CBR: Sales Estimates for December, 2010

[CBR News]

Inside you'll find the sales estimates for comics and trade paperbacks for November 2010 with DC's "Batman: The Dark Knight" leading monthly series and the latest "Fables" collection topping the TPBs.


Full article here.

[John Sage]

Whoever looks at these figures and doesn't realize that the proliferation of the $3.99 price point has cannibalized monthly comics must be blind.

[the4thpip]

Whoever looks at these figures and doesn't realize that the proliferation of the $3.99 price point has cannibalized monthly comics must be blind.

While I agree to an extend, one thing that seems to dispute that is that the books at the bottom end of the top 300 are doing much better sales-wise than a few years ago. I remember a few years ago when the book at #300 sold an estimated 1000 copies.

[Paul Render]

Up at renderwrx.net they've filtered out the Marvel and DC books from the lists to reveal only the indy/alternative books figures.

If you like that sort of thing check it out here
http://www.renderwrx.net/comicindustrysales.htm

[lazlo_toth]

I'm struck by two things:
A) DC taking 7 of the top ten spots. Never thought I'd live to see that happen,
B) The best-selling title failed to crack 90k copies. It wasn't long ago that the top title moving more than 100k was pretty much a given. Marvel's best-selling title moves 67k? That's got to be pretty close to the point where it would negate any extra profit generated by the increase in price.

Anyway, if I didn't think it boded ill for the industry as a whole, I would take a lot more pleasure in seeing Marvel suffer. They need to get slapped around a bit...

[BrotherUnitNo_4]

^^^^

Good point about how poorly the industry is doing in general. Sure DC dominated the top 10, but when the top titles are only making ~70K, it's not as big a punch.

[Drusilla lives!]

Marvel's best-selling title clocks in at 67k... and DC's at 90k?

That is surprisingly bad when one considers that the current number of members here on the CBR forums is just over 70k. That's like everyone here going out and buying these two titles... sad really, if that were the actual case.

But then there was a total of 5,564,344 comics sold, so things aren't that bad.

Though I find it interesting to consider that that 5,564,344 in relation to the current population of the US (307M) translates into approximately 1.8% of the population... which doesn't seem good at all really. And oddly, that 1.8% is almost what the ratio of the number of current CBR forum members is to the total of comics sold (1.3% expressed as a percentage).

[Paul Render]

In November the top selling non Marvel/DC book charted at #36 (Buffy).

In December the top selling non Marvel/DC book charted at #86 (True Blood).

All comics had a bad month in December.

[Drusilla lives!]

In November the top selling non Marvel/DC book charted at #36 (Buffy).

In December the top selling non Marvel/DC book charted at #86 (True Blood).

All comics had a bad month in December.

Comics are in a death spiral... nothing really surprises me there dude.

But what I find interesting in the numbers is that although I can't see total comic sales ever shrinking to a point where there's a chance that CBR's current number of forum members (70k) as representing the total comics buying public... I can see that membership growing into that total, or at least a significant chunk of that total.

What I mean is that if CBR happened to grow it's forum membership to 1M members (not out of the realm of possibility) and comic sales stagnated, then it's possible that one would indeed be reaching most (if not all) the remaining comic buying public here... particularly considering that most remaining suck... err, I mean "fans" would still likely buy more than one title a month.

[ZeoVGM]

Comics are in a death spiral...

Oh goodness, stop with this hyperbole. No it isn't. Things have looked FAR worse for comics in the past.

These things go up and they go down. That's just the industry and it's not just the comic industry where it's happening. Video games have had a lackluster year as well.

Comics aren't dying, they aren't going anywhere.

[Gitaroo_Dude]

I feel like it's almost a watershed moment when a new Wolverine series debuts with ~50k copies sold.

[seanx]

Oh goodness, stop with this hyperbole. No it isn't. Things have looked FAR worse for comics in the past.

When? These are the worst sales since they started printing the things. There will still be comics printed. Just not sure that it will be a mainstream thing. OR someplace to buy them locally. Or a distribution network.

Nope, like all print media,the end is near.

[magneto was right]

Oh wow:

Generation Hope 2 38,985
Generation Hope 3 7,395

-81.03% of sales.

[Ned McDodd]

everytime i look at these charts for the month, i get a little bit worried, because i always have to look at the bottom to find all my books, i'm interested in. But i think Lady Mechanika with 20,035 is really good.

[the4thpip]

Oh wow:

Generation Hope 2 38,985
Generation Hope 3 7,395

-81.03% of sales.

Must be a distribution error. If they both shipped this month, it's possible that only part of the country got issue 3 shippped in time to make the charts.
It will probably chart again in January.