales now, six decades later, is like fretting about a decline in radio mystery play listenership.
16
It's only a serialized monthly product when it's monthly.
Vertigo's great titles have arguably all gone away, Astro City + Planetary + Powers come out irregularly, some of the more interesting writers like Warren Ellis and Garth Ennis are off doing random smaller projects, Alan Moore is off doing his own thing again, the X-titles have been running into the ground for years (the timely Uncanny 'helps'), Morrison seriously miswrote Final Crisis, the Marvel Universe got blown up to Skrulldom and back, the Ultimate Universe is doing something funky...
... I'm not sure what "monthly" product I'm supposed to be addicted to that it would be vaguely logical to be addicted to. Fables? :)
Vertigo's great titles have arguably all gone away, Astro City + Planetary + Powers come out irregularly, some of the more interesting writers like Warren Ellis and Garth Ennis are off doing random smaller projects, Alan Moore is off doing his own thing again, the X-titles have been running into the ground for years (the timely Uncanny 'helps'), Morrison seriously miswrote Final Crisis, the Marvel Universe got blown up to Skrulldom and back, the Ultimate Universe is doing something funky...
... I'm not sure what "monthly" product I'm supposed to be addicted to that it would be vaguely logical to be addicted to. Fables? :)
18
Hh, curious. There are a number of good theories here, the pricing issue being a major one in the midst of the recession we're having. Me personally, I've just gotten *back into comics again in '09* due to seriously great projects like Grant Morrison's "Batman R.I.P" and the theoretical cosmology-laden "Final Crisis". Both being kinda 'difficult' revampings of DC Universe staples, but inventive, fun, absurd, formula-defying and most importantly; smart. His most recent less 'outre work (by contrast to "Invisibles" or let's say, "Filth") in the DCU has consistently asked the reader to think about their fiction in ways that are still largely uncommon in the comics of the 'big two'.... and as we know, yeah, that's never a popular thing to do. Cheers to DC tho' for believing their readership is up to the challenge!
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