Ultimate Sales Discussions

[MarvelMaster616]

DC's rebuilding a universe with ALL their big names. Ultimate Marvel is rebuilding a universe with a few big names and a ton of no names. I don't share your optimism as far as sales gaining a major boost are concerened. I think that after the dust has settled the UU will be lucky to be where it was at before DoSM.

I'll skip making my usual long-winded response and just echo what you and ryuluddy stated. It's not surprising that Ultimate Spider-Man #160 sold well. It was hyped up on a national level and was given massive exposure. Plus, it has numerous variants. Books with large numbers of variants tend to sell well. Plus, Spider-Man is somewhat better known than Johnny Storm. So he's going to get more buzz.

That said, I think the sales jump will be temporary. Not only will Ultimate have to contend with DCU rebooting many books. They'll have to contend with the end of Fear Itself, which has been another heavily marketed event and usually when those events reach the end there's a sales boost. In addition, Uncanny X-men will be ending as well and it will get relaunched in October. And unlike Ultimate, these books will have a full cast of characters and not a bunch of replacements. Once the novelty wears off with Ultimate, it will go the same way the last relaunch went. It took only two years before another relaunch was done. There's only so many times that gimmick can be utilized before it loses it's effect.

[Plawsky]

Diamond June 2011 Top 100

It may not have been unexpected, but I still thought I'd post these showing Ultimate Spider-man #160's rousing success - #1!

What's crazy, though, is the index rating. For those of you don't know, the index is how a book sells in relation to Batman. Batman always has an index of 100, so do the math to see other books' relative sales. USM #160 weighs in with a VERY impressive 300.03, meaning it sold 3 times as many books as Batman. Meanwhile, the huge-selling FF #587 only had an index of 191.68. With Batman selling 50-60k regularly this year, it's likely that USM will be over 150k in issues, one of the biggest selling comics in quite some time.

I know that doesn't mean a lot for the future of the UU, but if the hype can keep up, we could definitely see some higher sales and more popularity in the days to come. For now, I'm just excited at how well this one issue did!

Other Ultimate books:
#17 USM 159
#28 AvNU 5
#45 Ultimate X 5

[Peter Wisdom]

It doesn't help that at the moment it looks like there'll be four weeks from the middle of August to the middle of September without any Ultimate books. Maybe they manage to adjust the schedule and steal some hype from DC's relaunch by starting day-and-date digital releases before them. Although technically they already started with Death Of Spider-Man.

[MarvelMaster616]

Diamond June 2011 Top 100

It may not have been unexpected, but I still thought I'd post these showing Ultimate Spider-man #160's rousing success - #1!

What's crazy, though, is the index rating. For those of you don't know, the index is how a book sells in relation to Batman. Batman always has an index of 100, so do the math to see other books' relative sales. USM #160 weighs in with a VERY impressive 300.03, meaning it sold 3 times as many books as Batman. Meanwhile, the huge-selling FF #587 only had an index of 191.68. With Batman selling 50-60k regularly this year, it's likely that USM will be over 150k in issues, one of the biggest selling comics in quite some time.

I know that doesn't mean a lot for the future of the UU, but if the hype can keep up, we could definitely see some higher sales and more popularity in the days to come. For now, I'm just excited at how well this one issue did!

Other Ultimate books:
#17 USM 159
#28 AvNU 5
#45 Ultimate X 5

Can't say I'm too surprised. Given all the variants, the media coverage, and the fact that it's Spider-Man (who last I checked has a much larger fanbase than Johnny Storm) then it's definitely going to be a high seller. It may be the biggest selling issue of the year. But I doubt the hype will keep up. One the novelty wears off and the gimmicks set in, the sales will fall. In the long run, I believe the costs of killing Peter Parker will outweight this temporary boost. Ultimatum offered a temporary boost and it took only two years for that to get relaunched. I would argue Death of Spider-Man is a lot better, but given that it's still a death gimmick I say that sooner or later the hangover will set in.

[Plawsky]

Sales numbers for July are in, and they look pretty good for Ultimate books.

#24 Fallout #1
#27 Fallout #2
#31 Fallout #3
#34 AvNU #6

So the numbers aren't outstanding, but four books in the top 40 isn't bad. Personally, I think that AT LEAST Fallout #1 should have been labeled USM #161 for more sales, because I don't think all of the new Ultimate readers necessarily realized the connection between USM #160 and the miniseries. The big sales bump will likely come from the new #1s instead.

For those of you interested what kind of books DIDN'T make the top 40, here's a select few:

#41 Action Comics #903
#43-44 Detective Comics #879-880
#45 Superman #713
#46 Astonishing X-Men #40
#50 Moon Knight #3 (BENDIS)
#56 Hulk #37
#59 Wonder Woman #613
#61 Hulk #36
#62 Incredible Hulks #632
#69 Deadpool #40
#70 Incredible Hulks #633
#73 Superman Batman #86
#83 Avengers Academy #16
#86 X-23 #12
#90 Daken Dark Wolverine #11
#95 Secret Warriors #28 (HICKMAN)

All four Ultimate titles outsold every one of those books, some of which are the flagship titles of some of comics oldest franchises.

In other news, the sales estimates for USM #160 are in: 159,355. That makes it by far the highest selling comic of the year, and the highest selling book since the new Avengers #1 from May 2010.

[ultimate spider-man. 1 fan!!!]

The sales numbers for july look strong by the looks of it, and ultimate fallout is going quite strong to. Ultimate fallout however continues to drop jest slightey each time, but i surppose its's due the death of spider-man becoming old news to media now. With ultimate beating all of those books this is very impressive for the reason of them being reviewed greatly like batman's detective comics right now. But who know? Ultimate fallout 4 would most likey be in the top 10 this next month, heck, myble it could be .1 for all the attection worldwide it's currenty getting. August? The first issue of the ultimates has a good chance of success and as for september? Ultimate spider-man # 1 is most likey to be a big money seller too.

[MarvelMaster616]

The sales figures speak for themselves. So I really don't have much else to add. But I think the figures for next month and September are going to be rediculously skewed as a result of the DC relaunch. So I'm not sure we'll be able to draw any conclusions from the figures we get, be it from Ultimate or 616.

[Plawsky]

I think you're right. DC is going to skew the sales charts with their 52 #1s, many of which will sell like hotcakes. I bet most of the top 10 will be those books, with Action, Detective, Batman, Superman, JLA, Green Lantern all seeing huge jumps. It won't be until probably December when we can really see where things stand. Though, it will still be interesting to see where the new Ultimate #1s place this month, especially in relation to the Spider-man and Avengers #1s in 2009, just to see if there's even still effective hype for the UU. They can also be compared against the recent #1s from Daredevil, Cap and Moon Knight, which were all pretty well hyped and from big creators.

[Skaddix]

I think you're right. DC is going to skew the sales charts with their 52 #1s, many of which will sell like hotcakes. I bet most of the top 10 will be those books, with Action, Detective, Batman, Superman, JLA, Green Lantern all seeing huge jumps. It won't be until probably December when we can really see where things stand. Though, it will still be interesting to see where the new Ultimate #1s place this month, especially in relation to the Spider-man and Avengers #1s in 2009, just to see if there's even still effective hype for the UU. They can also be compared against the recent #1s from Daredevil, Cap and Moon Knight, which were all pretty well hyped and from big creators.

I totally agree. Its going to be a mess. All 52 Number ones. Not to mention besides Ultimates. A New Uncanny X-men 1, A New Incredible Hulks 1, A New Defenders 1, Wolverine and the X-men 1, and Fearless (FI Fallout) are all coming out between Now and November.

From lesser companies. Buffy 1 and Angel 1.

[MarvelMaster616]

I think you're right. DC is going to skew the sales charts with their 52 #1s, many of which will sell like hotcakes. I bet most of the top 10 will be those books, with Action, Detective, Batman, Superman, JLA, Green Lantern all seeing huge jumps. It won't be until probably December when we can really see where things stand. Though, it will still be interesting to see where the new Ultimate #1s place this month, especially in relation to the Spider-man and Avengers #1s in 2009, just to see if there's even still effective hype for the UU. They can also be compared against the recent #1s from Daredevil, Cap and Moon Knight, which were all pretty well hyped and from big creators.

Glad we can agree on something. But I think it may take a bit longer for the charts to settle because so many other books will be relaunching as Skaddix described. I think we'll be able to make a better assessment around January or so. That should allow the novelty of number 1s to wear off for Ultimate, DC, and the 616 books.

One other factor that might play a part are the digital sales. I know Ultimate already offers day-and-date digital release, but with DC and other Marvel books adopting that policy it could skew the stats even more. I hope at some point Diamond changes it's reporting because up to this point, digital comics haven't been a major chunk of the sales figures. That's probably going to grow now that so many comics are coming out with day-and-date releases. It would be nice if we could somehow factor that in, but I've noticed that certain aspects of the comic industry are slow to adapt.

[Plawsky]

Yeah, if digital really takes off (and I hope it does, for the sake of the industry's future), then Diamond numbers are going to become increasingly irrelevant. They'll still provide an semi-accurate guideline of market placing, but even that will be questionable. Unfortunately, just like subscriptions, Marvel and DC aren't likely to release the numbers for digital purchases. It would be really nice if everyone just told us exactly how many issues were sold, like the film industry does. But that's just how they do it, I suppose.

[MarvelMaster616]

Yeah, if digital really takes off (and I hope it does, for the sake of the industry's future), then Diamond numbers are going to become increasingly irrelevant. They'll still provide an semi-accurate guideline of market placing, but even that will be questionable. Unfortunately, just like subscriptions, Marvel and DC aren't likely to release the numbers for digital purchases. It would be really nice if everyone just told us exactly how many issues were sold, like the film industry does. But that's just how they do it, I suppose.

Yeah, that always bothered me too. For what reason would comic companies want to hide real sales data? I get that there are some aspects of their busienss that they can't make public, but I can't understand why they wouldn't compile a sales list of digital titles to compliment their print titles. It sounds like that would be important information to offer investors and marketing firms that do business with these companies. I wonder if maybe in a year or so Diamond will reorganize how it gathers data due to the impact of digital. Maybe I'm wrong, but doesn't Itunes sometimes release how many times a song, show, etc. was downloaded for sales data?

The Ultimate books have had an advantage with being day and date digital release for a while. Marvel really doesn't have too many titles like this so I think that was part of their selling point. But as DC relaunches along with major Marvel titles, it may lose this advantage and that could have an impact. The problem is we might not be able to see that impact. I agree that comics need to go digital to save their industry. However, I feel as though comics just haven't been innovating as much as they need to in order to prosper. There's still a market for them, but I don't think that market has been tapped effectively.

[YouthofToday]

Yeah, that always bothered me too. For what reason would comic companies want to hide real sales data? I get that there are some aspects of their busienss that they can't make public, but I can't understand why they wouldn't compile a sales list of digital titles to compliment their print titles. It sounds like that would be important information to offer investors and marketing firms that do business with these companies. I wonder if maybe in a year or so Diamond will reorganize how it gathers data due to the impact of digital. Maybe I'm wrong, but doesn't Itunes sometimes release how many times a song, show, etc. was downloaded for sales data?

The Ultimate books have had an advantage with being day and date digital release for a while. Marvel really doesn't have too many titles like this so I think that was part of their selling point. But as DC relaunches along with major Marvel titles, it may lose this advantage and that could have an impact. The problem is we might not be able to see that impact. I agree that comics need to go digital to save their industry. However, I feel as though comics just haven't been innovating as much as they need to in order to prosper. There's still a market for them, but I don't think that market has been tapped effectively.

While I would like them to release actual sales figures, its never going to happen. And when you think about it, what companies do? Especially when you break it down to an individual product. Sure, Apple will say they ship 10 million iPhones in a quarter, but i think they do that more for advertising. Plus, you're talking one of the biggest companies in the US, share holders and investors need to know those things.
You can get sales info from Marvel's SEC filings, but again, nothing is going to be broken down by product. You can find out how much Publishing did for a quarter, but that's as close as you'll get.
I'm sure they share sales info to advertisers and marketing people, but that's private and they aren't going to turn around and release it. From what I've heard about advertising, companies don't pick particular titles to put ads in. When you sign up with Marvel, you sign up across the whole line. So again, they don't need share per title sales. They just need to say, we sell 2 million comics a month.

[Plawsky]

Marvel offers retail incentive for for Fallout #4

In short, if any retailer orders a total of 5,000 copies of Ultimate Fallout #4 (first and second print combined), they'll receive a full page ad in upcoming Marvel books and a special Pichelli variant, of which only 20 will be printed.

Marvel is obviously trying to keep up its market share as DC relaunches 52 new books (6 of which allegedly have over 100k preorders). I'm sure not many stores will bite the bullet and order such a ridiculous amount of copies, but some online retailers will probably do it. Fallout #4 was already going to be a big seller because of Miles, but if Marvel gets 20 retailers to order 5k copies, it might push the issue towards the 150k mark.

Sure, it's a gimmick, but that's part of the business. And if it keeps people interested in the Ultimate Universe, I'm all for it. And I really want one of those twenty variants!

[ultimate spider-man. 1 fan!!!]

September is sure gonna be intersting for sure, DC is no way gonna stay the same as their normeal numbers 2rd placed from MARVEL. JLS 1: fulled with a great creative writer and artist vs ultimate comics spider-man 1, a title making news world-wide making cult culture big news. The variant 20 shoulds cool, never gotton a comic that rare and its sure that comicbook collectors are gonna want to get it at least, which should mean that USM variants will sell more for vaule then any JLS variants.